<p>Hey guys, I was wondering if you could help me out in anyway.</p>
<p>I recently got back on ACT scores and got a 32 (33E, 32M, 28R D:, 34S) and I was wondering how I can do better because I know I can. Leading up to the ACT I took a bunch of official previous tests (not the red book, but more recent tests) and scored 34-36 4 times in a row. Every section I would never feel rushed and would always have extra time left for each section (25 minutes in English, 12 minutes in Math, 3 minutes in Reading and Science). HOWEVER, when I took the actual ACT this September, this was far from the case (having 15 min in English, 1 min in Math, 0 in Reading and 1 min in Science). Furthermore, I would also score 34-35E, 36M, 33-35R, 34-36S. What's perplexing is how different my practice scores were from the real test and how different my timing was.</p>
<p>I think my biggest problem was that a lot of my testing strategies went out the window and for some reason I got all nervous and constantly ran out of time. For examples, I forgot about underlining the questions in the math section, which is bad because my biggest mistakes in the math section were from careless errors. For some reason whenever I step into that testing room, I perform way worse. For English it wasn't that bad, since I still had a lot of time left to check, but for the other sections it was. Math I did WAY worse in time, like so bad. I think my issue was that I got stuck on one problem, and while I would normally skip it and come back, when I was taking the test I was determined to answer it which wasted a lot of time.</p>
<p>For Reading, I'm not even sure what happened. On my last official ACT testing, I scored a 34. Now I scored a 28 and had terrible time management. I don't know why :(</p>
<p>I scored worse on English and Math then I wanted to (and did score leading up to the test), and Science was slightly lower.</p>
<p>How can I prevent these nerves, or whatever it is, from hampering my ability on test day since I have the ability? On the bright side I'll be taking the next ACT (Oct.) by myself since I FINALLY got approved a typing accommodation for the essay, and I think that will help since I won't be in a stressful environment, be one and one with the proctor and get to sit in a comfy chair :D Moreover, I'll be able to talk out loud to myself which should help calm my nerves, but I'm still nervous (lol) that I'll get the nerves again.</p>
<p>Any help would be appreciated and I'm sorry this post was long.</p>
<p>TL/DR: Did way better on practice ACTs (34-36) than I did on my Sept ACT (32), and I think it had mostly to do with nerves. How can I prevent this from happening again?</p>