ACT Preparation / Unit 18 ACT 1715 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
How Would One Author Respond?
The idea
A question asking how one author would respond to the other is answered in three steps. First, find the specific claim in the other passage that the question points to. Second, recall the responding author's central claim and values. Third, choose the response that follows from those, at the right strength: agreement, partial agreement with a qualification, or disagreement for a reason the responding author actually gives.
In practice
Worked example: how would the contractor in passage B respond to the forester's call to plant trees on every street? The contractor agrees that trees cool streets but worries about sidewalk damage, so the likely response is partial agreement: plant, but only where the strips are wide enough. Choices of full agreement, or flat rejection of trees, ignore half of the contractor's position.
Where people slip
The response must use the responding author's own reasons. A choice that sounds reasonable but rests on a point neither author makes is wrong.
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