ACT Preparation / Unit 23 ACT 2217 review, 2 to 3 minutes
A Reading Passage Set
The idea
Reading questions run across three kinds: what the passage says and implies, how it is built, and how its arguments and evidence connect. Read the heading and the whole passage, note each paragraph's point, and return to the lines for every answer. Pace about fifty seconds a question after reading.
In practice
Worked passage, informational, invented for the course: "Most visitors to the old canal see only a ditch. They miss what the canal once was: a road of water that carried grain east and cloth west, and that made three villages into towns. When the railroad arrived in 1850, the canal's traffic fell by half within a decade. Some historians call this a clean defeat. I think that misses the point. The canal had already done its work: it had built the towns the railroad came to serve." Question one, the central idea: the canal's lasting effect was building the towns, even after its traffic fell. Question two, a detail: traffic fell by half within a decade of 1850. Question three, perspective: "a clean defeat" is some historians' view; the author's is that the canal had already done its work. Question four, structure: the passage moves from what visitors see, to what the canal was, to its decline, to the author's reinterpretation. Question five, a word in context: work most nearly means accomplishment, not labor.
Where people slip
Three habits carry forward from the reading units. Answer from the lines, not from memory. Keep each view attached to its speaker. And state the central idea yourself before reading the choices. On test day, read each passage once, well, rather than skimming it twice, then work its questions with the lines in view.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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