I am currently a sophomore, and I will be a junior in some months. I am familiar with the format of the test and I now know some basic strategies. I took the online practice test provided by the ACT and got a 27. My highest section was the Reading in which I made a 30, and my lowest section was the Science, in which I made a 23. What are the best ways I can study to make a 36 for the test in June? Are there any specific strategies that have helped you? What books have helped you the most? What was the best way you were able to organize your studying for the ACT?
Getting a 36 is pretty hard since that’s known to be a “perfect score”, so getting it up 9 points in 2 months might be hard.
But the best way to get that score is to study, study and study some more. Take practice tests from released past exams, and use the study books. What has helped me with the study process so far is using the study books, studying 1 subject each day then taking a practice test and the end of the week, and going over each question I missed so I know why I missed it.
I agree that taking practice tests are VERY helpful.
I can give you some advice on how I approached each specific section. I used a slightly different strategy for each one:
Reading: this one is all about time!!! Something that worked for me was I divided the time by 4 (4 passages) and got around 8 minutes for each passage. Then I would read the whole passage in 3 min and answer questions in 4 min so I could finish on time. For the last reading section, the more science-y section, I did the opposite. I read questions first and found those answers from passage without reading the whole thing. I scored the highest in reading (36) so maybe give this method a try.
English: Before the test, make sure you know all the tiny grammar rules because sometimes they have some tricky questions on the test. On the test, just read the whole passages instead of just that single line with the edit. This will help you choose the best answer because you see the context around that sentence. Additionally, the most concise answer is almost always the right answer. Almost.
Science: I hated this one the most. I was always SUPER slow so practice with time. Also, read questions first and then go back and do the passage. I noticed that the first two times I took the ACT (and scored below a 30 on this section), I couldn’t get into the rhythm and spent too long on single problems. The third time (I scored a 32 or 33), I increased my pace without stopping to triple, quadruple check every answer.
Math: Make sure you know the content. I would say this is the section you can study the most for. Just like the other sections, time was a big issue for me. One thing that really threw me off was that the beginning of the test was really easy but it got progressively harder as I went along. IDK if this is the case for you, but this means you should spend less time on the first half of the test.
I’m not sure if this helped at all, but I hope it did and I would love to answer any more questions 
Have you tried a SAT practice test? Many people do better on one or the other so by switching over there’s a chance you’ll get an easy point boost.
Thank you meandcandy, it certainly helped.
On the practice test. three out of the five questions I missed on the reading came from the Literary Narrative passage. Timing used to be a big issue for me on the Reading, but as time has passed, it’s gotten a lot easier. I will certainly try the method of reading the questions first for the science passage at the end.
For English, I only missed one Usage/Mechanics question, but I missed nine Rhetorical questions. I’ve started to look up strategies to do those, and they seem pretty simple. I can easily see how reading the majority of the passage can help.
Science is my worst section as well. Not only is timing an issue, but it’s also the last part of the test when you’re more tired. The wording of the questions only make it worse, but I guess the only way to fix that is to get familiar with the questions.
The Math is similar to me. During the first thirty questions of the practice test, I only missed two. However, I ended up missing half of the last thirty, which dropped my math score to a 26. The main thing it seems to me is to know the content and to also approach questions from a logical point of view to eliminate obvious answers.
What is the best way you learned the content for the Math? There is a lot of it, and right now, I feel like the Sparknotes guide to the Math is really helpful, but is there any specific book you used to help you on it?
I’m glad!!
I would say the method of reading first, questions second worked really well for me for the Literary Narrative passage because this one has a sto
woops sorry…continuing…
…as I remember it, this one has a story, so understanding the theme and overall tone of the passage is important. The details of the story are also a little easier to remember than a science-y passage.
Yes definitely reading the whole passage for English is great, especially when this section may have a couple of Reading-type questions thrown in there.
For science, my teacher taught us to only read a couple sentences of the paragraph summary at the beginning and spend most of the time looking at the graphs/tables. I was also super tired by the time this section came around, especially since most of it was quite dry.
Another thing I learned about the Math section was a majority of these problems really do not need to be solved in a super complicated way. Sure, you know exactly how to go the long way to solve a problem (like solving an equation), but why not just use the answers to your advantage? For instance, if the problem is what is x? 2x+6=19. You can go through and solve it, but you should instead use your calculator and start plugging in answer choices starting with C. The reason you start in the middle of the choices is so you know if you are over/underestimating and you will realize whether you need to go up and check B or go down and check D. I hope that made sense. I believe I read this in the Real Act Prep book. Another strategy (which kind of builds on the previous one) is to reach for the calculator first and your pencil second. There are many functions that your calculator can do that you may not be aware of.
I really only used the Real ACT Book, especially since we were re-learning some of the content in our math class. If you are taking a higher level math class, it would be helpful to take a step back and re-learn what you may have learned freshman year. I know for me and many students in our honors class, we had forgotten about a lot of concepts from earlier classes because we didn’t focus on them at all in our current class.
why don’t you visit the TEst prep and ACT section of the forum
This may sound silly but take snacks and water with you on test day. I found my daughter fought off fatigue better when she was well hydrated and full. She was able to focus better and longer later in the test, namely the Science section when you just want to be done.
But the main thing is to practice, practice, practice. For the Science section, she would look at the questions first, then the charts and graphs and then the short passage if she didn’t find the answer.
I improved my ACT score from 30 to 31 to a 35 on my third try. Granted, it’s not your typical “36”, but if you have any questions, ask me or the ACT subforum.
The biggest secret? Practice.