Reading: What the Text Says and Means

This is Unit Sixteen of ACT Preparation, and the start of the reading section: what the text says and what it means. The mathematics closed on data and chance; the reading opens on evidence of a different kind, the lines of a passage. One rule governs it: answer from the lines, and claim nothing more than they support. By the end of this part you will be able to preview a passage and answer from the text alone. To answer an inference question. To find a passage's central idea. To locate a detail exactly and choose the best summary. And to order events by their time clues.

Eight entries on approaching a passage, and on what it implies.

The kinds of passage.

ACT 1501 Two Kinds of Passage

Reading passages are literary narratives or informational texts, and one part pairs two shorter passages. Each opens with a heading naming its author and source: a novel set in the 1990s, or an article on river ecology. Read the heading; it can give background the passage assumes.

Previewing.

ACT 1502 Previewing a Passage

Previewing means reading the title and heading first for clues to the topic, the source and the kind of text. A memoir signals a first-person story; a science journal signals explanation and evidence. A preview sets expectations; the passage settles the answers.

Reading actively.

ACT 1503 Reading Actively

Active reading means noting each paragraph's main point, and any important shift, in a word or two in the margin: beside one paragraph, causes; beside the next, effects. Highlighting alone records where you looked, not what you understood.

Two layers of a text.

ACT 1504 Surface Meaning and Implied Meaning

Every text has a surface meaning, what it states, and an implied meaning beneath it; reading for the implied layer is making an inference. A boy who checks the mailbox three times a day is waiting for something. Some books call that layer the deeper meaning; this course calls the skill inference.

Answering from the text.

ACT 1505 Answer From the Text

Reading questions do not test outside facts: the right answer is the one the passage supports, even when another choice is true elsewhere. A choice can be accurate about history and still be wrong, because the passage never says it. Prior knowledge helps you read; it never decides an answer.

Two kinds of question.

ACT 1506 Literal and Inference Questions

Some questions ask what the passage states, and the answer is in its words; others ask what it implies, and the answer must be concluded from them. "According to the passage" asks for a stated fact; "most strongly suggests" asks for an inference. Identify the type before reading the choices.

What makes an inference right.

ACT 1507 Inference: Supported, Not Stated

An inference is a conclusion the passage supports without stating it; it needs no outside knowledge and goes no further than the evidence. A character who packs a raincoat and checks the sky twice expects rain; nothing shows she hates it. The most interesting conclusion is not the most supported.

An inference question, step by step.

ACT 1508 Answering an Inference Question

Reread the lines the question points to, with a sentence on either side; put what they show in your own words; test each choice for words that support it; and eliminate choices that go beyond the evidence, need outside knowledge, or contradict the text. In an invented line, Mara sets three places, looks long at the empty chair, and clears one away: only "she expected someone who has not come" is supported. Nothing shows anger, cooking, or who lives with her. The right inference was the modest one.

Six entries on main ideas and central ideas.

Topic and main idea.

ACT 1509 Topic and Main Idea

A topic is what a text is about, in a word or phrase; the main idea is the point it makes about that topic, in a sentence. Topic: city gardens. Main idea: city gardens give neighbors a reason to meet. A choice naming only the topic is too thin.

The central idea.

ACT 1510 The Central Idea of a Passage

The central idea is the main point of the whole passage, developed by every paragraph, stated or left for the reader to assemble. Paragraphs on a bakery's history, recipes and regulars can share one: the bakery anchors the neighborhood. Test a central idea against every paragraph.

Main idea and purpose.

ACT 1511 Main Idea Versus Purpose

The main idea is the text's central claim; the author's purpose is what the author hopes to accomplish with it. A travel essay's main idea might be that small towns reward slow travel, and its purpose to persuade readers to try it. Purpose questions use verbs: to explain, to argue, to describe.

A paragraph's main idea.

ACT 1512 The Main Idea of a Paragraph

Each paragraph addresses one key point tied to the central idea, and its topic sentence often, but not always, comes first. A paragraph listing a river's floods can end on its point: the town was built in the wrong place. Questions ask for the paragraph's idea or the passage's; they differ.

Too broad, too narrow.

ACT 1513 Too Broad, Too Narrow

A main-idea choice can fail by being too broad, covering more than the passage discusses, or too narrow, covering one detail. For a passage on one bakery, "food matters to people" is too broad, and "the bakery opens at five" too narrow. A true detail is still the wrong main idea.

Finding the central idea, step by step.

ACT 1514 Finding the Central Idea

Note each paragraph's point, ask what claim they all develop, state it in a sentence of your own, then compare the choices. In an invented passage, a library's start as one room, its growth after a fund drive, its programs, and its waiting list share one claim: the library grew as its community asked more of it. "Libraries are important" is too broad; "the fund drive succeeded" too narrow. Build your own sentence first, or a well-worded detail can pass for the central idea.

Five entries on details and summaries.

Supporting details.

ACT 1515 Supporting Details

Supporting details are the facts, examples, reasons and descriptions that develop a main idea; each serves a point, and none is the point. Under "the bridge was poorly designed" might come a crack found in 1990 and a failed load test. A detail question asks what the passage says, exactly.

Locating a detail.

ACT 1516 Locating a Detail

To answer a detail question, find the lines that hold it, using the question's key words or line references, and reread them before choosing. A choice can reuse the passage's words in a wrong combination; match the meaning, not the vocabulary.

A detail question, step by step.

ACT 1517 A Detail Question

Pick a key word from the question, scan for it, read the sentence around it with one before and after, and choose the answer that restates those lines exactly. Asked when the bridge's first crack was found, the line gives 1990, two years before the load test failed; 1992 pairs the wrong event with a year. Qualifiers change meaning: if some engineers doubted the design, "the engineers doubted it" overstates the text.

What a summary is.

ACT 1518 Summary

A good summary names the text's purpose, captures its main points, includes no opinion, and is short: the essay traces how one bakery became a neighborhood center. A choice that adds a judgment, such as "a moving essay," is commentary, not summary.

The best summary, step by step.

ACT 1519 Choosing the Best Summary

Recall the central idea and main points in order, check each choice for completeness, then for accuracy and neutrality. For the library passage, "it began as a single room" is accurate but partial; "the best in the state" is an opinion the passage never offers; "it grew from one room into a center shaped by what its community asked of it" is complete and neutral. A summary may be short, but not partial; completeness is tested first.

Four entries on time order and cause.

Time order.

ACT 1520 Sequence and Time Order

Many passages move in time order, marked by time words and dates: first, later, by then, after the war. "By the time the train arrived, the station had emptied" places the emptying first. The order of telling can differ from the order of events: had already marks what came first.

Flashbacks.

ACT 1521 Flashbacks

A flashback interrupts the present of a story to show an earlier time: a woman unpacking boxes remembers the day, twenty years before, when she first saw the house. Watch for the return to the present, often marked by a change of tense or a word such as now.

A sequence question, step by step.

ACT 1522 A Sequence Question

List the events the question names, mark each one's time clues, and order them by those clues, not by position on the page. An invented passage opens with Leo at sixty closing his shop, recalls the lease he signed at twenty-five, then a fire at forty: the order is lease, fire, closing, though the closing is told first. Ages and dates outrank position.

Cause and effect.

ACT 1523 Cause and Effect

A cause-and-effect relationship explains why something happened, signaled by because, so, as a result and led to. "Because the mill closed, families moved away" makes the closing the cause. Coming earlier does not make an event a cause; the passage must connect them.

Look at what you can now do. You can preview a passage from its heading, mark it in the margins, and answer from the text alone. You can answer an inference question with the modest conclusion the lines support. You can state a central idea in your own words before reading the choices. You can locate a detail exactly, keeping its qualifiers, and choose a summary that is complete and neutral. And you can order events by their time clues. Part two applies the same rule to cause and comparison questions, to characters and themes, and to three full passages.