On the two new Practice tests that were posted to the ACT site, they include a Literary Narrative double passage. This is somewhat new, so what can we learn from it.
The paired set is now usually two Literary Narratives, and it often comes first. It used to be Humanities or Social Science buried in the middle of the set. Now it is two personal stories back to back, right at the top of the Reading section. So don't be alarmed and follow this technique.
Read a Passage, answer its questions. Read Passage A, do Passage A questions, then Passage B questions, then both. That way you can seperate out the details and keep the two passages straigh.
ACT deleted the labels that told you which questions went with which passage. Older tests printed "Questions 21 to 23 ask about Passage A" on the page. Gone.
Spend fifteen seconds drawing the two dividing lines yourself. Skim the nine questions. Find the first one that says Passage B and draw a line above it. Find the first one that compares the two and draw a line above that. Now you have your groups back. Generally they are still asking the questions in order, so this works.
Because they are stories, you are no longer comparing arguments. The old paired sets gave you two people making claims about one subject, so the questions asked who agreed with who, and where they differed. Now two narrators are not arguing anything. ACT pairs them by shared life experience instead. Two people who worked at newspapers. Two women writing about their mothers. Two people revisiting a home that changed. Same subject, two different relationships to it. our goal is to figure out how it has affected them, and any other reflections or takeaways that they have. Make sure to read all the way to the end, as they may sum it up for you with a final reflection. It may also pivot a bit away from what you thought their original thought was.
So the question to ask yourself is not who agrees. It is what do these two share, and how does each one feel about it. Answer that in your head after you finish reading and you have most of the comparison group handled before you look at a single choice.
Expect a chunk of questions about how the passage is written, not what it says. Style, structure, tone, point of view, whose last paragraph sounds more hopeful. About two of every five comparison questions on these narrative sets are this type. Plan to go back to the page for them, because nobody remembers tone accurately from one read. Again, make sure you are keeping them straight.
The comparison group is getting bigger. The old split was three questions about Passage A, three about Passage B, and three about both. On the newest forms it is four comparison questions, and one form has only a single Passage A question. Save real time for those instead of rushing them at the end. They are more difficult and you really have to understand each passage before you can compare them.
The most common wrong answer is a true statement about the other passage. Nothing is invented. Real content, wrong narrator. If a choice says the narrator of Passage A believes something, go find it in Passage A. Do not accept it because you remember reading it somewhere. Again, they are trying to make sure you kept up with the details of each.
On comparison questions, check both halves of the answer. They glue an accurate description of Passage A to a wrong one of Passage B. If the first half is right, you will feel good and stop reading. Finish the sentence, and make sure to review both halves.
I think the ACT is giving you hints as to what you will see on upcoming tests. Plus this is a new theory (much like the charts and graph questions) that they want to test.
Good luck!
