Over the past few months, I’ve taken on some amazing new students who are prepping for the ACT. One of my first jobs for each new client is to calculate a Target Score, based on their college list, which then shapes exactly how, and how long, we study. Of course, my custom test prep strategy varies according to the student, because increasing by 7 ACT composite points vs. 3 ACT composite points call for very different timelines and strategies!
And I’ve found that one strategy almost ALWAYS helps my clients get a lot closer to their target scores….no matter HOW many points they’re aiming to raise their scores by. It’s my simple but impactful hack for the Double Passage (aka the “Paired Passage”) in the ACT’s Reading section!
In fact, if a student only needs to raise their ACT Reading section score by somewhere from 2 to 5 points, the strategy outlined below in this post can be the ONLY change they need to make to get there!
It’s incredible stuff. Increasing the ACT Reading section score by much more than that usually requires us to completely revise the way a student even approaches reading a passage on the ACT! (This takes considerably more work, but is ultimately worth the effort. I DO have no-fail methods to improve in that scenario, but it does take more time to figure out which one(s) is best for each particular test-taker.)
Looks like it’s points-o’clock, folks. In other words: it’s time to learn this accessible hack that will significantly raise your ACT Reading score while also saving you precious time on the test.
ARTICLE CONTENTS
1. Watch this article as a video
2. How is the ACT Reading section structured?
3. What are double passages on the ACT?
4. The wrong way to approach paired passages
5. The right way to approach paired passages
6. Conclusion
Video version of this article:
Structure of the ACT Reading section
There are some consistent patterns to the ACT Reading section. This is good news for you—because it’s easier to study for a known quantity!
The ACT Reading is always made up of 4 different passages. You’ll be asked 10 questions about each passage (on the current pre-September 2025 paper-and-pencil version) and 9 questions about each passage on the ACT’s NEW format. And they’ll always be presented to you in this order:
Fiction (“Literary Narrative”)
Social Science
Humanities, and
Natural Science
Because the length of the section is 35 minutes for a regular time test taker, you should spend an average of 8:45 (8 minutes and 45 seconds) or less on each passage and its 10 questions. Multiply that by 1.5 if you get extended time, or by 2 if you get double time.
On the NEW version of the ACT, you’ll have 40 minutes for a regular time test taker, and should therefore spend an average of 10 minutes or less on each passage and its 9 questions. (Again, multiply that by 1.5 if you get extended time, or by 2 if you get double time.)
Got it?
Now, 3 of these 4 passages will be long, single passages. This means that you’ll read roughly a two-column page of writing, accompanied by 9 or 10 questions.
But what about that fourth passage? Why, that one isn’t a “single” passage at all! That’s what we call a “Double Passage” or a “Paired Passage.”
You won’t know ahead of time WHICH of the four passage types will be a Double Passage; it could fall into the category of Fiction or Social Science or Humanities or Natural Science. But if you learn about how this type of passage is structured, and how to approach it like an expert, you’ll be able to get all the questions correct—regardless of WHERE it crops up within the ACT Reading section!
Two-passage questions on the ACT
The Double Passage in the ACT Reading section gives you about the same total amount of reading as the other passages, but it’s organized differently:
You have TWO passages to read (“Passage A” and “Passage B”);
Each of the two passages will be about HALF the length of a regular, single passage. So, each passage is roughly one full column of text on a page instead of both columns of text on a page.
The accompanying questions are organized into three sections: questions about Passage A ONLY, questions about Passage B ONLY, and then questions about BOTH passages. Here’s a sample layout of these questions:
Each of these 3 question sections will have roughly 3-4 questions total in it. (I have seen past tests in which there were 5 “Passage A ONLY” questions, 2 “Passage B ONLY” questions, and then 3 questions about BOTH, so know that there may be some minor variations!)
As of September 2023, there’s a new detail to pay attention to: sometimes these questions WILL be explicitly labeled with a little box telling you which passage they correspond to (Passage A, etc.)…but sometimes they WON’T! Instead, all 9 or 10 questions will just all be listed out in one undifferentiated block. THAT SAID, the questions will still be presented IN ORDER! (Qs about Passage A only —> Qs about Passage B only —> Qs about Passages A and B.)
Common mistakes with paired passage questions
When they first meet me, many of my one-on-one tutoring clients feel totally at their wits’ end about Paired Passage Qs. They’re getting most of these questions wrong AND using up too much time in the process! Not a good combo.
What mistake are they making before I redirect them towards success? Simple: they do all the reading FIRST, and then they answer all the questions SECOND.
But you see, that isn’t a very efficient approach to the Paired ACT Reading Passage. Here’s why:
The student reads Passage A. Then they read Passage B, which causes them to FORGET what they just learned in Passage A, and/or mix up/combine the two passages in their brains!
Then, they start answering questions…only, the first questions to come up are the “Passage A ONLY” questions! Uh oh. They’ve already FORGOTTEN what happened in Passage A! The last thing they read was Passage B! Guess they’d better go back to Passage A to remind themselves of what it was about. Good luck getting all those questions correct.
Now, they start answering the “Passage B ONLY” questions…only they’ve now forgotten what Passage B was even talking about! Or worse, they’re confusing its content with the content of Passage A. Now there’s MORE re-reading to do and wrong answers to bubble in.
Now they have to answer the questions about BOTH passages, which requires them to figure out precisely how the two passages were alike and different. Unfortunately, most students who start this way will have both passages completely jumbled in their heads and will likely get these very wrong…AND burn through a bunch of precious time in the process!
I don’t want you to feel bad if that sounds like exactly how you’ve approached these problems in the past. It’s the most obvious approach….it just happens not to be the right one. But now you’re going to learn the secret method that will set you apart from the flock!
The best ACT Paired Passage Strategy
Here’s what you should do instead:
1) Read the blurb.
Read the introductory blurb that comes before Passage A even begins. This will help you understand the time period, the topic and the general relationship between Passages A and B.
2) Read Passage A
Read Passage A in its entirety. If you incorporate a specific reading strategy to do that, great! If you don’t know what I mean by “specific reading strategy,” then just read the passage like you would read anything else.
3) Answer “Passage A ONLY” Questions
While Passage A is still fresh in your mind, skip to the first set of questions that are about Passage A only, and answer all of them. Finish these before moving on. As I’ve noted above, though these questions may not be explicitly labeled “Passage A,” you’ll be able to tell from their content that they’re asking about that first passage.
So whether or not the questions are labeled, your basic choreography remains the same: read the first passage, then start answering questions from the beginning. When you finally get to a question that is NOT about the first passage, time to move on to reading the next passage.
4) Read Passage B
Read Passage B in its entirety, using whatever “reading strategy” (or not!) that you normally use.
5) Answer “Passage B ONLY” Questions
Now skip to the second grouping of questions, and answer ALL of them! They will be about Passage B and only about Passage B, which is the passage you just read and have fresh in your mind!
When you reach questions that are about both passages, content-wise, move on to the next and final step:
6) Answer “BOTH” Questions
Since you’ve treated each mini-passage separately and worked through its questions, you’ll actually understand both Passage A and Passage B better than you would have if you’d read them both at the beginning! Now that they are CLEAR and SEPARATE in you mind, you’ll have virtually no difficulty answering the remaining set of questions, all of which refer to BOTH passages! Oftentimes you might not even need to look back at the passages—but if you do, that’s a-ok.
Conclusion
See, that wasn’t so bad, right? If you’re like my ACT private tutoring students, you’ll find that simply reordering the steps by which you approach this genre of question will IMMEDIATELY raise your ACT Reading score while saving you time that you would’ve spent re-reading those passages! And you just can’t afford to waste time on a test as fast-paced as the ACT.
And depending on how far you needed to improve your Reading score to reach your ultimate goals, it’s possible that this is the ONLY change you’d need to make to get your Reading section score in line with your Target Score! If that’s you, woo-hoo! You’re almost there!
Did you like what you read in this post? Are you thirsty for MORE expert-designed strategies? Insider tricks like these—along with custom-to-you test prep plans—are how I’ve significantly boosted the SAT and ACT scores of students around the globe for over a dozen years! If you want me in your corner, you can learn about working with me in private sessions.
And if you prefer to go it alone when it comes to studying, that’s cool: I have JUST the solution for you, too. You can watch (and re-watch) my online ACT Reading course at your own pace! Check out The Ultimate ACT Reading Guide here.
