Skip to the questions in reading?

vgfanatic2
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:01:43 +0000

I agree with happyboy; it’s not a good idea to skip right to the questions in the reading section. Overall, you will spend more time looking through the passage repeatedly to find each answer than if you read it first and and got an idea of where all the information is. That strategy can work the SAT since many of the questions direct you to certain lines, and you might be able to make out the more general questions from reading the context for those lines, but it won’t help on the ACT. Also, if you plan to read the questions first just you get a gist of what to look for, and then read the passage, you will be trying to remember too much and it could take away from your understanding of the passage.

One thing that helped me a lot is writing down very brief notes for each paragraph that describe what it was about. It doesn’t need to be long or detailed, just a few words so that, during questions, if I need to look for answers, it is easy to find which paragraph they are in. Sometimes, I don’t even read the entire paragraph; I’ll read the first and last sentences and whatever else is needed to get a gist for it, and then take the notes, since I’ll likely have to come back to the paragraph to answer questions anyway.

Also, like some other people have said, it might be wise to save the prose fiction (the first passage) for last, since it usually takes the longest. I know I’m trying that this weekend.