Scope and prerequisites
ACT framework, February 2026 revision. Original classroom cases are not an official form; preserve the scored/field-test boundaries of each source form.
- Find key ideas, details and warranted inferences
- Analyse author craft, viewpoint 观点 and structure
- Compare passages and integrate textual or visual evidence 证据
Prerequisites: Explicit detail 细节; inference 推断; cause versus chronology.
Explain and choose the method
Map a longer passage by paragraph roles: setting, claim, evidence, objection or resolution.
Locate an answer’s evidence before selecting it. An inference must be supported even if no sentence states it directly.
Separate a character’s belief from the narrator’s view. Tone 语气 emerges from wording and context.
In paired passages, compare the authors on the question’s shared issue. For a graphic, verify that the visual supports the precise claim.
A detail is directly stated; an inference joins clues. “The neighbour waited without complaint” does not tell us the neighbour felt no impatience. The narrator's discomfort is explicit, while the neighbour's private feelings remain unavailable.
Existing worked example: Passage A values a museum because it protects objects. Passage B values it because it invites debate. Both can favour museums while offering different reasons. An answer claiming that B opposes all preservation would go beyond the evidence.
Complete original context
Original literary passage — The spare key
When I returned to the workshop after my uncle retired, the key felt too small for the responsibility attached to it. He had left the drawers neatly labelled, as though the labels might continue his explanations in his absence. I turned on the overhead light and read “washers”, “pins”, “springs”. Each word named an orderly compartment. The workbench, however, carried a shallow circular mark where his tea cup had stood, and no label could explain why that empty circle held my attention longer than the stocked shelves.
A neighbour arrived with a bent gate latch. I found a replacement pin quickly, then spent several minutes searching for the washer that would keep it in place. My uncle had sorted objects by size. He could see a repair in his mind before he opened a drawer; I could not. The neighbour waited without complaint, which made the delay feel more noticeable rather than less. At last I found the washer, fitted the pin and watched the latch swing freely. The repair was simple. Finding its parts had not been.
That evening I placed commonly paired pieces in small trays. The shelves lost some of their symmetry. I imagined my uncle raising an eyebrow, then remembered how often he had moved a tool after noticing where his hand expected it to be. His neat labels had been the result of change, not a prohibition against it. I left the rare springs in their old drawer because they had no regular partners. There was no reason to change them merely to prove that the workshop was mine.
A week later my uncle visited. He opened a tray and asked where the larger washers had gone. I showed him the remaining size-labelled drawer. “So you have kept both systems,” he said. I could not tell whether his smile meant approval or amusement at my earnestness. He tested a latch, set it down, and asked for tea. I placed his cup on the old mark without thinking. Only after he left did I notice that I had made room beside it for my own.
I had expected taking charge to mean replacing his habits with mine. Instead, I was learning which habits solved a problem and which had depended on a skill I had not yet acquired. The workshop did not need a dramatic beginning. It needed a washer that could be found, a safe repair, and enough empty space for the next person to work.
Independent practice and checked reasoning
This overview is completed through the detailed skill sequence: 23, 24, 25. Work those references and sheets in order; this orientation does not replace them.
Transfer 1
Why does the narrator start pairing parts? Identify the observed problem and the change's stated result or purpose.
Reasoning: A simple latch repair is delayed by searching separately for the matching washer. Pairing commonly used parts addresses retrieval for someone without the uncle's mental model. The passage does not supply a measured post-change speed, so describe the purpose rather than inventing a quantified result.
Transfer 2
What remains in the old arrangement, and why? Does the narrator replace every old habit?
Reasoning: Rare springs remain in their old drawer because they have no regular partners; the larger-washer size drawer also remains. The narrator keeps useful parts of both systems, contradicting total replacement.
Transfer 3
Interpret the two cup marks at the end. Distinguish a supported reading from an unsupported claim that the uncle demanded a permanent desk.
Reasoning: Making space beside the old mark suggests the narrator can develop a role while preserving a relationship with the uncle. The narrator places the cup without thinking; no demand for a desk is reported. Other readings grounded in continuity and change are acceptable if they acknowledge the inference.
Limits and next use
Do not choose an answer merely because it repeats a passage word. The relationship between ideas must also fit.
All tasks here are public original practice with authored guidance. They are not official questions or fresh diagnostics. Existing protected tests and mocks remain separate.