Hi,
I scored a 32 on the February ACT and I only did practice tests from the big red book to prepare. I scored 32-34’s on all the practice tests and tried to understand my errors after the tests. I want to get at least a 34 on the test. I am currently a junior so I don’t have that much time left, but in the time I do have, what prep class should I take, if any, for the April ACT? I thought self studying would work but obviously it didn’t produce the results I wanted. Any advice regarding prep/review classes and preparation in general for the ACT is greatly appreciated. (btw I had a horrible experience with the Princeton Review, so that is the only company I am not going to )
Cool just right off the back, a 32 is not a bad score so you shouldn’t be extremely stressed right now. But on the other hand it’s not a great score, and I can tell that you seem to be aiming high.
I personally scored a 34 and will tell you that you already have the best strategy at your fingertips…taking practice tests. That is literally the end all strategy if you want to score high. However, a mistake that I see a lot of students , friends, etc… making is that they don’t review their mistakes well enough. If you get a question wrong you spend as much time as you need to master that question. For example in math, if you don’t understand a question or get it wrong then go over it until you are confident until you can complete it in 15-30 sec with ease. Literally master the question you got wrong. I’d advise you write down the question you got wrong, what you did that was wrong, and what you can do next time to get the question right.
As far as classes go, that is your personal choice.
And a great Act book I’d recommend is the Barron’s ACT 36. There’s a lot of official released ACT tests online as well. I’d recommend you print them and take them as well. And remember, going over the questions you get wrong is the most important part. Literally do sections until they become second nature. And also, developing strategies/courses of action for how you want to attack the science and reading sections is really important.
There is a website called eprep that worked well for my son to go from a 34 to a 36. It’s not that expensive and you just work on the things you don;'t know rather than wasting time on what you already know. It has little video tutorials for each thing you miss. He just spent a few hours but they were very productive.