Active Reading for Fiction for SAT and ACT Prep

 

Seattle SAT and ACT Prep stresses the importance of reading with a pencil in hand and marking up the passage on the reading sections of the SAT and ACT tests. (We even tell our students during tutoring to markup math sections, grammar sections, and science sections.) With nonfiction passages students have an easier time understanding what to look for: the main idea and the thesis or main opinion. However, with fiction our test prep students typically scratch their heads when taking pencil to paper to markup prose that is imaginative. Here we present a list of elements for students to keep track of one reading fiction for both the SAT and ACT test.As always, please pardon any typographical errors. Our fearless director is still suffering from tendinitis and uses voice recognition software because the test prep blog must go on! (Believe it or not only minor points are taken off for a well-written essay on the ACT or SAT exam, so we still feel comfortable publishing this.)

 

 

 

 

One. How characters relate to each other. Are there feelings expressed? Implied?

 

Two. How characters relate to themselves. What are they thinking. What kind of language do they use to describe what happens around them? Do they think out loud or to themselves? What does that reveal? in the famous passage from Romeo and Juliet when Juliet says Romeo oh Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo she is in fact asking why is he named Romeo and expressing how she wishes he did not belong to a different family.

 

 

Dialogue. Tells a lot. How characters relate to each other, relate to themselves, and provide other elements like action and setting, Etc.

Setting. Where the story takes place . How is it described? How does it relate to the story? What information does it provide.

 

Action. What happens in the story? Is the action quick, subtle, or nonexistent?

 

Rhetorical devices. All the things they tell you to look for in school. Symbols, metaphors, similes, personification, Etc a rose is a famous symbol. In and of itself it is just a flower. However, over the ages it has acquired meaning and we know a single red rose is a symbol of love. Within a passage any object can acquire meaning depending on how it is described.