<p>for those people who have managed to do well on the science portion how did you do it? Prep books? time management? </p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>The science is just really stupid to begin with. I did some practice books, but that didn't really help me during the test. Really, it's an extension of the reading portion, testing how well you can blaze through the multitude of charts they give you. I know a friend who was a semifinalist in Intel STS who only got a 33 on his science.</p>
<p>yeah im sucking right now at the ACT. 26 math, 25 reading, 29 english, 25 science..... trying really hard to get my math to a 32, reading to a 30, science to a 30 and english to a 33</p>
<p>sanguine, what colleges are you looking at?</p>
<p>"I know a friend who was a semifinalist in Intel STS who only got a 33 on his science."</p>
<p>only got a 33....wow, what a loser... :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Sorry, I'm not sanguine but for my case..</p>
<p>I'm getting 28 English, 35 Math, 25 Reading, 26 Science...
Which book have you practiced tho? I get better score on Kaplan's.. and I do really bad on Barron's ones.. I don't know which one is more accurate. I want to raise mine to 32 (in composite, no matter what) and I am looking at Columbia.</p>
<p>and asiaknight, your friends received "only" 33? haha loser.... :eek:</p>
<p>usually barron has really heard prep books for everything but i heard their act book is pretty accurate. true?
I used the sparknotes one too...is it accurate?
kaplan? pr? are there any others?</p>
<p>I got a 36 science and I took my first practice test the night before the test. Now, please, before you condemn me for the quite blunt previous statement, let me say I am by no means a scientific genius, and for the most part science doesn't really interest me; unlike asiaknight's friend, you'd be hard-pressed to find me participating in something like Intel or RSI, as it's just not my main interest. However, I am a huge fan of logic games and the like; tests like the LSATs, the IQ test and MENSA tests are fascinating to me and I get much enjoyment out of correctly completing those types of questions (though it's not to say I sit at home taking these tests, this is quite far from the truth). The point I'm trying to make, though, is that to approach the Science section of the ACT as a test of scienctific knowledge is, strange as it may sound, a major mistake on your part. The name "ACT Science" is, in my opinion, a mis-nomer, almost a red herring of sorts, a false allusion. The "ACT Science" section is, in fact, merely an extension of the ACT Reading section, which itself does not truly test your "reading" ability, as much of the questions can be answered without the demand of the actual THOROUGH reading of the passages. How I suggest you all approach the section, and how I approached it, is as a mere logic game, a quiz of sorts, that just so happens to have questions revolving around scienctific experiments. The questions asked on this section of the test could very well have applied to other things, but they just so happened to choose science as their basis. Do not look at the science part and allow yourself to feel confused about what is discussed; there will NEVER be a question on this test that requires actual holistic, complex scientific knowledge of the topic at hand, I promise you. As I took that practice test the night before, I realized this and I decided to approach the test differently the next day, to approach it as if it were merely a logic puzzle. If you were to read a logic puzzle that involved, say, six electrical engineers working on a satellite system project, do you think it would be necessary to understand what they actually, physically DO in order to solve the puzzle at hand? It is highly doubtful, as logic puzzles merely require you to solve a basic problem hidden under a mask of complexity, not to analyze anything at all. The ACT Science section is exactly the same; it is a question of SOLVING rather than UNDERSTANDING, just as the answer is results from REASONING rather than from APPLICATION. In the same way it can be said that you should never look at these questions as you would a problem in your science class; this is not the SAT-II, this not the AP, this is really not science as you think of it. Sure, there's the science of reasoning and the science of though and the science of logic, but the sciences involved in the actual questions themselves (i.e. Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental) are quite irrelevent and complex knowledge of them is not necessary for a full understanding of the problems at hand.</p>
<p>I hope that makes at least SOME sense, and if anyone has any more questions, feel free to ask or PM me.</p>
<p>Completely agree that the science section is an extention of the reading section, and that no external information is needed.
It's a lot like the grade-school tests with data to analyze.
Although I wasn't fortunate enough to get a 36, I did get a 32.. and that was probably from getting familiar with the format and improving on my reading comprehension skills. The first time I took it, my science was a 29.. but I really didn't look at the science section when I prepped for the ACTs.
I loved the Barron's ACT prep book, and hated ARCO's.. Haven't tried out Kaplan's yet though- still sitting on the shelf.</p>
<p>I'm getting a 27 science and I don't think I can do much better. I already improved by 1 pt from my previus testing :p</p>