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Craft and Structure

5 dot points across 5 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you identify an author's purpose and point of view on the ACT, and how do they shape what the passage emphasizes and how it reads?

Author's purpose and point of view: identifying why an author wrote a passage (to inform, persuade, describe, or entertain) and the author's stance or attitude toward the subject, and explaining how purpose and point of view shape emphasis, tone, and the selection of detail.
How to identify an author's purpose and point of view on the ACT: name why the passage was written (inform, persuade, describe, entertain) and the author's stance, and explain how purpose and point of view shape emphasis, tone, and detail.
11 min answer →

How do you read character and narrative voice in an ACT literary passage, inferring traits and motivation and tracking how the point of view shapes what you know?

Characters and narrative voice: inferring a character's traits and motivation from words, actions, and others' reactions, and identifying the narrative point of view (first person, third limited, third omniscient) and how it controls what the reader is shown, on an ACT literary narrative passage.
How to read character and narrative voice on an ACT literary passage: infer traits and motivation from what the text shows, and identify the point of view (first person, third limited, third omniscient) and how it controls what the reader is shown.
11 min answer →

How do you read the structure of an ACT passage, the way it is organized and how its parts fit together to serve the author's point?

Text structure and organization: recognizing how a passage is organized (chronological, compare-contrast, problem-solution, cause-effect, claim-and-support) and how a particular paragraph or sentence functions within that structure to advance the author's purpose.
How to read the structure of an ACT passage: recognize common organizations (chronological, compare-contrast, problem-solution, cause-effect, claim-and-support) and read how a paragraph or sentence functions within that structure to serve the author's purpose.
10 min answer →

How do you read the tone of an ACT passage from its word choice, and why does connotation matter more than dictionary meaning for tone?

Tone and word choice: identifying the author's or narrator's tone (attitude as conveyed by language) from connotation and diction, distinguishing close tone words, and reading how specific word choices create or shift the feeling of a passage.
How to read tone from word choice on the ACT: identify the author's or narrator's attitude from connotation and diction, distinguish close tone words, and read how specific word choices create or shift the feeling of a passage.
10 min answer →

How do you work out what a word or phrase means in the context of an ACT passage, even when it is a familiar word used in an unusual way?

Words and phrases in context: determining the meaning of a word or phrase from how it is used in the passage, including familiar words in secondary senses and figurative phrases, by reading the surrounding sentences and substituting the candidate meaning back in.
How to determine a word's or phrase's meaning in an ACT passage: read the surrounding context, expect familiar words in secondary senses, and substitute the candidate meaning back into the sentence to confirm the answer the passage supports.
11 min answer →