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ACT English — Practice Test 1

A full, timed enhanced-ACT English practice test: six original essays, 50 questions in 35 minutes, with an explanation for every answer.

American Diploma › ACT English and Reading — Complete Course

Before you start

This is a complete practice test for the English section of the enhanced ACT. The real English section has 50 questions in 35 minutes, and 40 of those questions are scored. The other questions are unscored field-test items, and you cannot tell which ones they are, so on test day you must treat every question as if it counts. In this practice test all 50 questions count towards your result.

The test has six essays. Five follow the design of the scored part of the real test: three essays of about 340 words with 10 questions each and two of about 185 words with 5 questions each. A sixth essay of about 340 words with 10 more questions brings the total to 50, just as on test day. The essays are informational, argumentative and narrative. Most questions ask about an underlined portion of the essay, and many offer NO CHANGE (choice A) if the original is already the best version. Other questions ask whether to add or delete a sentence, where a sentence belongs, or whether the essay achieves a goal.

  1. Sit in a quiet place with no phone and nothing to help you. Have 35 minutes free.
  2. Press Start: the timer runs for 35 minutes and the section ends automatically when time is up. On the real test you cannot go back to English once its time is over.
  3. Each essay is shown again with every question, and only that question's portion is underlined and numbered with the question number, for example [7]. For placement questions, the sentences or paragraphs are numbered [1], [2] and so on.
  4. Aim for about 42 seconds per question. Check the clock after every essay.
  5. There is no penalty for wrong answers on the ACT, so answer every question. Use Mark for review and come back if you have time.
  6. Your result is a practice score (number correct and a percentage), not an official ACT scaled score.
قبل ما تبدأ

الاختبار ده زي قسم الـ English الحقيقي: 50 سؤال في 35 دقيقة، يعني حوالين 42 ثانية لكل سؤال. اقعد في مكان هادي من غير موبايل، وشغّل التايمر ومتوقفش لحد ما تخلص. في الامتحان الحقيقي 40 سؤال بس اللي بيتحسبوا، بس انت مش هتعرف مين هم، فاحل كل سؤال كأنه بيتحسب. مفيش خصم على الغلط، فمتسيبش ولا سؤال فاضي. واختار NO CHANGE بس لو مش لاقي أي غلط في الجزء اللي تحته خط. النتيجة اللي هتظهر درجة تدريب، مش الـ score الرسمي.

The test

After the test
  • Read the explanation for every question, including the ones you got right: make sure you were right for the right reason, not by luck.
  • Look at the "By skill" table. Each question is tagged with one of the three ACT English reporting categories: Production of Writing, Knowledge of Language, and Conventions of Standard English.
  • Write down your weak skills in a notebook (for example: comma splices, add/delete questions, redundancy) and the question numbers where you lost marks.
  • Conventions of Standard English mistakes: go back to ACT Punctuation, ACT Grammar and Usage and Sentence Structure.
  • Production of Writing mistakes: go back to Relevance: Add, Delete and Writer's Goal and Organisation: Order and Transitions.
  • Knowledge of Language mistakes: go back to Concision and Redundancy and Word Choice and Tone.
  • If you ran out of time, reread How to Attack ACT English and practise the timing plan, then try ACT English — Practice Test 2 after you have reviewed your weak lessons.
All pages in this course

Start here

English: Conventions of Standard English

English: Production of Writing and Knowledge of Language

Reading

Practice tests