ACT English: Strategy & Drills

By Brian Stewart, Barron’s Author & ACT Perfect Scorer

After more than 20 years of ACT tutoring, I’ve watched students approach the English section in a lot of different ways — and the ones who do best share a particular mindset going in. This guide covers how the new ACT English section works, the habits that separate improving students from stuck ones, and how to use these drills effectively. For comprehensive content review and full-length practice tests, check out my book Barron’s ACT Premium Study Guide. But let’s start with strategy.

How the ACT English Section Works

The ACT English section consists of 50 questions in 35 minutes, organized around multiple passages with questions embedded in the text. That works out to about 42 seconds per question on average — enough time to read carefully without rushing, as long as you stay disciplined. Questions refer to underlined (paper) or highlighted (digital) portions of each passage, and many offer NO CHANGE as one of four answer choices. There are three official reporting categories: Conventions of Standard English (grammar, usage, and punctuation — roughly 52–55% of the section), Production of Writing (organization, development, and rhetorical purpose — roughly 29–32%), and Knowledge of Language (precision, concision, style, and tone — roughly 15–17%).

One structural fact that shapes everything about how you should approach this section: you cannot answer most questions correctly without reading the surrounding passage carefully. The underlined portion does not exist in isolation — it functions as part of a sentence, a paragraph, and a passage, and the correct answer often depends on context that appears before or after the underlined text.

The Right Mindset: Think Like a Proofreader

The single most useful frame for ACT English is to think of yourself as a proofreader reviewing a draft. A good proofreader doesn’t skim. A good proofreader doesn’t rush. A good proofreader reads carefully, catches every error, and makes deliberate decisions about every change.

That’s exactly the approach ACT English rewards. This is not a section where speed-reading or skimming helps you. Thoroughness is the goal. Read every word of the passage, not just the underlined portions — the context around each question is often what determines the correct answer.

Most students can finish ACT English within the allotted time without rushing. The risk isn’t running out of time; it’s moving too quickly through the section, feeling confident, and missing questions due to carelessness. Use the full 35 minutes. Students who feel like they’re doing well because they’re moving fast are often the ones making the most careless errors.

The Biggest Mistake ACT English Students Make

The most common error I see is students reading only up to the underlined portion and basing their answer entirely on what precedes it — without reading what comes after. This is especially costly on punctuation questions, where the correct punctuation mark depends on the grammatical structure of the full sentence, and on transition questions, where the right connector depends on the logical relationship between what comes before and what comes after the underlined word.

The fix is simple: always read the complete sentence before evaluating any answer choice. For Rhetorical Skills questions about adding, deleting, or relocating material, read the full paragraph. Never evaluate an answer choice based on partial context.

What ACT English Actually Tests

The grammar and usage tested on ACT English reflects conventions that are widely agreed upon by English language professionals. There are no tricks, no obscure rules, no debatable style preferences. Every question has a defensible correct answer based on standard written English — the kind of grammar and punctuation that appears in professional writing, textbooks, and published journalism.

This is worth knowing because it should give you confidence. You are not being tested on pet peeves or edge cases. If you know the fundamentals cold, you can answer every Usage and Mechanics question with certainty.

The punctuation concepts that appear most frequently and are worth mastering thoroughly: commas (with introductory clauses, appositives, and items in a series), semicolons (joining independent clauses), colons (introducing a list or explanation), dashes (setting off parenthetical information), and apostrophes (possessives and contractions, including its vs. it’s and their vs. they’re). If you are not completely comfortable with any of these, that is where to focus your preparation.

Four Strategic Principles for ACT English

1. Treat NO CHANGE Like Any Other Answer Choice

Many students are biased against choosing NO CHANGE — it feels like they’re missing something, like the test must be trying to catch them on something. This bias causes students to change correct answers to incorrect ones.

NO CHANGE is simply one of four answer choices. Evaluate it the same way you evaluate the others: does it follow the rules of standard written English? Does it make sense in context? If the answer is yes, choose it without hesitation. There’s nothing suspicious about an underlined portion that happens to already be correct.

2. Read Enough Context — Always

As discussed above, the most common error on this section is not reading enough of the surrounding passage before committing to an answer. Make it a habit: complete sentence for Usage and Mechanics questions, full paragraph for Rhetorical Skills questions. This single habit will eliminate more errors than any other adjustment you can make.

3. Avoid Repetition and Irrelevance — But Not Just for Brevity’s Sake

ACT English frequently tests whether students can recognize writing that is redundant (saying the same thing twice) or irrelevant (introducing information that doesn’t belong in context). When an answer choice repeats information already stated in the passage, or when it introduces a detail that has nothing to do with the surrounding paragraph, it’s wrong — not because it’s long, but because it’s imprecise.

At the same time, don’t reflexively choose the shortest answer. Sometimes a passage needs additional description to be clear. Sometimes a longer answer provides necessary information that a shorter one omits. Evaluate each question on its own terms: does the answer say what needs to be said, without saying what doesn’t need to be said?

4. Formulate Your Answer Before Looking at the Choices

This principle is especially important for Rhetorical Skills questions, but it applies across the section. Before you look at the answer choices, take a moment to think about what the correct answer should look like. What punctuation mark belongs here? What kind of transition fits the logical relationship between these two ideas? Should this sentence be included or cut — and why?

Once you look at the answer choices, it becomes very hard to think independently. The choices are designed to be plausible, and once you’ve read them, they start to influence your thinking whether you want them to or not. The students who answer most accurately are the ones who commit to a direction before the choices have a chance to pull them off course.

How to Use These Drills Effectively

One important difference to keep in mind: on the real ACT, you’ll encounter longer passages with 5–10 questions each, requiring you to hold more context in mind as you work through a full essay. The drills below use short, focused excerpts — which is intentional. Each drill isolates a specific skill so you can build competence and confidence before applying it to full-length passages. Once you’re scoring well on these drills, practice on complete ACT English passages (available in Barron’s ACT Premium Study Guide) to simulate real test conditions.

The ACT English drills below are organized by skill type. Each drill contains five questions with detailed explanations for every answer.

Approach each drill the way you’ll approach the real test: read carefully, use full context, and think before you look at the choices. After completing a drill, read every explanation — not just the questions you missed. When you get a question wrong, identify precisely what went wrong: Did you not read enough context? Did you misremember a punctuation rule? Did the answer choices pull you away from your instinct? Each type of error has a different fix, and naming it is the first step toward correcting it.

For comprehensive ACT English instruction — full content review, worked examples, and complete practice tests — check out Barron’s ACT Premium Study Guide.