<p>hello i am currently going to be a junior in high school and i'm really struggling on the grammar (or English) portion of the test.I have never really liked grammar because i am a more logical thinker. most of the diagnostic test that i take the results would be similar to this:
MATH- 32
READING-31
SCIENCE-29
ENGLISH-25</p>
<p>its really bringing my composite score down and is a major blemish. Can anyone give me any tips or pointers to help me improve my score. I don't care if they may seem basic or stupid i just need a lot of advice. any help would be appreciated. Also it would be great if you guys could point me to a book that would help me here (i have the Barron's act book right now). thanks in advance!</p>
<p>could someone please help me!!!</p>
<p>Use sparknotes english section.
[ACT</a> SparkNotes Test Prep: The ACT English Test](<a href=“SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides”>SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides)</p>
<p>Read a lot (read often, and read a lot of material each time). Obviously, this is only an ideal - you may not have time - but the more (and more often) you read, the more of a sense you’ll inevitably get for what just sounds right and what doesn’t.</p>
<p>You just have to drill the rules. You don’t want to over think it, but at the same time going fast and going with your gut can often screw you over on the English. Also, make sure you read the entire sentence the question is in. Often, if you only look at the surrounding words, you will answer the question wrong. Go over colons, semicolons, dangling modifiers, and some of the grammar structures that have weird comma placement, as those tend to trip a lot of people up. Avoid repetitiveness, make sure pronouns have proper and logical antecedents, and check for complete thoughts. They also have a lot of questions with coordinating conjunctions, so be watching for dependent and independent clauses.</p>
<p>As far as rhetoric is concerned, focus on basic essay rules. Make sure sentences and paragraphs are logically placed. If they ask if if something should or should not be in the selection, if it seems awkward or the information feels like an odd tangent then it probably should be omitted. </p>
<p>Is time an issue for you? I know some people who have a lot of time left over on the English and don’t score so hot. If you have time to spare, I would recommend reading sentences twice if you can to make sure you got it, or reading it slowly to yourself, pausing only when you see commas and seeing if it sounds funky. If it feels clunky, something’s probably up. A lot of people make a lot of simple mistakes when they go quickly, and when they look back, easily realize what they did wrong. Go slow so you can avoid that (If that’s a problem for you, may not be, just covering my bases :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the help! Normally what I do is cross out two of the answers and chose the best one out of the two reminding. Normally I get like a 45/70 on the tests but 95 % of the time if I get a question wrong the right answer is the other one I was considering. I normally finish with 5 min left.</p>
<p>Do you have any friends who have done well on it? If you do, you might see if they’d be willing to do a practice test with you. Then you could ask them to explain how they got the answer on the ones you missed if they got it right. You might be able to adapt some of their thought process and improve your score. I’ve done group studying with the act and it seemed to help quite a bit, or at least it helped me better then the prep classes I took. Also, I’ve noticed a lot of books and classes are designed to help students achieve a decent score, and not a really high one, so studying with high achieving friends might help in that way as well.</p>
<p>Try subbing in each possibility- then cross out whatever you know is wrong. If I don’t know for sure by the rule, I go with whatever sounded the best (what I would say out loud or write in an essay). Also knowing what different punctuation’s rules are/common uses helps. And, keep an eye out for obvious blemishes that you might skip right over if you’re in a hurry.
I got most of my grammar questions correct doing this, and I haven’t drilled rules since middle school.</p>