Study guide
The English section of the enhanced ACT gives you 50 questions in 35 minutes — about 42 seconds each — so it rewards pattern recognition, not deep deliberation. The good news is that the section tests a small, predictable set of grammar rules and editing skills over and over. Master the patterns in this chapter and most questions become fast, mechanical decisions.
Punctuation the ACT Loves: Commas, Semicolons, Colons, Apostrophes
The single most tested comma rule involves nonessential elements: a word or phrase that can be lifted out of the sentence without destroying its meaning gets a comma on both sides. In the sentence 'My neighbor Rosa, who owns three kayaks, paddles every weekend,' the clause about kayaks is extra information, so it takes paired commas. Compare 'Students who skip breakfast score lower' — here the who-clause identifies which students, so it is essential and takes no commas. The test: delete the phrase and read what remains. If the sentence still works and means the same thing, use two commas (or two dashes — the pair must match). A semicolon on the ACT works exactly like a period: it must have a complete sentence on both sides. If a period would be wrong there, so is the semicolon. A colon must follow a complete sentence and introduces a list, an example, or an explanation. Apostrophes signal possession or contraction, never plain plurals. 'The coach's whistle' is one coach; 'the coaches' whistles' is several; 'the coaches arrived' needs no apostrophe at all. Memorize the its/it's pair: 'its' is possessive, 'it's' means 'it is.' The same logic covers their/they're/there and whose/who's. When you see an underlined comma, ask which rule justifies it; the ACT never inserts a comma just because a reader might pause there. A single comma between a subject and its verb, or between a verb and its object, is always wrong — paired commas setting off a nonessential element in that position are fine.
Sentence Boundaries: Fragments, Run-Ons, and Comma Splices
An independent clause has a subject and a conjugated verb and can stand alone as a sentence. Every boundary question comes down to counting independent clauses and checking what joins them. A fragment is a piece punctuated as a sentence that cannot stand alone. The ACT builds fragments in predictable ways: an -ing verb with no helper ('The orchestra performing all night.'), a clause beginning with 'which' or 'because' left on its own, or a long noun phrase with no verb at all. A run-on (fused sentence) jams two independent clauses together with nothing between them. A comma splice joins two independent clauses with only a comma: 'The tide rose quickly, the fishermen hauled in their nets.' That comma is not strong enough. There are four standard repairs, and the ACT accepts any of them: a period, a semicolon, a comma plus a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so — the FANBOYS), or rewriting one clause so it can no longer stand alone ('As the tide rose quickly, the fishermen hauled in their nets'). When answer choices shuffle punctuation at the same spot, sort them by strength: period and semicolon are equivalent, so if both appear with identical wording, both would be correct — meaning neither is, and the answer lies elsewhere. That elimination trick, sometimes called the identical-answers principle, resolves many boundary questions in seconds.
Agreement Across Interrupters, Pronouns, and Verb Tense
The ACT hides agreement errors by inserting distance between a subject and its verb. In 'The basket of ripe apples were on the porch,' the plural 'apples' sits next to the verb, but the subject is 'basket,' so the verb must be 'was.' The reliable strategy is to cross out every prepositional phrase and every comma-wrapped interrupter, then match what remains. 'The director, along with her assistants, review the footage' shrinks to 'The director review' — clearly wrong; it should be 'reviews.' Phrases beginning with 'along with,' 'as well as,' or 'in addition to' never change the number of the subject. Pronouns follow the same discipline. A pronoun must agree with its antecedent — the noun it stands for — in number: 'Each of the runners tied their shoes' fails because 'each' is singular, so standard written English on the ACT wants 'his or her shoes' or a rewritten plural subject. A pronoun must also have one clear antecedent; if 'it' or 'they' could point to two different nouns, the ACT prefers the choice that repeats the noun outright. For verb tense, the passage is your guide: match the tense of the surrounding sentences unless the timeline clearly shifts. If the paragraph narrates in the past, an underlined verb should almost always be past tense, and answer choices piling up helping verbs ('would have been being') are nearly always wrong. Simpler tenses win when both are grammatical.
Parallelism and Misplaced Modifiers
Parallelism means items doing the same job in a sentence must wear the same grammatical form. Lists are the classic case: 'Dario spent the summer hiking, swimming, and rowing' is parallel; 'hiking, swimming, and he rowed' is not. The rule extends to paired constructions — 'not only...but also,' 'either...or,' 'both...and' — where whatever form follows the first half must follow the second: 'The plan will not only cut costs but also improve service.' Comparisons must line up logical equivalents: 'Lena's essay was longer than Marcus' compares an essay to a person; it should be 'longer than Marcus's essay' or 'than Marcus's.' Modifier questions test placement. A descriptive phrase, especially one opening the sentence, must sit next to the thing it describes. 'Running for the bus, Maria's backpack strap snapped' claims the strap was running; the fix puts Maria right after the comma: 'Running for the bus, Maria felt her backpack strap snap.' This error is called a dangling modifier when the described noun is missing entirely, and a misplaced modifier when the noun is present but in the wrong spot ('The chef served soup to the guests in cracked bowls' — the guests are not in bowls). On the ACT, when a sentence opens with a descriptive phrase and the underline begins right after the comma, immediately ask: who or what is doing this action? The correct answer places that noun first, even if other choices sound smoother.
Rhetorical Skills: Conciseness, Transitions, Add/Delete, and NO CHANGE
Roughly half the section tests editing judgment rather than pure grammar. For conciseness, the ACT's philosophy is ruthless: the best answer expresses the idea in the fewest words without losing meaning or breaking grammar. Watch for redundancy pairs like 'annually each year,' 'circled around,' 'past history,' and 'completely finished' — one half of each pair must go. When choices differ only in length and all are grammatical, check the shortest first. Transition questions ask which connector fits between two ideas. Ignore the underlined word, read the sentence before and after, and name the relationship yourself: contrast (however, nevertheless), cause and effect (therefore, consequently), addition (moreover, furthermore), or illustration (for example). Then pick the word in that category. Frequently three choices perform the same function — three contrast words, say — and the lone different one is correct, but always confirm against the logic. Add/delete questions offer a sentence plus a reason: 'Yes, because...' or 'No, because...' Decide the yes/no yourself before reading any reasons — a sentence belongs only if it supports the paragraph's specific focus — then eliminate the two choices with the wrong verdict and pick the accurate reason. Finally, NO CHANGE is a real answer, not a trap; across the section it is correct about as often as any other position. Trust it when you can articulate why every alternative introduces an error, and never change an underlined portion just because it is underlined.
Key terms
- Independent clause
- — A group of words with a subject and conjugated verb that can stand alone as a complete sentence.
- Nonessential element
- — A phrase or clause that can be removed without changing the sentence's core meaning, set off by paired commas or dashes.
- Appositive
- — A noun phrase renaming the noun beside it, such as 'my neighbor, a retired pilot,' usually punctuated as nonessential.
- Comma splice
- — The error of joining two independent clauses with only a comma.
- Run-on (fused sentence)
- — Two independent clauses joined with no punctuation or conjunction at all.
- Fragment
- — A word group punctuated as a sentence that lacks a subject, a full verb, or the ability to stand alone.
- FANBOYS
- — The coordinating conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, which can join independent clauses when paired with a comma.
- Parallelism
- — The requirement that items in a list or paired construction share the same grammatical form.
- Dangling modifier
- — A descriptive phrase whose intended subject is missing or misplaced, making it describe the wrong thing.
- Antecedent
- — The noun a pronoun refers back to, with which the pronoun must agree in number and clarity.
- Redundancy
- — Saying the same thing twice in different words, which the ACT treats as an error of style.
- Transition
- — A word or phrase signaling the logical relationship between sentences, such as contrast, cause, or addition.
Exam tips
- Use the deletion test on every paired-comma question: lift out the phrase between the commas, and if the sentence no longer works, the commas are wrong.
- On style questions where all choices are grammatical, check the shortest answer first — concise wins unless it drops necessary meaning.
- If a semicolon choice and a period choice have identical wording, both would be equally correct, so neither can be the answer — eliminate both.
- For add/delete questions, commit to yes or no before reading the four reasons; that instantly eliminates half the choices.
- Do not avoid NO CHANGE — it is correct roughly a quarter of the time; select it whenever you can name a concrete error in every alternative.