ACT English — Practice Test 1

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Passage I: The Summer I Learned to Bake Bread

In the following passage, certain words and phrases are underlined and numbered. The questions ask you to choose the alternative that best expresses the idea, makes the statement appropriate for standard written English, or is worded most consistently with the style and tone of the passage. Some questions ask about the passage as a whole. Choose the best answer.

The Summer I Learned to Bake Bread

The summer I turned fourteen, my grandmother decided that I had spent to¹ many afternoons staring at my phone. She announced one Tuesday morning, while pouring coffee into a mug the color of egg yolks, that today, I would learn to bake bread.² I did not want to learn to bake bread. I wanted to lie on the couch and watch a series I had recently discovered, but my grandmother, who had grown up on a farm in eastern Oregon³ did not negotiate.

She took down a battered metal bowl from the top shelf. The bowl, which was older than my mother, had a small dent on the side that looked like a thumbprint.⁴ Into it she poured warm water from the kettle. She added yeast from a packet, then a spoonful of honey. We waited.⁵ [6] I had never noticed before how alive yeast looks when it wakes up.

After about ten minutes, foam began to rise to the surface like a small slow weather system.⁷ My grandmother nodded, pleased, and added flour by the cupful, stirring with a wooden spoon that was, missing⁸ a chip from its handle. When the dough became too stiff to stir, she dumped it onto the counter and showed me how to knead — pressing down with the heel of my hand, folding, and turning a quarter-turn each time.⁹ [10]

I was bad at it for almost an hour. The dough stuck to my fingers. Flour got everywhere; on my shirt, in my hair, even on the dog.¹¹ My grandmother did not correct me much. She only said, every few minutes, "Keep going." Eventually,¹² the dough began to behave. It became smooth and warm and slightly springy under my hands.

We sat down and watched it rise¹³ for an hour at the kitchen table, drinking iced tea and not saying very much. When the loaves came out of the oven that afternoon, they was¹⁴ the best thing I had ever made. [15]

1. Which choice is correct?

2. Which choice is correct?

3. Which choice is correct?

4. The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should the writer make the deletion?

5. Which choice best maintains the reflective, observant tone of the paragraph?

6. At point [6], the writer is considering adding the following sentence: "My grandmother set the bowl on the counter and tapped the side once with her finger." Should the writer add this sentence here?

7. Which choice is correct?

8. Which choice is correct?

9. Which choice maintains parallel structure?

10. At point [10], the writer is considering adding the following closing sentence to the paragraph: "It looked easy when she did it." Should the writer add this sentence?

11. Which choice is correct?

12. Which transition word best signals the change from struggle to success in the paragraph?

13. Which choice places the modifier most clearly?

14. Which choice is correct?

15. Suppose the writer's goal had been to write a brief personal essay about how a single afternoon changed the way the writer thought about an everyday activity. Would this passage accomplish that goal?

Passage II: How Sourdough Starters Travel the World

How Sourdough Starters Travel the World

A sourdough starter is, in scientific terms, a small ecosystem. It is a living mixture of flour and water that hosts¹⁶ wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. Bakers feed it daily, and in return it leavens their bread with a flavor that can not¹⁷ be reproduced by commercial yeast alone. [18]

What surprises many home bakers is how far some starters have traveled. A starter, kept by a baker in San Francisco, may trace its lineage to a colony of microbes brought across the country during the Gold Rush.¹⁹ A starter in a kitchen in Brooklyn may have been sent in a small jar from a friend in Seattle, who received it from a relative in Italy, who received it from a neighbor decades earlier. The starter being passed along²⁰ like a recipe and a relative at the same time.

Microbiologists have found that a starter's flavor depends partly on its origin, partly on its location, and²¹ partly on the hands of the baker who feeds it. The flour a baker uses, the temperature of the kitchen, and even the bacteria that lives²² on a baker's skin can shape the final loaf. This means, that two bakers,²³ using starters from the same source, may eventually produce bread that tastes noticeably different. [24]

Some bakers maintain starters that are decades old. Others, including many newer hobbyists, who began baking during the pandemic, have starters only a few years old.²⁵ Either way, the starter is more than an ingredient. It is, in a quiet way, a record of the people who's²⁶ hands have kept it alive. Across many kitchens and many decades.²⁷

The next time you eat a slice of sourdough, consider that the bubbles in it's²⁸ crust are the work of a community of microbes that may have been cultivated, fed, and passed from kitchen to kitchen for far more longer²⁹ than you have been alive. [30]

16. Which choice is correct?

17. Which choice is correct?

18. At point [18], the writer is considering adding the following sentence: "That flavor — tangy, complex, and slightly sour — comes from the metabolic activity of the bacteria themselves." Should the writer add it?

19. Which choice is correct?

20. Which choice is correct?

21. Which choice is most concise without losing meaning?

22. Which choice is correct?

23. Which choice is correct?

24. At point [24], the writer wants to add a sentence that gives a concrete example of what kind of difference might appear. Which sentence best fits?

25. Which choice is correct?

26. Which choice is correct?

27. Which choice is correct?

28. Which choice is correct?

29. Which choice is correct?

30. Suppose the writer's goal had been to write an article that helps a curious general reader understand how a sourdough starter is both a microbial ecosystem and a small social object passed between bakers. Would this passage accomplish that goal?

Passage III: Why Schools Should Start Later

Why Schools Should Start Later

For more than a decade, sleep researchers have argued that the school day, for most American teenagers, begin too early³¹. The science is unusually clear. During puberty, the body's internal clock shifts later by roughly two hours, which means that a teenager who falls asleep at 11:00 p.m. is, biologically speaking, comparable to an adult falling asleep at 9:00 p.m.³² Yet many high schools begin classes at 7:30 a.m. or earlier;³³ meaning many students must wake up before 6:30 a.m. This routine is, by any honest measure, a really really tough thing for kids to deal with.³⁴ [35]

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended, since 2014, that middle and high schools begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The recommendation is based on dozens of studies showing that students who get more sleep have better grades, fewer car accidents, and lower rates of depression.³⁶ [37] In one widely cited study, schools that pushed start times back by an hour saw teen-driver crash rates fall by about 16 percent during the school year.

Critics of later start times raise legitimate concerns. However bus schedules, sports practice, and after-school jobs are all built around the current schedule.³⁸ Working parents, in particular, sometimes worry that a later start will collide with the time they're³⁹ required to be at their own jobs. These are real costs. But they are not the only thing to consider.⁴⁰

Districts that have made the change report that the disruptions are usually more smaller than expected,⁴¹ and that the academic and health benefits are durable. Sports schedules adjust. After-school employers adapt. Bus routes are reordered, with most parents reporting⁴² that, after a single semester, they cannot imagine going back. [43]

The case for later start times is, at this point, less a matter of guesswork than of willingness;⁴⁴ are we willing to redesign a schedule that no longer fits the people it was designed for? Adolescents have⁴⁵ changed in the past hundred years. The science of sleep has changed. The school day, in most places, has not.

31. Which choice is correct?

32. Should the writer keep or delete the underlined sentence?

33. Which choice is correct?

34. Which revision best fits the precise, evidence-based tone of the article?

35. The writer is considering adding the following sentence at point [35]: "Roughly seven in ten high-school students in the United States get less than the recommended amount of sleep on school nights." Should the writer add it?

36. Which version maintains parallel structure?

37. The writer is considering inserting a transition sentence at point [37]. Which best fits?

38. Which choice is correct?

39. Which choice is correct?

40. Which closing sentence best signals that the writer will respond to the concerns just raised?

41. Which choice is correct?

42. Which choice keeps the focus on the topic of the paragraph and most logically completes the sentence?

43. The writer is considering adding the following sentence at point [43]: "Seattle Public Schools, for example, moved high-school start times from 7:50 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. in 2016 and reported a measurable increase in student sleep within a year." Should the writer add it?

44. Which choice is correct?

45. Suppose the writer's goal had been to write a brief opinion piece arguing that high schools should start later, while honestly acknowledging the costs of the change. Would this passage accomplish that goal?

Passage IV: How a Lighthouse Lens Was Built

How a Lighthouse Lens Was Built

In the early nineteenth century, a French engineer named Augustin-Jean Fresnel set out to solve a problem⁴⁶ that had bothered ship captains for centuries: how to make a lighthouse beam reach farther out to sea without burning a vastly larger flame. The result of his work, was a glass lens⁴⁷ that, by the time of his death in 1827, was changing the way coastlines were lit.

The Fresnel lens does not look like an ordinary lens. From the side, it looks like, a beehive of stacked rings⁴⁸ climbing toward a bright center. Each ring is a precisely angled prism. The prisms bends⁴⁹ the light from a single oil flame at the lens's heart, so that beams scattering in many directions are gathered, redirected, and pushed forward into a single broad ray that can be seen for many miles. [50]

The lens was built in stages. First, master glassmakers in Paris cast each prism in a small mold, letting it cool⁵¹ slowly so the glass would not crack. Next, polishers ground the surface of every prism by hand. Even the smallest scratch could distort the beam, and so each surface had to be checked under a candle.⁵² Once a full set of prisms had been finished, the lens, was assembled in a brass frame, and⁵³ the frame was carefully crated for shipment. Some early Fresnel lenses traveled by ship for months to⁵⁴ American or African coastlines, where they were uncrated, hauled up spiral staircases, and reassembled inside a stone tower.

The reassembly itself was a process. Workers numbered every ring before disassembly so that, on arrival, they're⁵⁵ exact original order could be restored. An lens with even one ring out of place might lose efficiency, by a noticeable amount.⁵⁶ A lighthouse keeper, climbing into the lens room for the first time, sometimes spent an entire afternoon walking around the rings, simply admiring,⁵⁷ the geometry of the thing he had been hired to operate. [58]

Today, many original Fresnel lenses have been replaced by smaller LED beacons, but the lenses themselves are conserved, in maritime museums⁵⁹ all over the world. They are reminders that, before electric light, a single carefully ground piece of glass could turn one small flame into a guide visible from twenty miles out at sea. [60]

46. Which choice is correct?

47. Which choice is correct?

48. Which choice is correct?

49. Which choice is correct?

50. The writer wants to add a sentence at point [50] that emphasizes the practical benefit of this design. Which choice fits best?

51. Which choice is correct?

52. Which choice is most concise without losing meaning?

53. Which choice is correct?

54. Which choice is correct?

55. Which choice is correct?

56. Which choice is correct?

57. Which choice is correct?

58. The writer is considering adding the following sentence at point [58]: "In one keeper's logbook from 1881, an entire page is given over to a sketch of the lens, with arrows showing how the prisms catch the flame's light." Should the writer add it?

59. Which choice is correct?

60. Suppose the writer's goal had been to write an article that walks the reader through how a Fresnel lens was made, transported, and assembled. Would this passage accomplish that goal?

Passage V: The Quiet Comeback of the Public Pool

The Quiet Comeback of the Public Pool

For most of the twentieth century, the American public pool was⁶¹ a fixture of city summer. Children took swimming lessons there. Adults swam laps in the morning before work. Teenagers met friends in the afternoon and stayed until the lifeguard's whistle signaled — closing time.⁶² [63]

By the early 2000s, however, many cities had let their pools fall into disrepair, several⁶⁴ were closed for budget reasons. Some neighborhoods, particularly those that had relied on a single municipal pool, lost their only walkable summer destination.⁶⁵ Children whose families could not afford private clubs or backyard installations had nowhere⁶⁶ to learn to swim.

In recent years, that trend has begun to reverse. Cities including Boston, Detroit, and Cincinnati has opened⁶⁷ new pools or rehabilitated old ones, often with funding tied to public-health and equity goals. The push for new pools has been driven, in part, by drowning data:⁶⁸ drowning is a leading cause of death for children under fifteen, and access to formal swim instruction sharply reduces the risk. For many cities the math is more simple than it once seemed.⁶⁹ [70]

The redesigns are not just functional. Architects and city planners have, increasingly,^70.5_inline treated the pool as a small piece of civic infrastructure. New pools include shaded seating, splash pads for younger children, and shallow zones where⁷¹ non-swimmers can wade. Some include adult-only morning hours and family hours in the afternoon. The goal is, to design a single facility that serves a whole neighborhood across an entire day.⁷²

Critics argue that pools are expensive to maintain and that scarce city dollars might do more good elsewhere. That criticism is fair, however,⁷³ defenders point out that pools are one of the few summer spaces that bring together residents across age, income, and background.⁷⁴ When a city closes its last public pool, the loss is not only recreational. It is, in a quiet way, civic. [75]

61. Which choice is correct?

62. Which choice is correct?

63. The writer is considering adding the following sentence at point [63]: "In some cities, the public pool was the first place children met neighbors who lived more than a few blocks away." Should the writer add it?

64. Which choice fixes the comma splice?

65. The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should the writer make the deletion?

66. Which choice is most precise?

67. Which choice is correct?

68. Which choice is correct?

69. Which choice is most concise and idiomatic?

70. The writer wants the underlined phrase "have, increasingly," placed for clarity and standard punctuation. Which is best?

71. Which choice is correct?

72. Which choice is correct?

73. Which choice fixes the comma splice / run-on problem?

74. Which choice is most concise and parallel?

75. Suppose the writer's goal had been to write an article describing why public pools fell out of use and why several U.S. cities are now reinvesting in them. Would this passage accomplish that goal?

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