The 8 ACT English Tips You Must Use in Your Prep

The 8 ACT English Tips You Must Use in Your Prep SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips The ACT English section can feel a bit overwhelming. You have to answer 75 questions in 45 minutes. You have to know and understand grammar rules. You have to analyze phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and whole passages. It can be scary stuff. If you can focus on a few basic tips, you can simplify the ACT English section and feel more confident when attempting to slay the ACT English beast. Whether you spend ample time diligently studying for the ACT or start your ACT preparation the night before the test, remembering these tips for the ACT English section will be beneficial on test day. In this article, I'll give you the top 8 tips for ACT English success. Using these tips willraise your score and prevent you from making careless mistakes: Read the Whole Sentence Don't Be Afraid to Pick NO CHANGE Don't Rush Rely on Rules, Not Your Ear BeSure You Know the Easy, Common Rules Eliminate Identical Answers Pick the Clearest Answer Answer the Question that You're Asked General ACT English Tips Let's start with some strategies that apply to the ACT English section as a whole. #1: Read the Whole Sentence This tip is vital for the ACT English section. Most of the questions will ask you how to change the underlined portion of a sentence. Don't just read the underlined portion. Reading the whole sentence is imperative to correctly answering the questions. The phrases that are not underlined in the sentence often provide essential information to determine whether there is an error in the underlined portion. Here is an example question from a real ACT to illustrate this point: If you just look at the underlined portion, you probably won't think there is anything wrong with the word "consecutively." It's an adverb and it modifies the verb "speak." However, when you read the whole sentence, you should notice that "consecutively" is redundant due to the phrase "for twelve hours straight." In this context, consecutively means without stopping, and the phrase "for twelve hours straight" implies that she could speak that long without stopping. Therefore, the word "consecutively" is superfluous. If you don't read the whole sentence, you might not notice the error and most likely select A. However, because the word "consecutively" is unnecessary, the correct answer is D. Additionally, some questions require you to read multiple sentences to correctly answer the questions. For example, you need the context provided by multiple sentences to answer some verb tense and paragraph order questions. Remember to do enough reading. #2: Don't Assume That There Must Be an Error Do not fear the "NO CHANGE" option. If a sentence seems fine, look at the differences between the answer choices to understand what concept the question is testing and determine whether that error is present in the original sentence. The NO CHANGE answer tends to be more common than expected if all answer choices were distributed evenly. #3: Don't Rush This tip may seem obvious, but it's important to think about as you're taking the test. Make sure you read and understand the relevant sentences and questions before marking your answer. It's better to have to guess at the end or skip the more time consuming big picture questions than to rush through questions and make careless mistakes. Check out this question that you could easily miss if you were to rush: If you're going too quickly, you may miss this relatively easy question. Perhaps you won't notice that the apostrophe comes before the "s" in "girl's" and select NO CHANGE, or you may not recognize that we're dealing with a plural possessive noun. The plural noun "faces" suggests that we're talking about more than one girl, and if you read the passage carefully, you'll know that the sentence is referring to the faces of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths. Therefore, the apostrophe should come after the "s" to indicate plural possession. The answer is G. This question is testing a somewhat basic rule, but if you're not paying close enough attention, you can miss a question like this that you should be getting right. Make sure you identify the type of question you're being asked, and go through all the necessary steps to find the correct answer. Refer to our ACT English articles in this blog for strategies for answering every type of question that appears on the ACT English section. Grammar Tips Here are some tips that focus exclusively on the grammar questions. #4: Rely on Grammar Rules to Answer Grammar Questions On the ACT English section, you should primarily use your knowledge of grammar rules to answer the grammar questions. Don't rely on your ear for what sounds right, except on idiom questions. Many correct sentences may sound wrong to you, and the ACT tests rules that are often broken in spoken and written English. Take a look at this official ACT example: If you attempt to answer this question by relying on what sounds right, you probably won't notice the error. The sentence sounds fine (at least it did to me when I first read it). However, if you rely on grammar rules to answer this question, you should first identify the underlined word as a pronoun. Whenever you see a pronoun underlined, you should check to see if there is an error in pronoun agreement. In the sentence, the pronoun "them" doesn't have a clear antecedent. The only answer choice that corrects the error is G. Here's an overview of all of the grammar rules that are tested on the ACT. #5: Some Common Errors Are Relatively Simple to Fix Some of the most common grammar errors on the ACT English section are fairly easy to fix. If you're able to identify these errors, often you can correct them with simple changes. Redundancy/Wordiness Redundancy and wordiness errors can be fixed by eliminating words or by making a sentence more concise. If a sentence makes sense without some of the underlined words, get rid of them. Here is an example: I think maybe I might possibly have met them all. F. NO CHANGE G. perhaps I've H. I've possibly J. I've By just looking at the underlined phrase, you should be able to determine that this is a redundancy question because "might" and "possibly" are synonyms, and therefore, both words aren't necessary. Additionally, the word "maybe" makes both "might" and "possibly" superfluous. All you have to do to eliminate the error is to get rid of "might" and "possibly." The correct answer is J. Unnecessary Commas Some of the comma questions on the ACT can be a little tricky and require you to know your comma rules well, but many comma questions simply require you to get rid of unnecessary commas. If you're unsure if a comma is needed, the general rule is to go with no comma. Take a look at this question: The sentence works just fine without the comma. On the ACT, if the sentence doesn't require a comma, there shouldn't be one. All you have to do to fix the error is get rid of the comma after "value." The correct answer is H. Dangling Modifiers If you start a sentence with a descriptive phrase, the word following the comma has to be the noun the phrase is describing. Any time you see an introductory phrase that describes a noun, the described noun should come right after the comma. This is an example of a dangling modifier: A writer for PrepScholar, Justin's goal is to help prepare students for ACT success. The introductory phrase is describing "Justin," not his goal. This sentence would fix the dangling modifier: A writer for PrepScholar, Justin hopes to prepare students for ACT success. #6: Eliminate Identical Errors If two answers are functionally identical, they must both be wrong. For example, if there is a question about transitions and two of the answer choices are "furthermore" and "moreover," you can determine that both are wrong because there is no way to differentiate between the two options. If you notice that more than two options are functionally identical, it will be a "Which of the following would not be acceptable?" question. Let's take a look at one of our previous examples: I think maybe I might possibly have met them all. F. NO CHANGE G. perhaps I've H. I've possibly J. I've If you didn't initially notice the redundancy error, you could have started going through the answer choices. Look at choices G and H. There is no real difference between the phrases "perhaps I've met them all" and "I've possibly met them all." Therefore, you would be able to determine that they must both be incorrect, and you can eliminate them. Then, you can compare the two remaining choices. Answer choice J is more concise, maintains the meaning of the original sentence, and it's grammatically correct, so it's the right answer. Rhetorical Skills Tips Now, here are some tips to use for the rhetorical skills questions. #7: All Prose Should Be as Clear as Possible Focus on picking the answer choice that provides all the necessary information and nothing more, in the most straightforward way possible. Here is an actual ACT example for you: While the phrase "being the place in which" doesn't contain a specific grammatical error, it's unnecessarily wordy. Every word or phrase in the passages on the ACT English should serve an essential purpose. This sentence can be more straightforward and concise. The correct answer is C. If we change "being the place in which" to "in which," none of the information in the sentence has changed, but the prose is more clear. #8: You Must Answer the Question You're Being Asked This tip may seem fairly obvious, but thinking about it is helpful when answering rhetorical skills questions. Each question asks you for specific things. Focus on selecting the answer choice that best answers the question instead of picking an answer choice that just seems plausible or sounds right. Here is an example for you: Many students will be stumped on questions like these. Since all the answer choices are true, they'll just randomly pick the choice that sounds formal and complex. Focus on the wording of the question. The correct answer should be the most specific and vivid. The answer choice that paints the clearest image of the underwater terrain will be the right answer. By focusing on what the question is specifically asking, you should be able to determine that the correct answer is A. None of the other answer choices vividly describes the underwater terrain. What's Next? Review the posts on the five critical concepts you must understand to ace ACT English and formality on ACT English. Both offer some helpful insight into the English section of the ACT. Also, read the article on how to approach ACT English passages. Make sure you have a systematic approach to these passages that works for you and will enable you to reach your target score. Aiming forthat elusive perfect 36? Tryour guide to getting a 36 on the ACT Englishfrom a perfect scorer. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes what you study to your strengths and weaknesses. If you liked this English lesson, you'll love our program.Along with more detailed lessons, you'll get thousands ofpractice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Check out our 5-day free trial:

How to Become a Technical Support Engineer

How to Become a Technical Support Engineer With almost every industry and company going as digital as possible these days, technical problem solvers are in high perpetual demand. This is where professionals like technical support engineers come in. What Does a Technical Support Engineer Do?Technical support engineers (sometimes also called information technology/IT technical support engineers) serve as tech gurus for a company. They might work with external users (like customers or clients) or internal users (like employees). IT technical support engineers use their expertise about various tech and computer systems to help troubleshoot issues, or maintain day-to-day operations. Their tasks may include:Designing computer systems to meet particular needs for a companyProviding support for customers or clients in person, via phone, or via computerProviding support for employees in person, via phone, or via computerMonitoring day-to-day performance of tech systemsTraining people how to use various systemsDiagnosing and troublesho oting tech problemsHelping companies implement new hardware or software systemsTechnical support engineers can be found virtually anywhere there is tech. These professionals can work in any industry, as there are jobs available in both the private and public sectors.What Skills Do Technical Support Engineers Have?Technical support engineers need to have strong tech backgrounds, of course, but they’ll also need a diverse skill set to find a job along that career path- a mix of hard and soft skills.Tech SkillsTechnical support engineers need a strong set of hard tech skills, and a strong basis in current technology. Depending on the job itself, they may need to have hands-on experience with specific kinds of hardware, software, applications, and systems.Customer ServiceThis role is a service job, no matter whether an engineer is working with colleagues at his or her company, or actual customers or clients. A strong sense of customer service is a major asset, as the engineer wil l be helping and coaching people of varying tech expertise, and helping make sure their technology is running as it should. Patience is a major asset here.CommunicationPart of the technical support engineer’s job is breaking down complex technological concepts so that they can be understood by a lay person who may be using the technology without understanding the sophisticated logic and engineering behind it. Being comfortable with translating concepts for different audiences, being able to present information clearly and articulately, and feeling comfortable with back-and-forth conversations are all essential to the role. Listening skills are also very important here, given that the technical support engineer often needs to diagnose what’s wrong, and how to fix it.Problem SolvingTechnical support engineers are, by nature, problem solvers. They help others use technology to do work more efficiently, and they ensure that the technology is working correctly. Companies de pend on their technical support team to come up with solutions to make sure that everything is running smoothly, tech-wise. That can mean coming up with creative solutions to tricky problems on the fly, as well as implementing best practices overall to ensure that problems won’t recur.FlexibilityTech problems don’t just happen from 9 to 5 on non-holiday weekdays. Technical support engineers may be on call at odd times, or be called in when there’s a crisis, regardless of time. If you’re not open to an â€Å"all hands on deck† situation when it comes to your hours, this might not be the best tech job for you.Tech-SavvinessThis may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s crucial to be up on the current technology and methods. The hot apps and systems a year ago might not be the best option now, and companies typically want their tech support team to be as current as possible on tech trends and processes. Being a quick, adaptable learner when it comes to new tech is key for a technical support engineer.Project ManagementThe technical support engineer may be called upon to manage larger projects, like making system changes or implementing new hardware/software. This means having the management and organizational skills to shepherd a project from start to finish, involving the necessary people, sticking to a schedule, and (if applicable) staying on budget. [via Pinterest/ProSyn]What Education Do Technical Support Engineers Need?While the basic education requirements can vary depending on the industry and the company, a technical support engineer typically needs a four-year degree in engineering, computer science, or a similar technical discipline. Experience may be able to trump a degree in some circumstances, but a two-year degree in information technology, computer science, or computer engineering is a bare minimum.How Much Do Technical Support Engineers Get Paid?This can be a pretty lucrative field, if you have the skills to go for it. According to PayScale, the median salary for a technical support engineer is $60,674 per year. This can vary according to experience and location, as well as areas of specialty and expertise.What’s the Outlook for Technical Support Engineers?This is a field that will continue to grow for the foreseeable future, as technology grows ever more sophisticated, and companies need qualified professionals to support it. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the field will grow by at least 12% by 2024, faster than average for all jobs.If you have strong tech skills and a passion for helping people solve problems, this can be a great career path for you. As a technical support engineer, you’ll never run out of challenges, and it’s a path that will keep you right on the cutting edge.