Structural Annotation: Reading for Architecture, Not Detail
ACT Reading at the 30+ level requires a reading strategy fundamentally different from how most students approach text. The most common error: reading slowly and carefully trying to absorb every detail — then spending 52 seconds per question. The efficient approach is structural annotation: read each paragraph's first and last sentence plus any shift words (however, therefore, in contrast, surprisingly), write a 3–5 word margin note summarising each paragraph's main function (e.g., 'background on river ecosystems,' 'author's argument,' 'counterargument,' 'evidence for claim'), and spend no more than 3–3.5 minutes on the passage itself. The remaining 5–6 minutes are used to answer the 10 questions with your margin map as a navigation tool. Structural function matters because the majority of questions ask about information in a specific part of the passage: 'According to the third paragraph...' or 'The author mentions X in order to...' Your margin notes allow you to locate the relevant paragraph in 5 seconds rather than re-reading the full passage. The Prose Fiction/Literary Narrative passage requires different annotation: track character names and their relationships, key events, and the emotional tone of each section. For Social Sciences, Humanities, and Natural Sciences: track the author's central claim, the evidence types used (anecdote, research study, expert opinion), and the conclusion. Shift words signal the most important analytical content: the author's qualifications, concessions, and evaluations often follow 'however,' 'although,' and 'yet' — these are prime territory for inference questions.