ACT English test

Take the test below to get your predictive score! Each [Q] in the passage refers to a question.

Listen Up: Podcasts Redefine How Audiences Consume Media
These days, if a topic is worth talking about, then there’s probably someone producing a podcast about it. With hundreds of millions of episodes available over a multitude of numerous streaming services [Q1], podcasts are as ubiquitous now as the devices on which they’re most commonly played. [A] But have you ever stopped to think about how podcasts came into existence and took over the metaphorical airwaves?
The history of the podcast starts in 2004, when a former MTV (Music Television) video jockey Adam Curry and one of his software developer friends Dave Winer, [Q2] wanted to figure out how to download radio broadcasts onto an iPod. Created using aggregator software and a program Curry invented, radio broadcasts were able to be saved by Curry and Winer for replay whenever they were ready to listen. [Q3] Combining the words “iPod” and “broadcast” gave podcasts their name, and a whole new way of sharing information was born. [B]
Within a year or two of the podcast’s inception, people begun [Q4] to use the new medium to deliver content to the group [Q5] and to find new audiences. [C] Starting in July of 2005, President George W. Bush had [Q6] used podcasts to deliver his weekly addresses to the public, and by December of that year, the New Oxford American Dictionary had crowned “podcast” as the word of the year. [Q7]
Over the next decade, long-running radio broadcasts such as: This American Life, [Q8] began embracing this new avenue. Later in the same year that This American Life began posting episodes as podcasts, it’s [Q9] producers launched Serial, a spinoff podcast that would captivate audiences around the world, setting records for the most downloaded podcast of all time, and win a coveted Peabody Award, [Q10] which recognizes “excellence in storytelling that reflects the social issues and the emerging voices of our day,” the first podcast to ever achieve the honor. [Q11]
As podcasts have grown in popularity since their invention, so have [Q12] the range of topics which they cover. [D] With close to half a billion listening and over 5 million podcasts available at listeners’ fingertips [Q13], there’s a podcast for just about anyone. What might you listen to today? [Q14] [Q15]