The ACT has lots of tricky “strategy” question types—questions that take more than natural smarts or even content memorization to get right. These are the kinds of problems you might get wrong unless you’ve learned, and repeatedly practiced, an ACT-specific strategy ahead of time.
Among these gnarly questions, few trip up more students than the “Big Picture” question. That’s why I always teach my one-on-one test prep clients my hack for moving through these sticklers quickly and correctly! But worry not: I’m going to share my Big Picture Question shortcut with you, too.
(And yes, this strategy still works wonderfully on the current/recently updated version of the ACT!)
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What do “Big Picture” questions look like on the ACT?
Let’s review what these questions have looked like on past ACT Reading sections. Can you figure out what they all have in common?:
“The central claim of the passage is that…”
“The author’s attitude towards the subject of the passage can best be described as…”
“The purpose of the passage is to…”
“The passage as a whole can primarily be characterized as…”
“The author uses the word ‘we’ throughout the passage in order to…”
“Which choice best describes what happens in the passage?”
“Which choice best describes the developmental pattern of the passage?”
Any inkling as to the shared theme here? Yup: each of these “Big Picture” questions asks about the passage overall.
There are no specific line numbers provided to help you know which sentence(s) to hone in on. Instead, each Q calls upon your holistic understanding of what the entire passage is about, what the main idea is, what the author thinks of it, what the general structure is, and what the principal rhetorical devices employed by the author are.
In that last sentence I used terms like “holistic,” “main,” “general”—terms that ask you to zoom out and take a birds-eye view.
In this blog post, I’m first going to explain what most OTHER test prep companies and even highly respected books will advise you to do. BUT stick around after that! Because then I’m going to show you a better way to approach these questions—a hack that has worked far better for my students when they actually sit down to take the test.
It’s like an episode of “Kristina Ruins Everything,” but one where I ruin it, THEN fix it…so that it’s stronger than ever before!
Common strategies for Big-Picture reading problems
Here are some popular methods of approaching this type of question—the stuff other tutors or test prep books might advise. (Remember: these are not what I deem to be the best methods, so make sure to keep reading through to the next section to get my more effective approach!)
1) Create a title for the passage.
The basic strategy here is to craft a headline for the passage as if you were placing it on the front page of a newspaper (well, back when people still read newspapers, that is…I guess today you’d be advised to imagine the title of the YouTube video that would be made about the passage!).
What’s the downside? Well, this may serve as an EXCELLENT drill for study/prep times when you want to hone your “main idea” skills for 30 minutes (or more), this hack is NOT time-effective when you’re taking the test itself! You have 10 minutes to answer 9 questions about each passage you’ll see on the ACT. You simply don’t have time to slowly make your way through the passage, then write a headline.
2) Pick the broadest/vaguest answer.
The assumption here is that “general” questions should have “general” answers. So in theory, all you have to do is to eliminate any answers that are too detailed, and you’ll sail smoothly on to your answer.
Except…that’s all only partially true. Sure, the answer to a “main idea” question should ideally be an answer choice broad enough to contain the details of the body paragraphs. BUT the test writers are usually too smart to include only one of those—meaning you could still be left with two or more valid-seeming answers if you use this method! Whoops.
3) What’s the topic/subject that the passage is talking about? Pick the answer choice THAT includes that topic.
We’re getting closer to the correct approach now. However, this is still just a half-baked truism that doesn’t offer any guidance as to how you’re supposed to actually grasp what the passage is about in the first place! Next.
4) Spend hours upon hours with your tutor dissecting the “topic” vs. “central claim” vs. “main idea” vs. “general structure” vs. “purpose” vs. “author’s attitude” vs. “author’s tone.”
If you’re studying for an AP Literature or AP Composition exam, then, be my guest!
You won’t get any argument from me: these are great skills to have. And if you’ve practiced these long-term skills and have a handle on them, you WILL be able to handle “Big Picture” questions with more ease and speed than if you haven’t. But the reality is: you don’t have a whole year to analyze literature greats just so you can ace those 3 to 6 “Big Picture” questions. That’s just not a time efficient approach to your standardized test prep timeline!
4) Read the introductory and concluding paragraphs.
When in absolute doubt—or if I were truly running out of time—these are the exact spots in the passage that I would skip to! That said, we don’t want you to only have worst-case scenario fixes up your sleeve, right?
So those are the tactics you may already be familiar with.
They appear in your test prep books/websites, your study guides, and the playbooks of many tutors and test-prep professionals. But come with me, won’t you, because I’m going to walk you through an approach you have NOT seen before…but one that’s going to transport you to the right answer more quickly and smoothly than a Porsche.
The best way to answer ACT “Big Picture” questions
My method may surprise you, in some ways. But this I promise you: for about 90% of my students, it’s a godsend that gets them to the right answer…AND saves them hours upon hours of prep time.
First, let me ask you: where do “Big Picture” questions usually crop up? As in, when are they being asked in relation to the other questions about a given passage?
(Cue “Jeopardy” music….)
I’ll take “what is the first question to be asked about a passage” for $500, Alex!
Yup, when the ACT includes “Big Picture” questions, they usually appear in the first question or two of your long list of 9 questions attached to a given passage. And if you’re like all of my students when I first meet them, you’ll attempt to answer them first, as well.
But not any more! Because the truth is: it is NOT efficient to try and answer a question concerning the entire passage when you’ve only just read the passage for the first (and hopefully only) time…and might still be struggling to process that wall of text you just read.
Not very efficient at all. Because in order to answer the big-picture question first, you’ll need to return to the passage, reread chunks of it (if not, eep, the entire thing!), waste precious time…only to STILL risk getting the answer wrong. Oh yeah, and then you’ve still got 8 more questions to answer for that passage.
So here’s your secret advantage over all the other kids taking the test: you’re NOT going to waste another moment poring back over that passage multiple times. Instead, you’re going to answer the “Big Picture” question(s) last.
Here’s what this practice looks like in action:
You’ll read your passage however you read a passage (I’ve created four main strategies for doing so, out of which I guarantee that at least one will “click” for you).
Then you answer the questions in whichever way you’ve worked on answering questions (in my private tutoring sessions, I come up with a custom choreography for each student as to what order he/she should answer the rest of the Qs in). For our purposes here, what’s important is that you NOT answer any “Big Picture” questions until you’ve completed all the rest!
Finally, answer any “Big Picture” question—LAST!
Here’s why it works:
Instead of spending even more time processing what the passage is about in order to answer this question type separately, you’re killing two birds with one stone. You’re processing and digesting what the passage is about…by working through and answering the other 7-8 questions! After you’ve pondered and answered those Qs, you will have a MUCH deeper understanding of the passage as a whole.
Now, when you go back to answer the “Big Picture” question(s), you probably won’t need to refer back to the passage at all! The answer will likely seem pretty clear as soon as you read it.
Yippee!
An added bonus: you didn’t have to spend 5-10 tutoring sessions learning a different way to interpret material you read. You can save those subtler literary conversations for Honors English class when your class is discussing the theme of masculinity in Moby-Dick.
Conclusion
There you have it: the technique that helps my students soar through big-picture questions accurately and rapidly!
And it’ll do the same for you, too.
If you’re on the hunt for even more ACT Reading section tips, my one-on-one tutoring clients get access to all of them….as well as to strategies and study timelines customized to their needs and strengths. Learn more about working with me here.
