ACT® · Reading — Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: Synthesis of Multiple Texts
Agreement and Disagreement Edges
An agreement edge links a fact or number both passages accept. A disagreement edge links the point where they split: usually the cause, the value, or who bears the consequence, almost never the fact itself.
Two writers can read the same report and still fight, because the fight usually isn't about the number. It's about what the number means, what caused it, or who it matters to. When you map two paired passages, draw an agreement edge wherever both texts land on the same fact or figure, and a disagreement edge wherever they diverge in explanation, emphasis, or value. Most paired passages share almost every fact. The split lives one layer up, in interpretation.
The question will usually hand you a shared statistic or a shared conclusion, then ask you to find where the texts actually part ways. Check three places: do they explain the shared fact with different causes, do they reach the same conclusion by incompatible routes, or do they agree on both fact and outcome but disagree about who should pay the cost or carry the burden. Each of those is a disagreement edge even though an agreement edge sits right next to it over the raw data.
This sits next to other synthesis questions that ask how two texts relate rather than what either one says alone. Once you can place the edges correctly, questions asking you to predict how one author would respond to the other, or to judge whether a new fact would change one passage's argument, become a matter of following the edge you've already drawn rather than rereading both passages from scratch.
Key terms
- Agreement edge
- A point where both passages accept the same fact, figure, or conclusion.
- Disagreement edge
- A point where the passages diverge, usually in cause, reasoning, or who bears a consequence.
- Synthesis question
- A question asking how two passages relate to each other rather than what one says alone.
- Incompatible reasoning
- When two texts reach the same conclusion but for reasons that would push toward different actions if conditions changed.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does one colour for agreement and another for conflict answer a synthesis question?
- Worked exampleShow me the edges between two writers who share a statistic and split on what caused it.
- Going furtherWhat happens when two texts agree on a conclusion but for incompatible reasons?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't disagreement about facts the usual reason two paired texts conflict?
Check yourself
End of topic.