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ACT REVIEW
RUN-ONS
A complete sentence contains a subject, a verb, and a complete
thought. If any of the three is lacking, the sentence is called a
fragment.
Example: Angel, who is part greyhound and part rottweiler.  A fragment because it doesn’t
express a complete thought!
Fixes: Add what the sentence is missing (either a subject, a verb, or
something to make the idea complete).
FRAGMENTS
A run-on contains too much information, usually because two independent
clauses (two complete thoughts) are being improperly combined.
Example: After owning Angel for eight years, we got another dog, her name was
Elsa.  Run-on because “Her name was Elsa” is a second independent clause. A
comma is not strong enough to connect the two IC’s.
Fixes: Acceptable ways to “cure” a run-on sentence would be separating the
Independent Clauses with…
A period
A semicolon
A comma + FANBOYS (for, and, not, but, or, yet, so)
A colon
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
• The ACT English section often includes long sentences in which the main subject and the verb are
separated by lots of words or clauses. If you identify the subject of each sentence and make sure the
verb matches it, you can ace this grammar rule. In addition, the ACT tests your knowledge of past,
present, future, past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect tenses.
• Example: Changes for the new and improved ACT Writing section is going to be implemented soon.]
The ACT tried to trick you by putting “for the new and improved ACT Writing section” in between the
subject (changes) and the verb (is). But you’ll notice this. You would put the correct sentence, which
would read “Changes for the new and improved ACT Writing section ARE going to be implemented soon.”
Strategy: cross out the words that separate the subject and verb.
VERB TENSES
Verb Tense
When to Use
Present
Things that are currently happening or things that
are considered a fact.
“George listens to Miley Cyrus songs.”
Simple Past
Describing a completed action.
“Yesterday, George listened to Miley Cyrus songs for
seven hours.”
Present Perfect
Actions that started in the past but are still going on.
Has/have + past participle
“For the past seven hours, George has listened to
Miley Cyrus songs.”
Past perfect
Had + past participle
“By the time his Mom came home from work,
George had listened to Miley Cyrus songs for 7
hours.”
When a sentence describes two completed actions,
the past perfect is used to describe the action
completed first.
 George listened to the Miley songs before his
Mom got home from work, so we use the past
perfect for listen, “had listened”
PUNCTUATION
• Commas, apostrophes, colons, semicolons, dashes, periods,
question marks, and exclamation points are all tested on the ACT.
• Refer to the Gellerisms handouts to review…
• http://www.educationfortesting.com/Gellerisms/WritingSkills/
Gellerisms-WritingSkills.aspx
IDIOMS
• Simply put, an “idiom” is an expression, which consists of at least two words that naturally seem to “go”
together. It is something that native speakers of a language can usually quickly recognize, but is often
challenging for those learning English as a secondary language, or for those who grew up speaking an
English dialect that frequently breaks conventional idiom rules.
• I recommend viewing this website that lists “all the ACT idioms you need to know”…
http://blog.prepscholar.com/all-the-act-idioms-you-need-complete-list
• Or this one… https://magoosh.com/hs/act/act-strategies/2014/idioms-on-the-act-english-test/
WORDINESS
• As long as there are no new grammar errors introduced, the
shortest answer choice is often correct. Redundancy is a type of
wordiness where the same thing is said twice such as “happy and
joyful.” Keep it simple, to the point, and don’t repeat yourself.
PARALLEL STRUCTURE
When you join two or more ideas—in the form of words, phrases, or even clauses—in a sentence (usually with the
help of a conjunction), the ideas you connect must be parallel. In other words, the grammatical structure of each one
must be the same.
PRONOUNS
• The most common error associated with pronouns is pronoun-antecedent agreement. The
antecedent is the word the pronoun is replacing. A pronoun must have a clear antecedent in the
sentence; the lack of an antecedent is itself an error. The antecedent may often be present, but will
disagree with the pronoun in number. A less common error is the ambiguous pronoun in which a
pronoun could represent more than one noun. For example, “The president and his adviser spoke
for hours before he reached a decision.” The pronoun ‘he’ could be referring to the president or
the adviser, so it is incorrect.
Answer:
C. They are
Kayaks is the antecedent,
so we need a plural
pronoun.
Not D because “which”
creates a dependent clause
and usually comes after a
comma, not a period.
MODIFIERS
• Modifiers are words and phrases that describe nouns. Adverbs can only modify verbs, while adjectives
modify nouns. Be on the lookout for suspicious adverb-noun and adjective-verb pairings.
• Also be aware that many sentences will begin with a modifying phrase and a comma. The subject after
the comma must be the person or thing doing the action of the modifying phrase.
• Wrong: “Though exhausted, it would be several hours before Zoe got home.”
• Right: “Though exhausted, Zoe wouldn’t get to go home for several hours.”
WORD CHOICE
• You want to pay attention to transition words and phrases to make sure they
reflect the author’s purpose. Transitions can demonstrate continuation,
contrast, or cause-and-effect. In addition, the ACT may try to fool you by
using words that sounds similar to the intended words, but does not make
sense in context (for example, replacing “could have” with “could of”). It’s
important not to rush on the ACT.
• I recommend going over this list of commonly confused words:
• http://blog.prepscholar.com/act-english-word-choice-and-diction-errors
ORGANIZATION
• The ACT English section will ask you to determine the order and focus of
sentences or paragraphs. You will also be asked about adding, revising, or
deleting sentences as well as how a sentence fits with the purpose, audience,
and focus of a paragraph or the essay as a whole.
• This video goes over and gives some tips on the organization/order/structure
questions:
https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/organization-on-the-act-englishtest?playlist=act-english-videos
READING TIPS
• The attached blog is entitled “How to Get a 36 on the ACT Reading.” While I’m
not sure a perfect 36 is assured after reading it, it does a great job of summing
up the tips for this section.
• http://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-36-on-act-reading-11-strategiesfrom-a-perfect-scorer