ACT Reading Section: Prep & Practice

About The Course

This course offers engaging and comprehensive videos on all the reading concepts you'll be tested on when you take the ACT. You can refresh your understanding of how to analyze and interpret literary passages, study up on different reading strategies and re-discover literary motifs, irony and foreshadowing. This course will also help you get familiar with the exam by introducing you to the types of reading passages you'll see on the reading section and showing you different methods for answering literature questions. After you've watched all the lessons in this course, you'll have knowledge of:

• The structure of the ACT reading section
• Strategies for getting the gist of an essay or passage on the exam
• Methods for understanding the meaning of different reading passages
• Types of literary terms
• Approaches to answering questions about humanities, social studies or fiction passages

About the Exam

The ACT is offered at designated testing sites six times per year in the U.S. International students can choose one of five dates. The test measures students' competence in four areas of study: English, reading comprehension, math, and science. It's used by postsecondary schools to assess student readiness for college-level academic work. The ACT is typically accepted by all colleges and universities; some schools do require it, and some schools also require students to complete the optional writing section.

ACT Registration and Preparation

The video lessons and quizzes in this course will help you prepare you for test day by allowing you to practice reading sample ACT passages and answering similar kinds of multiple-choice questions. You can easily reference key terms with the transcripts attached to each lesson and can revisit main points in the video using our video timeline. Each chapter concludes with an exam to make sure you understand the material before moving on to the next concept. Practice for reading questions on the ACT with our final exam that closes out the course. For quick and easy study tips for the ACT reading section, check out our ACT tips & tricks resource!

When you register for the ACT, your registration fee includes score reports sent to you, your high school, and up to four postsecondary schools. If you'd like to add more schools, or you need to change your test date or location, there's an additional fee; the optional writing test also incurs an additional fee. Registering online allows you to print your ticket for admission to the test at home and upload a photo for test day identification. Economic hardship fee waivers are available for high school students who meet certain criteria. On the day of the test, you won't be able to bring any notes, books, pens, or even your cell phone. You'll need your ticket for admission, plus photo identification.

ACT Scoring and Score Reports

You can generally access your scores two weeks after you take the ACT. Your mailed score report is generally sent 3-8 weeks after the test; if you take the writing test, too, your mailed score report is sent 5-8 weeks later. You are not penalized for wrong answers on the ACT. The composite score is made up of your scores on the four primary sections; the maximum score is 36.

ACT: Reading Section

Number of questions: 40

Time to complete: 35 minutes

Exam topics covered: You're tested on your ability to understand and identify important pieces of information in a section of text. There are four passages, taken from natural sciences, prose or literary narrative, humanities, and social sciences texts, followed by multiple-choice questions for you to answer. The reading section covers literary analysis and interpretation, and constructing meaning based on clues and context.

What you'll study: This course covers foreshadowing, irony, metaphors, similes and other literary terms. You'll learn how to interpret literary meaning, use inference, analyze literary passages and use context to understand word meaning.