Strategy lessons
Practice this topic
The bank includes 64 questions on author's purpose: 1 easy, 56 medium, 7 hard.
Why this question type matters on the PreACT 9
The PreACT 9 Reading section has 33 questions in 40 minutes. The mix is roughly even across question types, so author's purpose questions appear on every test. Strong students do not over-study any one type; they make sure no type is a glaring weakness.
Author's-purpose questions ask why the author wrote the passage, not what it's about. Read the verbs in the choices: 'to argue,' 'to describe,' 'to explain.'
Other topics
Conventions of Standard EnglishProduction of WritingKnowledge of LanguageNumber & QuantityPre-AlgebraAlgebraFunctionsGeometryStatistics & ProbabilityModeling & Word ProblemsMain IdeaInferenceDetailVocabulary in ContextEvidencePaired PassagesInterpretation of DataScientific InvestigationEvaluation of Models
Topics are aligned to 8th-grade Common Core standards. The actual CPS HSAT covers slightly more than these buckets but the core mix is the same.