ACT: 29 to 34

Test Preparation
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Okay, here’s the deal:

I am trying to get into Stanford. I have taken the ACT once without studying much and got a 29, with my English score at 35, reading at 32, science at 25, and math at 25.

The average ACT score at Stanford is a 34, so I need to go up a LOT to reach that. Luckily, Stanford superscores, so this should make getting a 34 a bit easier. Based on my individual scores on this first run, I’m going for a 32 in math, a 33 in science, a 35 in reading, and a 36 in English to get a 34 composite. The next time I take the test is February 27th for our state-mandated test day, and I plan to take the test at least 2 more times.

To break down my main issues by section:

English- I missed three questions my first go, and two of my mistakes were stupid ones. Although this sometimes just happens no matter what, what are some tips for getting a perfect score?

Reading- This seems to be the easiest one to raise up 3 points. I’m not entirely sure how to pinpoint what I specifically have a hard time with, so what are some general ways to improve on this? I intend to make the reading section the main focus of my test later this month, since it won’t take me as long to prepare in order to get those three points.

Science- This one was a bit funky for me, since I got a 25, but on the pre-ACT I took earlier, I got a 27. A large part of this issue was that I ran out of time on the real ACT, but was perfectly fine on the practice one.I’m pretty sure this was mainly a result of not focusing on pacing, but what are some other study tips to pull that score all the way up to a 33?

Math- This is where I’m having the hardest time. Between the SAT (1 attempt), ACT (1 attempt), and the pre-ACT (1 attempt), I have NEVER finished on time (plus I never really studied, so a lot of terminology-based questions got missed). Is it even possible to get fast enough to go from a 25 to a 32? I know timing myself will help a lot, but I want to think about this as reasonably as possible.

Overall, I want to figure out if a plan like this is reasonable and, if so, what I can do to make sure I can get as close to this idea as possible. Thank you to anyone who can help!

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I worked with DD on ACT, but she is on her own for Science and reading. I only gave her previously exams, but I didn’t think she tried when we worked at home. She told me she read the questions and the graph before reading the passages and it seems to be the recommendation of a number of posts as well. She got 36, but I think it was partly due to luck as it may happen to be topics she felt comfortable in.

For Math, what level of Math are you in ? besides timing, what other problems do you have? any topics that you do not know. if it were timing only, you have to practice more. Google “prepschlolar improve low Math score”.

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I’ve been told that the best way to improve ACT reading scores is to read a lot of good writing. Stop reading blogs and read newspapers that have strong editors (i.e. not The Guardian). Ask your English teacher for a list of well written books.

My kid has the same math issue as you. What we are trying (we will know this weekend if it works) is timed practice sprints. I make tests with 12 questions (4 from the easy section, 4 from the middle section, 4 from the hard section) and he takes them while I stand by with a stopwatch. Then we go over them. Having these smaller chunks to look at seems to work for him, although the score from this weekend will let us know whether it actually works or not.

With the science section, some people have better luck answering the questions properly by reading the questions before they ever look at the data. This lets you focus in on the information you need to know much more quickly. Try a timed science test using this method and see if it works for you?

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@annamom Thank you so much for the feedback! I am currently in Secondary 3 Math (honors). I’m not sure if that helps at all, though. I struggle a lot with geometry-related questions (areas/perimeters of shapes inside circles or really just any shape with more than 4 sides is kind of a challenge for me), so I’m going to work really hard on that. I need to develop a lot more shortcuts to my methods as well, since I often think too long about questions that should only be taking me 30 seconds.

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@ninakatarina I read some pretty complex stuff on a pretty regular basis (I’m currently reading “Heart of Darkness” by Josheph Conrad and wow, that book is a mouthful), but I’ll definitely work on looking at what I’m reading in a more analyzed way! Upon talking to my English teacher a bit more and comparing what I’ve missed on my AP practice tests/ACT, we’ve come to the conclusion that the vast majority of the questions I have a hard time with are the questions where I am asked to choose another word that most nearly means a word from the text in context and the questions where I have to decide what position an author/passage most suggests/make an inference from the passage as a whole. My apologies if those descriptions were a bit vague, but if you did understand what I mean, I’d love advice for how to work on those particular issues!

As for math, let me know how that testing works out! It does seem like a good idea to break the math section up a bit more and try to get faster in small chunks instead of huge practice tests. Good luck to your son!

I’ve definitely heard the same advice for the science section, so I’m going to try that out on a practice test and see how it goes! Hopefully from there I’ll be able to figure out the concepts I’m a bit hazy on instead of just struggling with time. Thank you so much for the tips!

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Hey there! I was sort of in your shoes last year. I took the ACT the first time without studying, and ended up getting a 31 (33 English, 32 Reading, 28 Science, 29 Math).

Second time around, I used the English and Reading sections of the Official ACT Online Prep (would recommend if you want to spend the money). I honestly didn’t study as much as I should have, mostly because I was intimidated by studying for science and math and didn’t know where to begin. That time, I got a 32 (35 English and Reading, 30 Math, 28 Science).

As a STEM major, my low math and science scores were my main concern, and which was tough, because I think that the Science section is the most difficult to study for. It is not a memory-based test (my strength). Also, I had taken AP Bio and AP Chem, but not physics. It confused me that I could be getting A’s in these classes, but not doing great on the ACT. My advice is not original but it was very, very effective for me: go with your gut on science. Take a practice test and only give yourself 30 seconds per question (have someone tell you when it’s time to move on so you don’t waste time reading a clock). This is less time than you will have on the actual test. Check and see if your scores improve, which mine really did. I did this a couple of times, and then just left it at that for science. Math was also tricky, because I took Algebra 1 as a 7th grader, Geometry as an 8th grader, and Algebra 2 as a freshman, so as a junior in AB Calculus, the material on the ACT wasn’t readily available in my mind. In the end, I went to my calculus teacher and asked her to review some algebra/geometry type problems that I consistently got wrong on practice tests. This is better than Khan Academy because you can focus specifically on what’s tripping you up. Lastly, I did a ton of practice English and Reading questions, just getting myself used to the system. Do NOT waste your time learning all of the parts of speech (adverbs, conjunctions, etc.). No one will ever ask you for that. For me, I always went by why “sounded” right in my head. I’ve read a lot in my life, but honestly reading complex texts will not help you a lot on the ACT, because the passages are all very simple w/ some cryptic bits thrown in.

My final score was a 34, no superscore: 36 English, 36 Reading, 32 Math, 32 Science. This test felt the best to me, and I made a point of abandoning a difficult math/science question if it was taking too long. Remember, all questions are worth the same number of points; an easy question is just as valuable as a hard question.

Good luck! (:

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@Bella2018 Thanks so much for the tips! The science advice was especially helpful <3 I’ll definitely give those ideas a try!

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I’ve gotten 36s on my last two practice tests; today was the first ACT I took. What I would do to prepare is get a math study guide and religiously memorize the formulas. For Writing, get an english study guide and memorize the tenses, possessives, who/whom. For Reading, get an AP Language study guide and practice reading argument essays. Science is just reading comprehension and good time management. Science also has the most trick questions: read very carefully. In order to have enough time to read carefully: first read blurb, underline prompt in questions, then reference the passage and underline whatever is informational. Repeat until you match the graphs/text with answers.

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It doesn’t. Note that ACT-M has 4 trig problems on it, so if you are not in the equivalent of All II/Trig, you will struggle to complete those 4…with the scaling, you’d have to get everything else correct to score a 32.

btw: of the trig problems, 2 are right angle and can be solved with the Pythagorean Thm.

Good luck.

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@bluebayou I’m actually pretty good with trig–as far as math concepts go on the ACT, trig and stats are usually the two easiest for me. Plane geometry is generally where I struggle the most, and everything else just sort of depends on speed.

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Science: My now-in-college daughter said the trick is that the text is almost extraneous. People run out of time when they read the science passages fully. She said most of the science section was just graphs with “science-y words around them.” So, read the questions first. She also used the “Act Red Book” and Khan Academy for all sections.

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@JenJenJenJen Thanks, that’s really helpful!

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Your plan is absolutely possible! I improved my scores form a 24 to a 34. Go ahead and check out the YouTube video I made on how I did it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UMEssThaMHM

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@xxluvforeverxx Thank you so much!!

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I’m also as senior and just took the February 9th ACT, I struggle most with English and Science but my math and reading(33R 30M 25E 26S) are somewhere in between ok and meh. My science strat this round through was to not read the passages at all. Because they take forever to read, i’d argue that its better to just deduce the experiments from the questions as opposed to reading comprehension. Next I’d really recommend saving the comparing student experiment passage for last because it is by far the hardest and most time consuming because you actually have to read all of it. For math I actually have a decent time going through it, I would simply suggest that along with memorizing all the basic formulas, skip any problem that takes more than 30 seconds even though that will leave you with extra time at the end you can at least go back. Also work backwards because the super phat stank problems are closer to the end of the math section. anyways good luck!

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@IdiotBoy123 Thanks for the tips! I’ll definitely try them out!

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UPDATE: Thank you guys for all the tips! I just took a practice science ACT and got a 34 (which is way better than I expected), thanks to a LOT of help from you guys! This means my last challenge is the math section, so help in this area is ESPECIALLY needed!

Of course, I will keep working on science practice tests to get a more accurate average, but my pacing is drastically better thanks to you guys. <3