Evaluating Arguments: Claims, Evidence and Reasoning

American Diploma › ACT English and Reading — Complete Course

What this question type tests

Many ACT Reading passages, especially the informational ones (social science, humanities, natural science), do not only give information: they argue. These questions ask you to judge the argument. What is the author's claim? What evidence is offered for it? Which detail supports the claim, and which fact would weaken it? Is a statement a fact or an opinion? This skill belongs to the reporting category Integration of Knowledge and Ideas, which is 19–26% of the scored ACT Reading questions, and it can appear with any passage, including paired passages and passages with charts.

Step 1: Separate the claim from the evidence

The claim is what the author wants you to believe; it often contains *should*, *must*, *the best*, *more harm than good*, or *I believe*. The evidence is what is offered to make you believe it: numbers, results of a test, examples, quotations, personal experience. Most argument passages state the claim in the first or the last paragraph and spend the middle paragraphs on evidence.

• ✓ Claim: "Libraries should abolish overdue fines." Evidence: "Without fines, on-time returns fell only from 91 to 89 percent."
• ✗ Calling "91 to 89 percent" the claim. — A number is evidence; it becomes a claim only when the author draws a conclusion from it.
• ✓ Claim: "Our reading programme was the best decision we have made." Evidence: "Library loans rose by 40 percent."
• ✗ "The best decision we have made" as evidence. — That is the opinion the evidence must support.

Step 2: Name the kind of evidence and its limit

The ACT often asks you to describe evidence ("is best described as") or to find its weakness. Learn the main kinds and the typical limit of each.

Notice the last row. A comparison group makes evidence much stronger: if fine-free branches gained 14 percent more cardholders while the other branches gained only 2 percent, the rise is probably not just a general trend. When a question asks why an author includes a second set of numbers, the answer is often "to compare."

Step 3: Supports, weakens, or irrelevant?

For every "supports" or "weakens" question, first write the exact claim in a few words. Then test each choice against THAT claim only. A fact about the same topic that does not touch the claim is irrelevant, not supporting.

• ✓ Supports "fines don't bring books back": "Without fines, on-time returns barely changed."
• ✗ Supports "fines don't bring books back": "Cardholders rose by 14 percent." — True, but it supports a different claim (fines keep people away).
• ✓ Weakens "removing fines brought borrowers back": "The fine-free branches also started opening on weekends that year." — Another possible cause.
• ✗ Weakens it: "Other cities found the same result." — This strengthens the argument (reversed trap).

The most common ways to weaken an argument on the ACT:

1. Another cause — something else changed at the same time.
2. Unrepresentative sample — the people, places or days studied were not typical.
3. Too small or too short — one evening, one class, one season.
4. Correlation, not cause — two things happen together, but one did not necessarily cause the other.
5. Claim goes further than the evidence — the evidence is about one school; the claim is about "every school in the country."

Step 4: Fact vs opinion

A fact can be checked: counted, measured, found in a record. It can be true or false, but you could test it. An opinion is a judgment: it cannot be proved by any record, only argued for.

• ✓ Fact: "Fines brought in less than one percent of our budget." — Check the budget.
• ✗ Fact: "A library should be the one place where no one is turned away." — "Should" = a value judgment.
• Careful: "One colleague described it as 'the opposite of everything I became a librarian to do'" is a FACT about what the colleague said, even though the colleague's words express a feeling.

Step 5: How the author handles the other side

Strong argument passages mention an objection ("Critics may say …," "Some colleagues fear …") and answer it. The ACT asks how. Most often the author concedes and answers: accepts that the worry is understandable, then shows why it is small or can be solved. Watch for the words *understandable*, *of course*, *it is true that … but*. A choice saying the author "dismisses" or "ignores" the objection is usually too extreme.

Worked examples

Short excerpt (shorter than a real ACT passage): [1] Last spring, our school replaced fifteen minutes of morning assembly with fifteen minutes of silent reading in every classroom. [2] The change was, in my view, the best decision we have made in years. [3] By June, the school library had lent 40 percent more books than in the same months of the previous year. [4] One eighth-grade teacher told me that a boy who had never finished a book now asks her for recommendations every week. [5] Some parents worried that students would miss important announcements, but these are now sent by message to families each morning. [6] Every school in the country should follow our example.

Worked example 1 — matching evidence to the claim

Question: Which sentence provides the strongest measurable evidence for the author's view of the reading programme?

• A) Sentence 2
• B) Sentence 3
• C) Sentence 4
• D) Sentence 5

Answer: B. A 40 percent rise in library loans, compared with the same months a year earlier, is a measurement with a comparison built in.

• A is wrong — Sentence 2 is the opinion itself, not evidence for it.
• C is wrong — An anecdote about one boy: vivid, but not measurable and not representative.
• D is wrong — This answers an objection; it is not evidence that the programme works.

Worked example 2 — weakening a cause

Question: Which of the following, if true, would most directly weaken the claim that the reading time caused the rise in library loans?

• A) Teachers also read silently during the fifteen minutes.
• B) Parents now receive announcements by message every morning.
• C) That spring, the library also doubled its opening hours and bought a large set of new books.
• D) The reading programme is popular with most students.

Answer: C. C gives another possible cause for the rise in loans. If the library was open twice as long and had new books, the reading time may not explain the 40 percent.

• A is wrong — Irrelevant: it describes the programme, not another cause.
• B is wrong — Irrelevant: it is about announcements, not book loans.
• D is wrong — If anything, it fits the author's view; it does not weaken it.

Worked example 3 — fact vs opinion

Question: Which sentence states an opinion rather than a fact that could be checked?

• A) Sentence 1
• B) Sentence 3
• C) Sentence 5
• D) Sentence 2

Answer: D. "The best decision we have made in years" (with "in my view") is a judgment; no record could prove it.

• A is wrong — Checkable in the school timetable.
• B is wrong — Checkable in the library's records.
• C is wrong — Checkable: parents either receive the messages or they do not.

Worked example 4 — a claim that goes beyond the evidence

Question: Sentence 6 is the weakest part of the argument mainly because it:

• A) draws a conclusion about every school from the results of one school in one term.
• B) repeats the statistic given in sentence 3.
• C) contradicts the teacher's report in sentence 4.
• D) ignores the parents' worry about announcements.

Answer: A. The evidence comes from one school over a few months; "every school in the country" goes much further than that.

• B is wrong — Sentence 6 contains no statistic.
• C is wrong — Reversed: the teacher's report agrees with the author's view.
• D is wrong — Wrong: sentence 5 answers the parents' worry.

Practice

A social-science argument of about 700 words with 9 questions, as on the real test. It is untimed, but aim for about 10 minutes. As you read, mark the claim and label each paragraph's evidence.

All pages in this course

ACT English

• The Enhanced ACT: Complete Overview
• How to Attack ACT English
• ACT Commas: Every Correct Use and Every Trap
• ACT Semicolons: Joining Sentences and the List Rule
• ACT Colons: Lists, Explanations and the Traps
• ACT Dashes: Pairs, Single Dashes and Choosing the Right Mark
• ACT Apostrophes: Possession, Contractions and Plurals
• ACT Unnecessary Punctuation: When No Mark Is Correct
• Sentence Fragments
• Run-ons and Comma Splices
• Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
• Parallel Structure
• Faulty Comparisons
• Unnecessary Shifts: Tense, Point of View, Voice and Mood
• ACT Subject–Verb Agreement: Find the True Subject
• ACT Pronoun Case: I or Me, Who or Whom
• ACT Pronoun Agreement and Clear Reference
• ACT Verb Tense and Verb Forms
• Adjectives vs Adverbs
• Comparatives and Superlatives
• Idioms and Prepositions
• Commonly Confused Words
• Transitions: Choosing the Right Linking Word
• Organisation: Sentence Placement, Paragraph Order, Introductions and Conclusions
• Add or Delete: Should the Writer Make This Change?
• Writer's Goal: Choosing Content That Meets a Purpose
• Concision and Redundancy
• Word Choice and Tone
• ACT English — Practice Test 1
• ACT English — Practice Test 2

ACT Reading

• The Enhanced ACT: Complete Overview
• ACT Reading Strategy: Read Fast, Answer Smart
• Main Idea and Summary Questions
• Detail Questions: "According to the Passage"
• Relationships: Sequence, Cause–Effect and Comparison
• Inference Questions: "It Can Reasonably Be Inferred"
• Words and Phrases in Context
• Purpose, Function and Text Structure
• Point of View, Tone and Perspective
• Paired Passages: Comparing Two Authors
• Passages with Charts, Tables and Graphs
• Evaluating Arguments: Claims, Evidence and Reasoning
• ACT Reading — Practice Test 1
• ACT Reading — Practice Test 2