WorkKeys Business Writing study guide
WorkKeys Business Writing · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
ACT WorkKeys Business Writing is one of the WorkKeys career assessments used by employers, educators, and workforce programs to measure foundational workplace skills. It is a constructed-response test: instead of answering multiple-choice items, the candidate reads a written prompt describing a work-related situation and composes an original response. The WorkKeys Business Writing study guide has 7 sections and about 2,186 words.
01Sentence Structure
A complete sentence needs a subject, a finite verb, and a finished thought. Most sentence-structure questions ask you either to find a boundary that is missing (a run-on) or to remove a boundary that should not be there (a fragment).
328 words, about 2 min02Mechanics
Mechanics questions cover capitalization, punctuation, apostrophes, numbers, and abbreviations. You rarely have to invent a rule - you have to notice the one being broken.
296 words, about 1 min03Grammar
Most grammar items in business writing test three things: agreement, case, and consistency of tense. Subject–verb agreement.
308 words, about 2 min04Word Usage
Usage questions ask whether you chose the right word, not whether the sentence is grammatical. Two failures dominate: confusing look-alikes and saying the same thing twice.
303 words, about 2 min05Tone and Word Choice
Tone questions ask: given this audience and this purpose, which version sounds right? Judge with three tests - courtesy, clarity, and appropriateness.
313 words, about 2 min06Organization and Focus
Organization questions give you a paragraph or a short message and ask which sentence belongs elsewhere, which transition fits, or where a new paragraph should begin. The test is always the same: does this sentence serve the main point?
310 words, about 2 min07Development of Ideas
Development questions ask which detail best supports a claim, which sentence adds useful information, or why a paragraph feels thin. The answer is almost always the most relevant, specific, and verifiable option.
328 words, about 2 min