If you want confusion, then do a YouTube search for "ACT Reading Strategies." You'll find all sorts of people who have had little experience teaching actual students (and even less experience researching the ACT itself) giving opinions based on what kind of sounds like a good idea.
Recently, I broke down one strategy (acually based on my decade+ of experience) on YouTube for all to see.
The ACT Reading test, of course, consists of 4 Reading passages. Very few people know that each of those passages is always pulled from a certain category.
The first passage is always literary, meaning this passage is typically an excerpt from a novel, short story, or memoir. It is pulled from the context of a story, and that means it has characters who interact, who have feelings, who do and say things, etc.
The second passage always comes from the category of "social science" (just think "social studies"). This passage will be written in an essay style, as if for a textbook, and it will be about history, economics, political science, or the like.
The third passage always comes from the category of "humanities." This passage will be written in an essay style, as if for a textbook, and it will be about art, culture, philosophy, or the like.
Lastly, the fourth passage always comes from the category of "natural science." This passage is also written in an essay style as if for a textbook, and it will be about anything you may think of when you traditionally think of "science" (physics, geology, chemistry, zoology, etc.).
After you pracice a few ACT Reading tests, you will probably notice a pattern: one of them will probably be harder than another. Maybe you just can't seem to grasp the literary passage and its characters; maybe you aren't comfortable reading about science and you find it extremely difficult. No matter which, it is likely that the experienced student will find one more difficult to read and analyze.
Thus, save this harder passage for last. The reason for this is that you are likely to be running out of time by then, which means more skimming, which means (probably, though not ideal!) more guessing, which means more jumping to questions that reference particular lines and paragraphs and require less of an understanding of the passage as a whole.
This means that your time is spent sufficiently on passages that you find easy to analyze, hopefully maximizing your score.
Now, is this strategy necessary? No, I wouldn't say it is necessary, but I'd say it is one of two strategies that can be helpful for the student who is consistently running out of time (the other being to save the Paired Passage for last instead; more on that later!).
If you want some free ACT prep cheat sheets that lay it all out in a few pages, then click here!
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