<p>I got a 28 on English section. 18/18 on usage/mechanics, but 13/18 on rhetoric. Any tips? Thanks.</p>
<p>That’s too bad; rhetoric is harder to improve on than usage/mechanics is because there is no set of rules that governs the rhetorical section.</p>
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<p>To explain my purposes, paragraphs are revisions to prior sentences. </p>
<p>ACT is testing you on your ability to revise sentences, paragraphs, and passages. You must make them more coherent, relevant, and fit better to the tone of the paragraph. You need to make sure that lists are parallel. (You must make them more coherent, relevant, and fitting.) You need to determine when parts of a sentence should be omitted - often when they are redundant, unnecessary, or say the same thing as an earlier part of the sentence. (“or say the same thing as an earlier part of the sentence” should be omitted.) You also need to know when things do not fit in a sentence; these almost always deal with transitional words. (What of the following would not fit at the beginning of the next sentence? Place the word at the beginning of the sentence followed by a comma, then uncapitalize the word you. Next, Fifth, Finally, Another thing, Also) You need to be able to reorder sentences or paragraphs to be in the most coherent order possible, or determine when to start a new paragraph. You also need to know how to place sentences to fulfill the author’s goal.
—(For example: After a brisk swim in the lake, John returned to his bike. <em>John got on his bike and began the long ride home.</em>. The ride home was over before he knew it.</p>
<pre><code> Suppose that at the asterisk, the author wanted to include that it was dark outside, which of the following changes should be included?
</code></pre>
<p>A) No change.
B) John decided to take a scenic trail home instead of the one he used to get to the lake.
C) John made sure that he got off the rode when he saw a car’s headlights coming down the road.
D) John remembered that he forgot his sister’s birthday party.
E) John wanted to get home as soon as possible because he wanted to get as much rest as possible for the ACT that he was taking the next day.)</p>
<p>Regardless of how grammatically correct or coherent the sentences are, ACT is looking for the sentence that fits their prompt: to show that it was dark outside. I included option D as a question that you can immediately rule out. A and B provide information that improves the coherency of the paragraph, but they say nothing about how dark it is outside, so those are wrong. Between option C and E, option C explicitly states that cars are using their headlights, so that is the correct answer. Option E may imply that it is dark out, but C is a better option.</p>
<p>I found that the best way to improve rhetorical skills is to take practice tests, preferably from the red book if you haven’t already done all of those. ACT uses the same tricks on the rhetorical section every time, so doing practice tests can alert you to these tricks.</p>
<p>Alright. ^thanks for the example, btw. I ordered 1296 PR from amazon. thanks again.</p>
<p>No problem. 1,296 is a good book, it should help quite a bit. Once you figure out what ACT is looking for in their answers, you’ll ace it.</p>