ACCUPLACER Reading
Reading is one of the ACCUPLACER placement tests. It checks how well you understand what you read.
What ACCUPLACER Reading measures
ACCUPLACER Reading checks how well you get meaning from different kinds of texts and figure out what words and phrases mean. Its questions fall into four groups: Information and Ideas, Rhetoric, Synthesis, and Vocabulary.
Questions and time
| Test | Questions | Time limit |
|---|---|---|
| ACCUPLACER Reading | 20 | None set |
The test is computer adaptive, so the questions change based on your answers.
How to study ACCUPLACER Reading
- Read the question first. Know what you are looking for before you read the passage.
- Ask what each part does. Some questions ask why the author wrote a paragraph. Is it giving facts, summing up or raising a doubt?
- Watch the signal words. Words like "indeed," "however" and "in short" show how one idea links to the next.
- Use the words around a hard word. The nearby sentences often explain what it means.
- Take your time. The test is generally untimed, so reread when you need to.
Sample questions
1. Read the passage, then answer the question.
This fall, report cards in the district will carry numbers instead of letters, and the front office switchboard has been busy with worried parents ever since the notice went home. The worry is understandable, and it is also unnecessary. A 3 means exactly what a B meant last year. Colleges receive the same conversion key every district in the state sends with its transcripts. The homework, the classroom, and the grade your child earns are all unchanged. Only the mark printed in the box is different.
The author's primary intent is
- A. to explain how the new number scale converts into the old letter grades.
- B. to calm parents who fear the grading change will hurt their children.
- C. to warn parents that the new marks could confuse college admissions offices.
- D. to lay out both sides of the grading change without favoring either.
Show the answer
Answer: B. The author names the worry, calls it unnecessary, then answers each fear a parent might have. A uses one detail, and D misses that the author takes a side.
2. Read the passage, then answer the question.
Paragraph 1: Researchers handed blackout curtains to sixty nurses who work overnight shifts and followed them for a month. Paragraph 2: Daytime sleep rose by an average of 47 minutes. Reported grogginess fell in every week of the study. Not one nurse asked to give the curtains back. Paragraph 3: In short, the curtains bought these nurses close to an extra hour of sleep and left them feeling less foggy. Paragraph 4: Whether that extra hour changed anything about how they cared for patients is a question this study was never built to answer.
The third paragraph primarily serves to
- A. report the number of minutes of extra sleep the nurses gained
- B. pull together the findings reported just before it
- C. raise a doubt about what the study is able to show
- D. give the example that carries the passage's main point
Show the answer
Answer: B. Paragraph 3 starts with "In short" and sums up the findings from paragraph 2. It adds nothing new. The doubt in C comes in paragraph 4.
3. Read the passage, then answer the question.
The thirty-five-hour cutoff was arbitrary. The committee admitted afterward that it could just as easily have drawn the line at forty hours, or at thirty. No rule, no report, and no piece of data pointed to any of those numbers over the others. Someone in the room simply said thirty-five, and no one objected.
As used in the passage, the word arbitrary most nearly means
- A. based on a careful study of hours actually worked
- B. unfair to the workers the cutoff applied to
- C. chosen without any particular reason behind it
- D. a limit that a committee sets
Show the answer
Answer: C. The sentences after the word explain it: any number would have done, and nothing pointed to one over another.
How SPARK helps with ACCUPLACER Reading
SPARK's diagnostic shows how your reading compares with your other sections. Lessons can be read aloud while you follow along, and practice questions explain why each choice is right or wrong.
FAQ
- How many questions are on ACCUPLACER Reading?
- ACCUPLACER Reading has 20 questions. Some stand alone, and some come in sets about the same passage.
- Is ACCUPLACER Reading timed?
- ACCUPLACER tests, including Reading, are generally untimed.
- What does ACCUPLACER Reading test?
- ACCUPLACER Reading tests how well you get meaning from texts and figure out what words and phrases mean. Its four question groups are Information and Ideas, Rhetoric, Synthesis, and Vocabulary.
- How do I answer "author's purpose" questions on ACCUPLACER Reading?
- For ACCUPLACER Reading purpose questions, ask what the whole passage is trying to do, like explain, persuade or calm a worry. A choice that fits only one detail is usually too narrow.
Find out where you stand, free.
SPARK starts with a diagnostic and builds your study plan around the sections pulling your score down.
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