<p>Well I've read a lot on this site.. and it seems that the average of you get a 30 or higher on the ACT. I don't even know how this is possible that most of you do this since this is in the 90% percentile or higher. I took it for the first time on April 14th and got a 23. I was pretty disappointed. I got a 24 on English, 27 on Math, 21 on Reading, and 20 on Science. I ran out of time on Reading and Science. Can you tell me what you did to improve on each section or any books that you bought to help you get the scores that you got? Mostly English, Reading, and Science though. I can raise math by myself probably because i expected at least a 28 because i usually get 28-30 on Math practice tests so it shouldn't be that hard to raise math. I'm not that good at geometry though haha so i could use tips on that.</p>
<p>You did well enough on math to receive a good composite, just don’t overthink anything. The ACT is far more straightforward than the SAT. Don’t make inferences in the reading section, just follow exactly what the passages state or exhibit. </p>
<p>The science is just paying attention and mentally isolating the information that you need to pay attention to. Practice interpreting graphs to improve your score, that was 90% of my science test. </p>
<p>For writing, I’ve always just chosen things based on how they sound. Make sure subjects and verb agree, then it just comes down to what seems the most grammatically correct. Just take some practice and you should be fine.</p>
<p>Source: 34/34/34/36(science), 35 composite</p>
<p>Read some guides on this site and learn what they look for in each section. Especially in the English, they want short and concise sentences, and the omit choice is almost always the answer.</p>
<p>For math, you’re doing fine. You can probably bring it up a couple points if you take it again but I personally don’t think it is possible to do that much about the math.
For Reading and Science, you might want to try a quick scan of the passage and then reading the questions. Some people try reading the questions and then scanning the passages for the answers. This may work for you but it can also really mess up some people. Try a practice test both ways to see which works best for you. Also, find a word list of common words and try to learn as many of them as possible. Although it’s kind-of late, it really helps to read as much as possible to expose yourself to new words and improve your vocabulary.
English should be easy to raise. Most you can usually sort-of play it by ear. Most of the time the right answer sounds right. If an answer is long and confusing, it is probably wrong. REALLY FOCUS ON THE SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT. This is easy to fix and is a large part of the test (ex. “If an answer is long and confusing, they are probably wrong.” Try simplifying the sentence down to a subject and verb if possible. “It are.” As you can tell now, it needs to be changed to “it is.” )<br>
The biggest thing you can do is to not stress. Get a good night’s sleep and eat a good breakfast in the morning. Bring snacks so that your stomach isn’t rumbling in the middle of the test. </p>
<p>Sources: 36 english, 35 math, 34 reading, 34 science, 35 composite</p>
<p>If your focus is on your composite, I would focus on English and Math because these are the two that I think are the easiest to raise. </p>
<p>For English, a lot of people don’t actually read the content of the ACT practice books (like Princeton review), but I did all the grammar testing and raised by score from a 31 to a 36. If you know all the rules of grammar, it is pretty easy to apply rules to different sentences.</p>
<p>For Math, there’s no replacement for simply knowing the math. Understand how triangles, areas, polynomials work… and you should be fine. When I was in 8th grade, I got a 24, 24, 36, 20 which still turns out to a 26, simply because I could do math.</p>
<p>Source: 36 composite.</p>
<p>thank you everyone for the tips</p>
<p>Yep, do what these guys are telling you.</p>
<p>Source: 35 composite </p>
<p>No but seriously, seems like you are motivated and willing to study. Most of the people on this site just happen to get high scores because everyone here is academically oriented, there are no “stupid” people so to se. You’ll join the ranks soon enough young praying mantis.</p>
<p>2 Quick English tips:</p>
<p>The shortest answer is usually right
and as my teacher always says “when in doubt take it out” (omit it)</p>
<p>No pun intended lol</p>