ACT Preparation / Unit 5 ACT 0413 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
The Most Specific Choice
The idea
When a question asks for the most specific or most precise detail, work in three steps. First, find what the sentence needs to describe. Second, rank the choices from general to specific: a category, then a kind, then a particular named thing with a measure or a detail. Third, choose the most specific one that still fits the sentence and that the passage supports.
In practice
Worked example: "The museum displays ___." The choices are "many things," "old objects," "historical artifacts," and "a 1902 printing press and two hundred hand-set type trays." The first three name ever-narrower categories; the last names particular objects with numbers. If the passage is about the museum's printing collection, the last is the most specific, and it fits.
Where people slip
Specific is a test of the words, but fit is a test of the passage. A vivid detail about a different exhibit would be specific and wrong.
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