Reading: Arguments, Evidence and Paired Text

This is Unit Eighteen of ACT Preparation: arguments, evidence and paired text, the last reading unit. Unit seventeen asked how a passage is built; this unit asks how well it argues, and how it connects with other sources. One habit governs it: measure a claim's reach before judging its support. By the end you will be able to tell fact from opinion. To judge a source's credibility. To decide whether evidence supports a claim, and find the gap when it does not. To read two passages together. And to relate a graphic to a passage at its actual scale.

Six entries on claims, evidence, fact and opinion, and credibility.

What a claim is.

ACT 1701 Claims

A claim is a statement the author asks readers to accept, which evidence must support; an argument's central claim is its thesis. "School gardens improve attendance" is a claim, and attendance records are its evidence. A claim can sound like plain fact and still need support.

Kinds of evidence.

ACT 1702 Evidence: Facts, Judgments and Testimony

Evidence comes as facts, which often cannot be disputed; judgments, conclusions drawn from facts; and testimony, the words of a witness or expert. A crash count is a fact, "the city's most dangerous intersection" a judgment, a paramedic's account testimony. A judgment is only as strong as the facts beneath it.

Fact and opinion.

ACT 1703 Fact and Opinion

A fact can be checked and shown true or false; an opinion expresses a belief that cannot be proved. Best, should and beautiful often signal opinion. "The bridge opened in 1932" is a fact; "the city's finest landmark" is an opinion. Fact means checkable, not necessarily correct.

Fact or opinion, step by step.

ACT 1704 Is It Fact or Opinion?

Ask whether the statement could be checked, look for judgment words such as best or should, and treat a mix of fact and judgment as opinion. From an invented article on a park, forty acres and two thousand visitors are facts; "should add more benches" is opinion; and "forty acres wasted on lawns" turns on wasted, so it is opinion. A number does not make a statement factual: "two thousand visitors proves the park is beloved" uses a count to support an opinion.

Three ways to persuade.

ACT 1705 Three Appeals

Writers persuade through logic, evidence and reasoning; emotion, moving the reader's feelings; and credibility, earning trust. Crash statistics appeal to logic, a parent's story to emotion, an engineer's title to credibility. Too much emotional appeal can leave readers feeling manipulated.

Credible sources.

ACT 1706 Credible Sources

A credible source is authoritative and has no strong reason to mislead: a hospital's research team outweighs a supplement company's advertising. Ask who the source is, what they know, and what they stand to gain. An expert can still be biased.

Five entries on reasoning: support, scope, gaps and omissions.

How an argument is built.

ACT 1707 How an Argument Is Built

An argument links a central claim to reasons, and each reason to evidence. Claim: fund the library. Reason: it serves students. Evidence: homework-help visits doubled. A reason with no evidence is only an assertion.

Does the evidence support the claim, step by step.

ACT 1708 Does the Evidence Support the Claim?

State the claim exactly, including its limits; ask what the evidence shows, and about whom; and judge whether it is relevant, sufficient, and matched to the claim's scope. An invented claim that a reading program works in every school, supported by one school's scores, is relevant but insufficient; it supports a narrower claim about that school. Compare the claim's reach with the evidence's reach before judging anything else.

Gaps in reasoning.

ACT 1709 Gaps in Reasoning

An error in reasoning is a step that does not follow, such as treating two events that happen together as cause and effect, or concluding broadly from one case. "Sales rose after the new logo, so the logo raised sales" assumes a cause not shown. Ask what else could explain the result.

What an author leaves out.

ACT 1710 What an Author Leaves Out

Critical reading asks what a text omits: evidence against its claim, groups it affects, or complicating facts. An article praising a highway's speed that never mentions the homes removed to build it leaves out a cost. What an argument omits is part of judging it.

Spotting a gap, step by step.

ACT 1711 Spotting a Gap in Reasoning

State the conclusion and its evidence, ask whether the evidence could be true and the conclusion false, and name the step that bridges the gap. An invented passage notes that students who eat breakfast earn higher grades and concludes that serving breakfast will raise grades; a steadier home routine might produce both. The gap is the assumption that breakfast causes the grades. Saying "this only works if" is the fastest way to find it.

Four entries on reading two passages together.

Two passages on one topic.

ACT 1712 Reading Two Passages Together

One part of the reading section pairs two shorter passages on a related topic; some questions ask about one, others about how they relate. Two passages on city trees might come from a planner and a homeowner who lost a sidewalk to roots. Read each on its own terms first.

Agreement and difference.

ACT 1713 Agreement and Difference Across Texts

Reading two texts together means noting where the authors agree, where they differ, and what each adds: synthesis. Both may want more trees while disagreeing about who should pay. A shared subject is not a shared view.

The paired-passage method, step by step.

ACT 1714 The Paired-Passage Method

State passage A's claim and evidence, then passage B's, compare them, fact, value or solution, and answer each question from the passage it names. In an invented pair, a forester argues trees cool streets and should be planted widely; a contractor agrees they cool streets but says roots crack sidewalks and proposes planting only in wider strips. They agree on cooling and differ on how widely to plant. This method is the course's own derivation from the anchor's brief account of synthesis.

How one author would answer the other.

ACT 1715 How Would One Author Respond?

Find the claim the question points to, recall the responding author's claim and values, and choose the response at the right strength. The contractor, asked about planting on every street, would partly agree: plant, but only where strips are wide enough. Full agreement or flat rejection ignores half the position. The response must use that author's own reasons.

Five entries on graphics, on strengthening a claim, and the whole unit in one passage.

A graphic in a passage.

ACT 1716 Visual Information in a Passage

One reading passage may include a graph, a table or a figure, with questions about the graphic alone or combined with the passage: a table of bird arrival dates over ten years. Read the title, axes and units before the numbers.

Linking a graphic to the text.

ACT 1717 Linking a Graphic to the Text

A graphic can support a passage's claim, add information the passage does not state, or limit what it claims. A table of arrivals moving from May twelfth to May third supports "arrivals are getting earlier." Check the range: it may cover fewer years or places than the claim.

A chart with a passage, step by step.

ACT 1718 Reading a Chart With a Passage

Read the graphic's title, axes, units and trend, find the sentence the question links it to, and decide whether the graphic supports, extends or limits it, at its actual scale. In an invented table, a lake's ice melted April twentieth in 1920 and April fourth in 2020: sixteen days earlier, a little over two weeks, supporting the passage's claim and giving its size. A choice saying a month or more overstates the table.

What would strengthen or weaken a claim, step by step.

ACT 1719 What Would Strengthen the Claim?

State the claim and its gap, then choose what closes the gap to strengthen, or widens it to weaken, checking that it addresses this claim. For the breakfast claim, grades rising in schools that began serving breakfast, compared with similar schools that did not, would strengthen it; students who eat breakfast also sleeping more would weaken it. "Breakfast is the most important meal" is on topic but tests nothing.

The whole unit in one passage.

ACT 1720 A Natural-Science Passage With a Chart

Integration questions ask how a passage argues and how it connects with other sources. In an invented passage with an invented table, a valley's first fall frost moved from October second in 1980 to October fifteenth in 2020, thirteen days later, supporting gardeners' observation. Growers argue the change will let them plant a second crop: a prediction and a judgment, so an opinion. The author limits it: a later average still allows an early frost in any single year. And the table covers one station, so it supports the claim for the valley, not the region. Measure a claim's reach, keep reported views apart from the author's, and read a graphic's scale and coverage exactly. This ends the reading section.

Look at what you can now do. You can tell a claim from its evidence, and a checkable fact from an opinion. You can name an argument's appeals and weigh a source's interest as well as its expertise. You can compare a claim's reach with its evidence, find the unstated step, and say what would strengthen or weaken it. You can compare two passages claim to claim and predict how one author would answer the other. And you can relate a graphic to a passage at its actual scale. Unit nineteen begins science, with reading scientific data.