ACT English Practice Test: Full Passage Practice
- Full Passage: Conventions and Rhetorical Skills
- 15 questions
- 11 minutes
These 15 questions follow one five-paragraph essay, "Borrowing Tomatoes," the way the ACT English section does: numbers in brackets mark the underlined portions and the places that questions refer to. Read the whole sentence, not only the underlined words, and pick NO CHANGE when the original is already the best choice.
Tap an option to mark your answer. You can change your mind, or tap the same option again to leave the question blank. The correct answers and explanations appear when you finish the test.Tap an option to answer; tap it again to leave the question blank.
Your result
- 0 correct
- 0 wrong
- 0 blank
-
Question 1
Borrowing Tomatoes
Paragraph 1
When the public library in my town announced that it would start lending seeds, I assumed the idea was a joke. A library, I thought, was a place for books, not, packets of beans and squash [1]. Still, curiosity got the better of me, and on a Saturday in March I walked to the Elm Street branch to see for myself.
Paragraph 2
The seed library turned out to be an old wooden card catalog that had been rescued [2] from the basement. Each of it's [3] small drawers was labeled with the name of a vegetable, flower or herb: Cherokee Purple tomato, lemon basil, scarlet runner bean. A librarian named Ms. Okafor explained the rules. Patrons could take up to five packets a season for free. In return, they were asked to let a few of their healthiest plants go to seed at the end of the summer, collect those seeds, and bringing [4] some of them back to the library.
Paragraph 3
I left that day with three packets, and planted [5] them in clay pots on my apartment's narrow balcony. The basil sprouted within a week. The tomatoes, however, [6] took their time, and for most of April I checked the soil every morning as if staring at it would help. By June, the vines have climbed [7] past the railing and were covered in small yellow flowers.
Paragraph 4
The hardest part came in September. To save tomato seeds, you scoop them out of a ripe fruit and let them soak in a jar of water for a few days. The jelly-like coating around each seed, which keep [8] the seed from sprouting inside the fruit, breaks down as the mixture ferments. [9] I was worried of [10] ruining the whole batch, but after five days the good seeds sank cleanly to the bottom of the jar, just as Ms. Okafor had said they would.
Paragraph 5
In October I returned to the Elm Street branch with an envelope of seeds labeled in my own handwriting. Ms. Okafor filed it in the drawer alongside dozens of other gardener's [11] envelopes. Some of the seeds had been grown on rooftops, others in backyards; a few [12] had come from a school garden across town. Next spring, a stranger will open the drawer marked Cherokee Purple and take home seeds from tomatoes that grew, matured, and ripened [13] on my balcony. Tomatoes need at least six hours of direct sunlight a day. [14]
[15]
[1] A library, I thought, was a place for books, not, packets of beans and squash.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: B
The comma after "books" already sets off the contrasting phrase "not packets of beans and squash," and nothing should separate "not" from the words it negates. A semicolon or colon after "not" breaks the phrase apart and leaves a fragment.
-
Question 2
[2] Paragraph 2 (see question 1): The seed library turned out to be an old wooden card catalog that had been rescued from the basement.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: A
"Rescued" already means saved, so "and saved" and "and recovered" only repeat the idea. A restrictive "that" clause takes no commas, so "that, had been rescued," is wrong as well.
-
Question 3
[3] Paragraph 2 (see question 1): Each of it's small drawers was labeled with the name of a vegetable, flower or herb.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: C
The drawers belong to the card catalog, so the singular possessive "its" is needed. "It's" means "it is," "its'" is not a word, and "their" does not agree with the singular "card catalog."
-
Question 4
[4] Paragraph 2 (see question 1): In return, they were asked to let a few of their healthiest plants go to seed at the end of the summer, collect those seeds, and bringing some of them back to the library.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: D
The three actions patrons were asked to do must be parallel: "let," "collect" and "bring." "Bringing" and "collecting" break the pattern, and "to have brought" changes both the form and the time of the verb.
-
Question 5
[5] Paragraph 3 (see question 1): I left that day with three packets, and planted them in clay pots on my apartment's narrow balcony.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: B
"Left" and "planted" share one subject, "I," so this is a compound predicate and takes no comma before "and." "Packets, I planted" creates a comma splice, and the semicolon in "packets; planting" is followed by a fragment.
-
Question 6
[6] Paragraph 3 (see question 1): The basil sprouted within a week. The tomatoes, however, took their time, and for most of April I checked the soil every morning as if staring at it would help.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: A
The slow tomatoes contrast with the basil that sprouted quickly, so "however" is the right transition. "Similarly" claims the plants behaved alike, and "therefore" suggests the basil's speed caused the tomatoes' delay.
-
Question 7
[7] Paragraph 3 (see question 1): By June, the vines have climbed past the railing and were covered in small yellow flowers.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: C
The essay tells past events, and "By June" marks an action completed before a past point in time, so the past perfect "had climbed" fits and matches "were covered." "Have climbed" and "will have climbed" shift into the present and future.
-
Question 8
[8] Paragraph 4 (see question 1): The jelly-like coating around each seed, which keep the seed from sprouting inside the fruit, breaks down as the mixture ferments.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: D
"Which" refers to the singular "coating," so the verb must be the singular "keeps," which also matches the present tense of "breaks down." The other choices are plural verbs, perhaps chosen because of the nearby word "seeds."
-
Question 9
[9] Paragraph 4 (see question 1): At this point, the writer is considering adding the following true sentence:
Tomatoes were first grown as a food crop in Mexico and Central America.
Should the writer make this addition here?
Correct answer: C
Paragraph 4 walks through the seed-saving process and the narrator's worry about it, and the history of the tomato has nothing to do with that process. The sentence does not explain the soaking, and it does not conflict with anything Ms. Okafor said.
-
Question 10
[10] Paragraph 4 (see question 1): I was worried of ruining the whole batch, but after five days the good seeds sank cleanly to the bottom of the jar.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: B
The standard idiom is "worried about" doing something. "Worried for" expresses concern for a person's welfare ("worried for her brother") and does not fit a gerund like "ruining."
-
Question 11
[11] Paragraph 5 (see question 1): Ms. Okafor filed it in the drawer alongside dozens of other gardener's envelopes.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: D
The envelopes belong to many gardeners ("dozens of other"), so the plural possessive "gardeners'" is correct. "Gardener's" refers to a single gardener, and "gardeners" without an apostrophe shows no possession.
-
Question 12
[12] Paragraph 5 (see question 1): Some of the seeds had been grown on rooftops, others in backyards; a few had come from a school garden across town.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: A
"A few had come from a school garden across town" is an independent clause, and the semicolon correctly joins it to the first clause. A comma alone creates a comma splice, no punctuation creates a run-on, and a colon cannot be followed by "and" here.
-
Question 13
[13] Paragraph 5 (see question 1): Next spring, a stranger will open the drawer marked Cherokee Purple and take home seeds from tomatoes that grew, matured, and ripened on my balcony.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: C
"Grew," "matured" and "ripened" all say nearly the same thing, so the single verb "ripened" is the clearest and most concise choice. The other options keep the redundancy.
-
Question 14
[14] Paragraph 5 (see question 1): The essay ends with the sentence Tomatoes need at least six hours of direct sunlight a day.
Which choice best concludes the essay by connecting back to the narrator's view in Paragraph 1?
Correct answer: B
Paragraph 1 says the narrator thought a library was a place for books and that lending seeds was a joke; saying that view has changed closes the essay by answering its opening. The sunlight fact and the five-day detail are about growing and saving tomatoes, not about the narrator's view of libraries.
-
Question 15
[15] Question 15 asks about the essay as a whole (see question 1).
Suppose the writer's primary purpose had been to explain how public libraries in the United States have expanded what they lend over the past century. Would this essay accomplish that purpose?
Correct answer: D
The essay is a personal account of one narrator borrowing and returning seeds at one branch; it gives no history of what libraries across the country have lent over a century. It also never suggests that libraries stopped lending books.
Questions you leave blank are not counted as wrong.
More English tests
EnglishACT English Practice Test: Run-Ons, Fragments and Comma SplicesSentence Structure: Run-Ons, Fragments and Comma Splices10 questions10 min EnglishACT English Practice Test: Punctuation, Grammar and UsagePunctuation, Grammar and Usage12 questions10 minEnglishACT English Practice Test: Production of Writing and Knowledge of LanguageProduction of Writing and Knowledge of Language12 questions10 minEnglishACT English Practice Test: Word Choice, Concision and ToneWord Choice, Concision and Tone10 questions10 minEnglishACT English Practice Test: Pronouns, Verb Forms and IdiomsPronouns, Verb Forms and Idioms10 questions10 minEnglishACT English Practice Test: Modifiers, Parallel Structure and ComparisonsModifiers, Parallel Structure and Comparisons10 questions8 min