<p>So my D has continued to practice whole ACTs and continues to score 34 to 35 on the English and Reading sections, 27-29 on the Science, and has not been able to move much past 26 on the Math. </p>
<p>She is having trouble fitting whole ACTs into her schedule each week and I'm wondering if she should just focus on math (and maybe science) for a few weeks? </p>
<p>Any thoughts? Will she stop doing as well on the other sections if she doesn't keep practicing? In the time she has started doing this, she has gone up a slight bit in English and Reading, but still swings back and forth between 33 and 35. </p>
<p>That seems like a good strategy. She could potentially move up with practice on E and R, but she simply doesn’t have much room to improve. The potential for a big improvement is there with Math and Science, so focusing there is sensible. Maybe she can do a bit of last-minute review on E and R shortly before the test day to ensure she’s still on top of her game there too.</p>
<p>My son was pretty much even in all 4 areas so had to work on everything. I like your challenge better!</p>
<p>Best to focus the lower scores to make the biggest impact on the composite. The Science section would be easier to raise. It essentially a reading comprehension of charts, tables and graphs. The actual science topic isn’t so important. Think of it this way, when testing Reading, the kids don’t have to had read or studied the passages they read in the ACT. The same holds true in the Science section. Practice usually helps because the student begins to see the same type of questions repeatedly.</p>
<p>For math, have her take a practice section test. Score it and check the subsections scores. It may be very straight forward that she’s not getting, say, trig or intermediate algebra. Work on that particular math topic and see what happens.</p>
<p>FWIW, I had my daughter spend a month just on English and then spend another month on Math. I didn’t worry about the other two sections because I knew she would do well on them.</p>
<p>Absolutely she should just work on the parts she doesn’t do well in. She’s probably a fairly fast reader with a good instinct for correct answers, that won’t change. Have you looked into xiggi’s protocol for how to study for these tests? - I think his advice is aimed at the SAT, but shouldn’t be wildly different for the ACT though it has the reputation for being less tricksy.</p>
<p>Have someone who is strong in those sections SIT WITH HER while she takes an un-timed practice section so he/she can immediately help her (not do it!) her when she has bubbled a wrong answer. That person should have the answer key in hand.</p>
<p>BTW…is she not finishing? or is she just getting a bunch wrong? Are the wrong answers dumb mistakes? or what?</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. We actually hired a tutor for a few sessions, and the tutor is saying that she should continue to take a full ACT every week but it just doesn’t seem like a great use of time. </p>
<p>She is not finishing the math - she runs out of time before the last four or five. The last time, she got a few wrong that, when she went back over, she realized she had made an error and knew how to get to the right answer, but it must take her longer to do math in general so she always feels crunched for time. Tutor also thinks she should continue to take everything timed. It does make me wonder if she should try the SATs because the time crunch isn’t as bad - but I think you get a bigger boost on the ACT by having strong English and Reading scores since most schools discount the Writing section of the SATs.</p>
<p>Preparation for the aCT should take about one week, right before exam.I would not focus on the weakest section, I would focus on the one that make sense to focus, it may be weakest or it maybe strongest, depending on your goal.
Having personalized plan will make all the difference. I can only tell how D. develop one, it is a different process for each person. D. needed a high score because she was planning to apply to competitive programs, not at selective schools though.
We knew that very high score was out of reach because of her slower Reading speed. We also knew that Reading will be the lowest score and she absolutely cannot improve it because she cannot change her way of reading. - ended up with 28
D. commented that English was just a common sense and there is nothing to prepare. - ended up with 35
Science section has no science at all, it is just a reading at the slower speed. That was also nothing to prepare - end up with 34
Here is the only one that D. spent about 1 hour / day for about 5 days right before ACT test. MATH. While taking practice math section tests, we notinced that material is practically from the middle school. Since D. is strong in math, as advnaced math student, she definitely needed to re-fresh the material that she has learned way back in the middle school. We went over every single mistake in her practice tets. That was enough to pull it to 33-34 (do not remember) and compensate for extremely low Reading section with the result of 33 total which was enough to get accepted to 3 of the programs that she applied (all at in-state publics). She ended up attending in the program that accepted only 10 freshmen at state school on full tuition Merit.<br>
Best wishes!</p>
<p>Everyone is different. While I read many students only study one week before the ACT, I would NOT recommend that strategy. It depends on the child’s schedule and learning style. Some kids can cram for an exam and pull out the scores; others don’t do so well under such a tight time schedule.</p>
<p>@ReadyToRoll, my daughter had similar scores in Math. This is what we did. I “studied” with D, meaning I took the practice math tests with her. Not at the exact same time but we both took the tests. I would score them and we would go over the answers. If a person got a question wrong and the other person answered correctly, the person who answered incorrectly explained what they did. Then the person who answered correctly would explain what they did. It was usually clear how the mistake was made. Oddly, our mistakes rarely overlapped so this method worked very well for us.</p>
<p>In theory, your daughter doesn’t need a study partner but I found that D was more motivated to study and improve her score if I took the practice tests. We were close enough in scores that it made her day when she scored higher. Also, if I took the practice test, you can be sure she took the same test. I didn’t have to nag or harp on her studying or lack thereof. It was a relatively painless and less stressful way for her to prepare.</p>
<p>FWIW, missing the last five problems in Math is okay if you’re not gunning for a 33+. Five wrong is about a 32. Ten wrong is 29, 30. 20 wrong is a score of around 25. Look very closely at the subsection scores to see what she needs to study. (I never counted on getting any of the last five problems correct.)</p>
<p>When my kids were self-prepping to raise their ACT scores, I also took some of the practice tests. There is quite a time crunch on the science section, plus fatigue has set in by that point since it is the last section. Best way to do well is to read the QUESTIONS first, then go back to the passage/graphs/etc. to find the info you need to answer each one. reading the passage and graphs/data first wastes WAY too much precious time.</p>
<p>When doing the reading section, read the passage with pencil in hand, marking what seem to be the most important points with arrows or circling. This can help you to focus better on the passage, then makes it easy to go back and find what you need to answer the questions.</p>
<p>With the math, she’s getting very close to finishing, but clearly she’s making a lot of mistakes early in the section. I always tell my students it’s better to work slowly enough on the early problems to be sure you get them right. If she doesn’t get to the last 10 questions, it doesn’t matter much since she wasn’t likely to get those right anyway. There are no bonus points for getting the hard questions right! She also needs to be selective about which questions she attempts. She should try to decide very quickly whether a question is “do-able.” If she doesn’t see the path right away, then skip and try to come back if she has time (though always put down an answer in case she doesn’t get back to it). The biggest crime in attacking the math is pouring a lot of time into a question, but getting it wrong. Hope that helps a little!</p>
<p>So are the later questions in the math section always harder? They are progressive? I think DS just doesn’t recall middle school math, are these going to be the early questions in the section? He would really like to hit about 33. He gets a 30 and does fine in the rest of the test. He is just focusing in math questions in his last attempt. </p>
<p>@Alfonsia, yes the problems in general get progressively more difficult later in the math section. Does he get a 30 in Math? That’s very good - that means he gets about 10 wrong. </p>
<p>The first 10, maybe 15 questions are easy problems most kids, who have taken at last precalc, should be able to do mentally and quickly. He should always be answering the first 30 (preferably 40) problems correctly. Focus on basic pre-algebra and algebra concepts and skills. Every college bound student should have that down cold. Middle school math isn’t just learned in isolation; students are constantly using that knowledge in later high school math classes.</p>
<p>The last 10 questions are ones that statistically most students get wrong. It’s debatable whether the math is actually more difficult, but sometimes a question becomes difficult because of the logical leaps required to solve it (not because it involves Algebra 2). The early questions do often deal with middle school math concepts, so review is essential. No one remembers a lot of the terminology by the time they’re juniors because they don’t use it daily anymore, especially if they’re in advanced math classes. Terms like “least common multiple” or “mean/median/mode” really don’t come up post pre-algebra, even if the concepts themselves are used in advanced math. It’s just the names that get fuzzy.</p>
<p>Aside from the terminology, the biggest reason students miss early questions is careless mistakes. The questions are easy and kids feel the pressure of the clock throughout the test. Put those together and they tend to rush through the early ones where it’s obvious how to solve them. I tell my students every question is worth the same one point. You don’t get bonus points for having time to solve the hardest questions at the end, so be sure you get the easy ones right!</p>