So I have just decided to take the ACT after taking a practice test and scoring well. All of my prep up until now has been focused on the SAT, which I am going to retake in May because I don’t want all my prep to go to waste. I am planning to take the ACT in June, leaving me a month to study. The scores I got on my first practice test are:
35 English
28 Math
30 Reading
31 Science
31 Composite
Does anyone have any tips to help me raise my score? With math, it is mostly a content gap, so where can I find prep that will help me learn the content while also applying it to the ACT? And any tips on how to pace myself for the reading and science sections?
I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to copy and paste tips that I’ve given to others on CC about the ACT! (each paragraph is a different tip hahah sorry)
**General tips on improving: **
I’d recommend just doing practice tests. Set aside time for yourself to go through the whole test every other day or so (if you do them every day, you’ll run out of good tests to take lmao). Go through the answers and really try to see if there are any trends in all the ones you miss across a couple of the tests (ex. Find out what you’re bad at. Are commas in grammar something you always miss? Is interpreting a certain kind of graph in the science section messing you up?) Understand what your weaknesses are and try your best to fix those. Doing practice tests gives you a feel for the timing during the tests (Never do the tests without sticking to the real ACT time. That’s a waste of a test and your time.) Practice tests that will be harder than the ones on the ACT so that you’re ready for anything (I rec Barrons and the Princeton Review, but you don’t have to buy them! If there’s a nearby Barnes & Nobel, or similar bookstores, just go there and take the practice tests by writing your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
Also, don’t just crack open the prep books and read the sections. Only do that when you’ve found your weakest section(s) on the ACT. Like, if you’re good at math and get 34s to 36s, why would you bother reading the math section? Again, a waste of your time. Only read sections that will benefit you and your score!
Go through each section by just answering ones you know FOR SURE. Don’t get stuck looking at problems you’re confused about or problems that take a little more thinking time. Circle the question in the test packet and move on! Come back to it at the very end so that you can look at it with fresh eyes and (hopefully) without as much pressure (since you left yourself time to look at it by finishing all the easier questions).
If you really don’t know how to solve something, just guess! The ACT doesn’t penalize you for guessing, so take advantage of that! Don’t leave any question unanswered. And, as always, budget your time and ALWAYS know how much time you have left.
I’m a high school senior and I took my ACTs last year. I used ACT practice tests and frequently scored between 28s and 30s, but on my first ACT attempt I got a 33 and then a 34 the second time I took it. The practice tests are generally designed to be harder than the actual ACT (at least, they were harder than last year’s ACTs.)
** Reading Section **
For the reading section, I highly recommend reading the questions first and looking for key words to look for in the passage. It’ll help you answer the questions faster. For example, if the question asks “What are the effects of turtle migration on available food in the area?” I would skim through the passage for words like “turtle migration” and “food.” That way, you don’t need to fully understand the article on the first read and you have answered a question. Answer all the “easier” questions like those (the ones that ask you for specific details in the passage) before answering questions that are more “overall, what does this passage say?” (like ones that ask for a theme message). Also, try to give yourself equal times for each passage. So, if there are 5 reading passages and you have 35 minutes, give yourself about 6 to 7 minutes for that. If you can’t answer the questions, circle them and come back to them when you have time, or guess for them if you see that you’re running out of time. The reading section just takes a lot of practice, in my honest opinion.
^The same kind of goes for the science section: looking at the content-specific questions before the over-arching questions
** Math Section: **
I don’t really have any specific tips for this other than to skip whatever you don’t automatically know when taking the test and come back to it later, since it’s so easy to waste time dwelling on things in the math section.
Content-wise, I’m sure you can tell by now that the math section is pretty geometry heavy. I’d catch up on your geometry, if you haven’t taken it recently. Check Prepscholar’s article titled “How to Get 36 on ACT Math: 8 Strategies by a Perfect Scorer.” They have some links on there that might help (I only lightly skimmed it).
Let me know if you need any more in-depth tips! I don’t mind sharing more of them!
@carmen00 I got a 34 on my ACT first sitting. I took an ACT prep course called Huntington and what I learned from them is that the best way to prepare for the ACT is through practice tests. Do as many practice tests as you can. The key for me was doing well on the science bc that is the hardest section (score wise). For the science section, I read the introductory passage and then go to the questions. You have roughly 4 minutes per passage for science so if you take the time to read all of the graphs and try to understand them, you will run out of time. Just keep doing practice tests and you should be able to improve your score by 1 to 2 points. good luck!