1. PURPOSE & STRUCTURE ACT Reading Test

2. One-sixth of the reading test is made of PURPOSE based questions. One-sixth of the reading test is made of STRUCTURE based questions.

3. READING TEST FORMAT 40 questions in 35 minutes 4 passages: one science, one social sciences, one literature, one humanities Questions are: fact based, inference, structure, or purpose. You probably won’t be able to read all 4 and accurately answer all 40, so think about which passages & which question types to focus on.

4. STRUCTURE QUESTIONS These questions ask why the author uses a phrase, word, or paragraph.

5. KEY WORDS FOR STRUCTURE “ helps illustrate” “serves primarily to” “the author attempts to” “the main function of” “the main purpose of”

6. PRACTICE Practice the following problem. The question is presented first, followed by the passage it refers to & then the answer.

7. When she compares a baby’s brain to city neighborhoods, the author is most nearly illustrating her point that: F. neurotransmitters are actually brain chemicals. G. regions of the brain are awakened through experience. H. the visual cortex allows a baby to recognize specific images. J. a baby’s brain has about 1,000 trillion synapses.

8. You cannot see any of this. But Dr. Harry Chugani can come close. With positron-emission tomography PET), Chugani, a pediatric neurobiologist, watches the regions of a baby’s brain turn on, one after another, like city neighborhoods having their electricity restored after a blackout. He can measure activity in the primitive brain stem and sensory cortex from the moment the baby is born. He can observe the visual cortex burn with activity in the second and third months of life. He can see the frontal cortex light up at 6 to 8 months.

9. ANSWER G

10. PURPOSE These questions ask why the author used italics, a parenthetical note, or a specific word.

11. PRACTICE Practice the following problem. The question is presented first, followed by the passage it refers to & then the answer.

12. PURPOSE The narrator’s statement “I am looking at the MOON, I told myself, I am looking at the MOON” (lines 60–62) is most nearly meant to: F. reflect the excitement of the astronauts as they prepare to land. G. illustrate the narrator’s disappointment with the moon’s barren appearance. H. express the narrator’s irritation at having to wait for Apollo to land. J. convey the narrator’s awe at the event that is being broadcast.

13. PURPOSE Moon Landing Day—we gathered before the television set to watch Apollo’s final approach to the lunar surface. (And who ever imagined that we would watch the event as it happened, on television, in our homes?)…as the landing vehicle drifted over the barren surface, moving between craters and a boulder field—I am looking at the MOON, I told myself, I am looking at the MOON—and then came the great plume of dust as touchdown approached, and then the words, the unforgettable words, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

14. ANSWER J

15. Get more practice: http://www.actstudent.org/sampletest/reading/read_ 01.html