在ACT考试是Amerrican College Testingd的简称，中文名称为“美国大学入学考试”，是美国大学本科的入学条件之一，也是奖学金发放的重要依据。ACT考试分为四个部分，今天我们就来谈一下其中的阅读(Reading)，阅读部分的考试时间为35分钟，需要读完4篇文章，每篇10道题目，共40题。

　　就题材而言，ACT阅读材料分4类：小说(prose fiction)、社会科学(social sciences)、人文(humanities)、自然科学(natural sciences)。其中，小说来自英美作家作品的节选。社会科学取材于人类学、考古学、传记、经济、教育、地理、历史、政治、心理学等。人文类文章多涉及建筑学、艺术、舞蹈、电影、文学评论、传记、音乐、随笔、哲学、电视等。自然科学类一般包括天文学、生物学、化学、地质学、医学、物理学等方面的内容。

　　直接事实题：

　　此类题目一般是就文中所提供的信息进行直接提问，需要考生找到正确的对应处，并作同义转换。

　　原文： “The revisionist interpretation, which I support, does not enshrine dinosaurs as paragons of intellect, but it does maintain that they were not small brained after all. They had the “right-sized” brains for reptiles of their body size.”

　　译文：我所支持的修正主义者的解释，就是不把恐龙视为智力的模范，但是也主张他们毕竟不是小脑。对他们这种身形的爬行动物来说，他们的脑的大小正好合适。

　　题目：According to the passage, what is the revisionist interpretation concerning the relationship between intelligence and physical size?

　　A. Dinosaurs actually had relatively large brains.

　　B. Dinosaurs were paragons of intellect.

　　C. Dinosaurs were relatively small brained.

　　D. Dinosaurs’ brains were appropriately sized.

　　举例作用题：

　　此类题目就文中的例子进行提问，需要考生回答此例子在文中所起的作用。

　　原文： “Government is so technical that even career civil servants cannot explain what is happening. In 1978 I attended a seminar on federal estate and gift tax, where the Internal Revenue Service lawyers responsible for this area frankly confessed that they did not understand the Tax Reform Act of 1976.”

　　译文：政府是如此的有技术含量以至于甚至连公务员都不能解释正在发生着什么。1978年，我出席了一个联邦资产税收的研讨会，在这里负责的美国国内税局的律师坦白地承认到，他们不明白1976年的税收改革法案。

　　题目：The author uses the description of the tax seminar in 1978 to make the point that some governmental issues are:

　　A. so technical that not even career civil servants can understand them.

　　B. so technical that only career civil servants can understand them.

　　C. more technical than they used to be before the passage of the Tax Reform Act.

　　D. too technical for anyone other than an Internal Revenue Service tax lawyer to understand.

　　推论题：

　　此类题目与直接事实题不同，不是就文中的信息进行直接的提问，而是考查作者所写的某处内容实际暗示了什么。

　　原文：“The remarkable thing about dinosaurs is not that they became extinct, but that they dominated the earth for so long…”

　　“People, on this criterion, are scarcely worth mentioning—5 million years perhaps since Australopithecus, a mere 50, 000 for our own species, Homo sapiens…”

　　译文：恐龙最著名的一件事情不是他们灭绝了，而是他们占据了地球如此之长的时间。

　　人类，在这种标准下，根本不值得一提——大概5百万年前的南方古猿，仅仅5万年前的我们自己的物种，智人。

　　题目：In the context of the passage, what does the author mean when he states that “people … are scarcely worth mentioning” (lines 81-82)?

　　A. Compared to the complex social behavior of dinosaurs, human behavior seems simple.

　　B. Compared to the longevity of dinosaurs, humans have been on earth a very short time.

　　C. Compared to the size of dinosaurs, human seem incredibly small.

　　D. Compared to the amount of study done on dinosaurs, study of human behavior is severely lacking

　　现在全世界每年有近250万人次参加ACT考试，ACT考试不仅考查学生对英语的掌握能力，还要考查数学、科学等多个方面，是一项能力测试，而阅读也是其中很重要的一个部分，以上介绍的便是常见的三种ACT阅读题型，三种解法异中有同，均符合一条原则，即所有答案一定可以在原文中找到，切不可作任何联想。