SAT and ACT Combo Test: Your Guide to Which Test to Take, How to Take It, and What to Do Next

Section 1 – ACT® English Test

9 minutes, 15 questions

DIRECTIONS: Each passage includes underlined and numbered words and phrases. The numbers refers to question numbers, where you will find alternatives for each underlined section. Choose the alternative that best fits the sentence and expresses, or best expresses, the idea. If you think the original version is best, choose No Change.

Test Tips and Strategies from Test Prep for Success

 Work at your natural pace. This is the easiest ACT section to complete within the time limit.

 Make sure you mark one answer for every question, even if it’s a guess.

 If you are guessing, choose the shortest answer you haven’t eliminated.

 When no question is stated, select the option that is both concise and grammatically correct. If there is a question, read it very carefully and take it literally.

 There are more punctuation questions than any other category. Here are the top 5 punctuation rules you need to know:

1. Use a comma and conjunciton between two independent clauses.

Ex: Josh got to work at eight in the morning, but he didn’t leave until almost midnight.

2. Use a comma but no conjunciton after an introductory word, phrase, or dependent clause.

Ex: Although she loves to read, Ellie procrastinated when it came to starting the book her teacher assigned.

3. Use a pair of commas, which we like to call a comma hug, around non-essenital information. Ex: Next Saturday, which is my birthday, is the day I’m taking the ACT.

4. Only use a semicolon where you also could use a period.

Ex: Sarah was feeling tired this morning; she decided to take a nap in the afternoon.

5. Like a semicolon, a colon should appear only after an independent clause. However, a phrase, list, or even a single word can appear after the colon.

Ex: The following is a list of my favorite movies: The Three Amigos, Spaceballs, and The Pink Panther.

The following passage is adapted from Eclipse Photography, published in The American Journal of Photography, July 1890.

[1]

Probably in no department of science, certainly in no branch of astronomical science, has photography been of such use as 1 in the studying on solar eclipses. It is only when the sun is obscured by the moon that 2 we are able to see and properly photograph the corona or luminous atmosphere around the sun. This solar corona is visible only about eight days in a century, over narrow strips of the earth’s surface, and 3 can be quite difficult to study. 4 Indeed, the corona has only been observed by scientists during forty-five minutes in as many years.[A]

1.A. NO CHANGE

B. in the study of

C. of studying about

D. studying

2.F. NO CHANGE

G. we had been seeing

H. we saw

J. we had seen

3. Given that all of the following choices are accurate, which one is most specific and relevant to the topic of the sentence?

A. NO CHANGE

B. provides a both useful and beautiful glimpse of nature.

C. is best viewed from a rooftop or open field.

D. from one to five minutes at a time by any one observer.

4.F. NO CHANGE

G. However

H. For example

J. Whereas

[2]

The most careful drawings of the same eclipse by different observers at the same station are so very dissimilar that it is generally unsafe to base any conclusion 5 about 6 them, on the other hand in photographs we have truthful records of the actual phenomena without personal affectation of any kind. [B] Photographs come with the additional advantage that 7 it provides more detail than is possible to insert in any drawing made during an eclipse, or even at leisure after the three or four minutes of observing such an indefinite and irregular object as the corona. The history of the increase of our knowledge of the corona is practically the history of the improvement of our photographic