Once you have completed your first reading of the passage and have achieved a solid understanding of what it says, you should move on to the questions. If you come across a question you don’t entirely understand, try to restate the question in your own words. Once you know what information the question is looking for, refer back to the passage, using your notes as guidelines.

The most reliable method for choosing the correct answer is essentially playing a matching game. Before looking at the answers, you should try to answer the question in your own words. By doing this, you can avoid being influenced by incorrect but tempting answer choices. Once you’ve come up with your answer, look at the answers provided by the ACT writers and pick the one that best matches your answer. If your answer doesn’t match up with any of the choices, you probably did something wrong. In that case, you can quickly go over the question again or move on to the next question, marking the current question so you can come back to it.

Here’s a summary of the process for answering questions: