Back to: ACT English
The questions for each passage measure your skills in three specific categories:
- conventions of standard English,
- production of writing, and
- knowledge of language.
Conventions of Standard English
This category covers what most people think of when they hear the word “grammar.” But don’t worry—you won’t need to have all the formal rules of English grammar memorized! You will, however, need to be familiar with how to use the most common conventions correctly in the context of written passages.
These include:
- Sentence Structure and Formation: Apply understanding of sentence structure and formation in a text and make revisions to improve the writing.
- Punctuation: Recognize common problems with standard English punctuation and make revisions to improve the writing.
- Usage: Recognize common problems with standard English usage in a text and make revisions to improve the writing.
More than half of the items on the ACT English exam will focus on conventions of Standard English. These questions will require you to decide whether the underlined text needs to be corrected and how best to do so. Some of the conventions covered include: correctly using of parts of speech like nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs; ensuring parallel structure; understanding sentence structure and clauses; properly using conjunctions; avoiding errors like misplaced modifiers; and effectively using punctuation like commas, semicolons, and colons.
Production of Writing
Anytime you’ve written an essay, you’ve had to think about how to come up with a topic, decide on your purpose for writing, form a main idea, develop that idea, and organize your essay so that it makes sense and all your ideas connect with one another. This is the production of writing.
The ACT English will ask you to examine how each passage accomplishes such tasks, requiring you to “apply your understanding of the purpose and focus of a piece of writing.” The ACT practice guide explains the category elements as follows:
- Topic Development: Demonstrate an understanding of, and control over, the rhetorical aspects of texts. Identify the purposes of parts of texts, determine whether a text or part of a text has met its intended goal, and evaluate the relevance of material in terms of a text’s focus.
- Organization, Unity, and Cohesion: Use various strategies to ensure that a text is logically organized, flows smoothly, and has an effective introduction and conclusion.
Nearly a third of the questions on the exam will address the production of writing, focusing on issues like whether sentences should be reordered, added, or deleted; whether a given phrase, sentence, or even word supports the writer’s purpose; and whether a sentence or phrase supports the logical structure of the passage.
Knowledge of Language
Writing consists of more than applying grammar rules, developing a topic, and organizing ideas. It also requires a writer to adapt their writing to different situations and audiences, to keep their writing consistent, and to insert their own personality. The ACT will ask you to examine how well each passage does this by asking questions focused on “precision and concision in word choice and maintaining consistency in style and tone.”
This category comprises the fewest number of questions on the exam, at about 15-17% of the total. The questions typically address issues of word choice, redundancy, and concision.
Breakdown
The table below provides a breakdown of the categories, some of the concepts they cover, and the percentage of questions the exam devotes to each category.
| Category | Concepts Covered | Percentage of Questions |
| Conventions of Standard English |
|
52–55% |
| Production of Writing |
|
29–32% |
| Knowledge of Language |
|
15–17% |