What's the question's job?

Lesson 8 · English rhetorical skills · about 9 minutes · fixes 7 of your student's 11 English misses on the 9/13 PreACT

These questions don't ask "which sounds best?" They state a goal. The right answer is the one that does exactly that job, no more and no less.

ACT says it plainly in its official prep guide: "Some questions will ask you to base your decision on some specific element of writing, such as the tone or emphasis the text should convey." On the ACT, this "Production of Writing" category is 38–43% of the English section, and it includes being able to "Identify the purposes of parts of texts, determine whether a text or part of a text has met its intended goal."

The method

Underline the goal words in the question: "small, everyday pleasures", "the paragraph and the essay", "most logical". Every choice gets checked against those words only.
Add or delete? Say in a few words what job the sentence does in its paragraph (gives an example, states a benefit, sets the scene). Pick the answer that names that job. Ignore anything the sentence only hints at.
Transitions: name the relationship first, before you look at the choices. Is the second sentence a contrast, a cause, a later time, an addition, an example, or does it simply keep going? Then pick the word. No transition is a real, often correct, option.
Placement and order: follow the pointers and the clock. Words like this, these, such, they, both must point back to something in the sentence just before. Events go in time order, and a cause comes before its effect.

Transition words by relationship

Relationship	Typical words
Addition	also, in addition, furthermore, moreover
Contrast	however, yet, nevertheless, on the other hand
Cause → result	therefore, thus, as a result, consequently
Time / sequence	then, soon, later, afterward, eventually
Example	for example, for instance, to illustrate
Conclusion	in brief, on the whole, in conclusion
None	the next sentence just continues: use no word

Groups adapted from Purdue OWL, Transitional Devices, which calls them "words or phrases that help carry a thought from one sentence to another."

Worked: what would be lost?

Add / delete

(1) Many public libraries now lend tools as well as books: drills, ladders, even sewing machines. (2) A family that borrows a drill for one weekend avoids buying a tool it might use twice a year.

If the writer deleted Sentence 2, the paragraph would primarily lose…

Say the job first: Sentence 2 shows why the lending program helps people. So the answer is "a benefit of the program just described."

The tempting wrong answer is something like "a suggestion that tools cost too much." The sentence hints at that, but hinting isn't its job. Pick what the sentence does, not what you can read into it.

Worked: name the relationship

Transition

The first bridge design was cheap and quick to build. Therefore, the engineers worried it would not survive strong winds.

Relationship? Sentence 1 is a plus (cheap, quick); sentence 2 is a minus (might fail). That's contrast, so the answer is "However." "Therefore" would mean being cheap caused the worry, which the passage never says.

Worked: follow the pointer

Placement

A new sentence reads: "Such programs have doubled the number of teens who volunteer." It belongs right after the sentence that names the programs (say, "Our city runs summer programs that pair teens with local shelters."). If it lands anywhere else, "such programs" points at nothing.

What to watch for with your student. He picks the answer that sounds most interesting or most "writerly": the big road trip, the clever transition, or NO CHANGE because it already reads fine. Before he looks at the choices, have him say the job out loud in five words or fewer ("a later time", "shows a benefit", "sums up the whole essay"). Then he checks each choice against those words. NO CHANGE is right only if it passes that check too.

Your turn

Have him underline the goal words in each question before choosing. The passages are short and made up for practice.