The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

84 DECEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT Does it contain extraneous information? Is it too extreme? All the multiple-choice questions in the Reading and Math sections of both the SAT and ACT have, at minimum, two parts: A “question stem,” which includes the actual question to answer along with additional information that may be needed to solve it, and four or five “answer choices,” each designated by a letter that matches a bubble on the answer sheet. In the ACT English and SATWriting and Language sections, most of the ques- tions have no “question stem”—just an underlined portion of the text and three alternatives to the underlined portion. Read those “no question stem” answer choices vertically, andmark the differ- ences; you can figure out what concept/ grammar rule the question is testing, as well as eliminate obviously wrong answers. The ACT offers two online tools to help you clear away obviously wrong answers: Answer Masker and Answer Eliminator. Using the tool and clicking on the answer choice either makes it disappear (Masker) or puts an X through it (Eliminator), leaving it readable. Play with the two tools so you can use them quickly—it will help you navigate the test. Attack the answer choices on the ACT Math and Science sections, as well. Esti- mate, apply rules of arithmetic and use the differences in answer choices to eliminate many answer choices. Three (Science) or four (Math) “wrongs” make a right! The Reading sections of both tests are entirelymultiple choice, and a typical question will have two clearly incorrect answer choices, one tempting answer and one correct answer. Continued from page 81 Continued on page 90