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Adding, deleting, and revising sentences (relevance) — ACT practice questions

Adding, deleting, and revising sentences (relevance) on the ACT English test asks students to decide whether a sentence belongs, should be cut, or should be rewritten so it stays on topic. A student must keep what is necessary, drop what is off-topic or repetitive, and pick a version that is both concise and complete. Questions often give several accurate rewrites and ask which one best develops a stated emphasis or prepares for a later sentence. Traps include true but unfocused wording, wordy restatements, and versions that drop an idea the next sentence needs. Answer choices are usually alternative wordings, sometimes including the original unchanged.

  • Section: English 50 questions on the paper
  • 172 practice questions in the app

Sample questions

Keeping the Orchard

In Millford, volunteers have spent a decade restoring a neglected community orchard. The trees, many of them more than eighty years old, still bear apples, pears, and plums, and their names have all but vanished from grocery shelves.1 The group's aim is to keep a local food tradition in circulation.

Each spring, volunteers take cuttings from the oldest trees and join them to young rootstock, a process that allows a single variety to persist2 from one generation of wood to the next. A grafted scion carries the exact fruit of its parent tree, which is why the group treats each individual one of the surviving varieties3 as a record in wood. Cataloging has become a second labor. For every tree, a volunteer records flavor, ripening week, and storage life, then files the notes in a binder kept in the tool shed.4

That record matters because memory alone is unreliable. Several of the oldest trees produce fruit that matches5 no commercial apple: dense, tart, and slow to brown. Without a written description, a variety can disappear in a single hard winter. The group has already first begun to lose trees to storm damage and age6, and each loss makes the remaining notes more valuable.

Neighbors have started to notice. In late summer the orchard hosts a tasting, and visitors walk from tree to tree comparing a russet to a pippin. Some leave with a bag of fruit; others leave with a cutting and a promise to plant it.7 The volunteers hope the cuttings will travel farther than the fruit.

The project is fragile. It depends on people who come back, season after season, to prune, pick, and teach newcomers to graft. The group's report lists not only yields but also the actual names and identities of those who showed up in the rain8. Those names confirm that the same hands return each spring9. Younger volunteers now display photographs of each harvest.10 If the orchard is to remain a working place rather than a monument, that transfer of skill is the harvest that counts.

Question 1

Given that all the choices are accurate, which version of sentence 10 best develops the paragraph's emphasis on sustained volunteer participation and prepares for the final sentence's reference to 'that transfer of skill'?

  1. AYounger volunteers now organize spring workdays and recruit neighbors to help gather the autumn harvest.
  2. BReturning volunteers now guide newcomers through grafting until they can carry out the process independently.
  3. CExperienced volunteers now take additional pruning shifts so that newcomers can concentrate on welcoming visitors.
  4. DReturning volunteers now document each season's work in photographs displayed at the annual harvest tasting.
Show answer

Answer: B — Returning volunteers now guide newcomers through grafting until they can carry out the process independently.

D shows returning participants passing a practical skill to newcomers, giving 'that transfer of skill' a clear referent. A documents work, B divides responsibilities without transferring the skill, and C sustains participation without showing instruction.

Question 2

Which choice best expresses the idea in a manner that is both concise and complete?

  1. ANo Change
  2. Beach surviving variety
  3. Ceach individual surviving variety
  4. Deach variety
Show answer

Answer: B — each surviving variety

Each, individual, and one overlap. B cuts that overlap and keeps surviving, which the sentence needs: these varieties are living records in wood. C is tighter than the original but still pairs each with individual. D is shorter still but drops surviving and loses that idea.

Question 3

Which choice best expresses the idea in a manner that is both concise and complete?

  1. ANo Change
  2. Bbegun to lose trees to storm damage and age
  3. Cbegun to lose trees to storm damage
  4. Dbegun to lose trees
Show answer

Answer: B — begun to lose trees to storm damage and age

First begun repeats the start of the action. B removes that overlap and keeps both causes of loss. C is already less wordy than the original but drops age. D is still shorter and drops both storm damage and age.

Practice 172 Adding, deleting, and revising sentences (relevance) questions in the app

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