Add, Delete, or Keep

• Name the paragraph's focus in a few words before judging any addition or deletion, and decide whether the sentence or phrase serves that focus or drifts from it
• On 'Should the writer make this addition?' and 'Should the sentence be kept or deleted?' items, decide Yes or No first, then test each reason clause by itself against the passage and reject a choice whose reason is false or beside the point
• Answer 'If the writer were to delete the underlined portion, the paragraph would primarily lose' items by naming the portion's job (an example, a definition, a detail a later sentence depends on, a link to what follows) before reading the choices
• Judge a proposed revision ('Should the writer make this revision?') by what the change does to the meaning and to the paragraph's point, not by which version sounds more impressive
• Finish on one ACT-hard question and say what made it hard

Production of Writing is the largest share of the enhanced ACT English section, about 4 questions in 10, and the add, delete, and revise questions are its most common form. Every English passage has two or three of them. The stems are fixed, so learn to recognize them: 'At this point, the writer is considering adding the following accurate sentence. Should the writer make this addition?' (choices start Yes, because or No, because); 'The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should the sentence be kept or deleted?' (choices start Kept, because or Deleted, because); 'If the writer were to delete the underlined portion, the paragraph would primarily lose:' (choices name what the portion does); and 'The writer is considering revising the underlined portion to the following. Should the writer make this revision?' step 1, name the focus: before you read the choices, say in five words or fewer what the paragraph is about ('how otters stay warm', 'why the museum needs storage'). A sentence belongs only if it serves that focus and connects to the sentence before and the sentence after. Being true, interesting, vivid, or scientific is never a reason to add something, because the stem already tells you the sentence is accurate. Step 2, yes or no: decide whether the addition or deletion helps the paragraph's focus. Step 3, test the reason: two choices always share your Yes or No. Read each reason by itself and ask two questions: is this reason true of the passage, and is it the reason that matters? A reason can be false ('it repeats information from Sentence 1' when Sentence 1 says nothing of the kind), or true but beside the point ('it adds a specific detail' when the detail is off topic). Only one reason is both true and relevant. Most wrong answers on these items have the right Yes or No and a wrong reason. Would primarily lose: name the portion's job in your own words first: an example of the claim just made, a definition of a term, the cause of something a later sentence mentions, a detail that 'this' or 'those' in the next sentence points back to, or a link into the next paragraph. Then match. Wrong choices describe a job the portion does not do or overstate it ('explains why all museums...'). Revisions: compare the two versions for meaning. The revision is right only if it makes the point clearer or more precise in context; a revision that changes the meaning or blurs a contrast the paragraph sets up is wrong, even if it uses bigger words. Keep versus delete has a mirror trap: a sentence that looks like an aside can be needed because the next sentence refers to it ('Those acids...'), so always read the sentence after the underlined one before you delete. The ACT-hard version: both reasons on the correct side are true statements about the sentence, but only one names why it matters to this paragraph's focus, or the sentence seems off topic until you notice that the next sentence depends on it.

• Say the paragraph's focus in five words before you read the choices.
• 'Accurate' in the stem means truth is not the test. Ask whether the sentence serves the paragraph.
• Decide Yes or No first, then read each reason on its own. Most wrong answers have the right Yes or No and a wrong reason.
• Before you delete a sentence, read the next one. If it says 'this', 'these', or 'those', it may depend on the sentence you want to cut.
• For 'would primarily lose', name the portion's job yourself before you read the choices.