Tip #1 to Get a Top ACT English Reading Science Score (page 2)

Subject/verb agreement is the most common type of ACT writing question. The key to these questions is to trust your ear. You know the error when you hear it. If something sounds wrong, it probably is. If something is difficult to read, it's probably wrong. The purpose of good grammar is to make a passage easy to read and understand. So if it's not, if it trips up your tongue, or if you can't get its meaning, don't say, "Boy, that sounds kinda funny, but I must be wrong." Say, "I can't understand this, so it must be bad grammar." Trust yourself. Notice where your tongue gets tied up, where you have to pause and say, "What the …?" That's where the error is.

In the drills that follow we will train your ear. In a sentence, the subject and the verb must match. There is no fancy rule that I need to teach you; you already know this stuff, just from speaking and reading. What I need to teach you is to train and then trust your ear and, when in doubt, to identify the subject of the verb. In this Skill, we'll look at some straightforward questions. In the next Skill, we'll look at the one trick that the ACT tries.

Let's take a look at this question:

It was a Monday morning in 2006, and I am Kyle Tucker the politician and intellectual, the defiant liberal embarking on his first day of what would be an illustrious political career.

A.  No Change

B. was

C. were

D. have been

Solution: Trust your ear. "It was a Monday morning in 2006, and I am Kyle Tucker" does not sound correct. "It was Monday" implies that the "I am" should be the past tense, "I was." You can hear that if you know to listen for it. That's our goal, to train you to listen for it.

Correct answer: B.

Example Problems

There is something delightfully bizarre in the art of improvisational theater. Not only completely unexpected and full of anxious excitement, but oftentimes, the material that emerges is utterly ridiculous.

For me, improve hard at first. And scary. I in organized productions since I was seven and had since then conquered stage fright. However, before my first improv performances, my heart would race as it did when I seven.

The nervousness that came from not knowing what I resulted in me groping about wildly. This, I learned, will not earn you the laughter of the audience. What will work, however, disregarding any preconception you have about having to be funny all the time, and letting yourself actually to those around you.

1.  
   1. NO CHANGE
   2. being
   3. is it
   4. it
2.  
   6. NO CHANGE
   7. were
   8. began to be
   10. had being
3.  
   1. NO CHANGE
   2. had been
   3. will have been
   4. was
4.  
   6. NO CHANGE
   7. would have been
   8. have been
   10. was
5.  
   1. NO CHANGE
   2. said
   3. would have said
   4. would have been saying
6.  
   6. NO CHANGE
   7. being
   8. is
   10. has been
7.  
   1. NO CHANGE
   2. listen and react
   3. listens and reacts
   4. listen and be reacting