<p>Taking a different tack, ACT lets you have a score removed form your record. If there is time, you might remove that 21. But honestly I don’t think it’s a huge deal.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.actstudent.org/faq/delete.html”>http://www.actstudent.org/faq/delete.html</a></p>
<p>Shaking head…</p>
<p>OP, best of luck to you with your dilemma. I don’t understand why you didn’t mention the 27/non-registered test in the first place. If you have nothing to hide and all is on the up and up, then just simply ask for guidance from your parents or a valued teacher or counselor to help you come to peace with what you should do next. </p>
<p><<<
How do I delete a test date record?</p>
<p>Students own their test scores and may direct ACT to delete their scores for a particular test date from our records. (Note: Students may not delete scores used to document participation in State and District Testing.)</p>
<p>To delete your scores for a particular test date, you must submit a written request. Provide us with your name and home address, and we will mail you a form to complete and return to us. We will then permanently remove your record for that test date from our files. All scores from that test date will be deleted.</p>
<p>Write to:</p>
<p>ACT Institutional Services
P.O. Box 168
Iowa City, IA 52243-0168
USA
<<<</p>
<p>Wow…is this new? I don’t think CB does this with SAT scores. Interesting.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s new or not. D went up 4 points in 6 months and I mentioned the option to her but she said “leave them both, they show growth”. Can’t argue with that.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 So am i allowed to delete my score from April? Is there any time limit for deleting the score? </p>
<p>All I know is what I posted. Note that deleting that score won’t help you with your original question about the ACT thinking you might have cheated, as it is that company that would be removing the score.</p>
<p>@Massmom “But spending hundreds of dollars in a prep course that may or may not improve one’s score doesn’t make sense to me.” Who said that? Certainly not me. I wouldn’t waste time or money on those courses.</p>
<p>" And spending night after night studying for THIS one test, when students could be learning a lot more interesting material that will actually enrich their lives, seems a waste of time. Who is to say whether simply studying subjects of interest or reading challenging literature won’t improve the score as much as a prep course or nights of test-specific preparation? "</p>
<p>You’re assuming that those other activities aren’t happening. But the fact is that most kids will read challenging literature without bothering to look up the definitions of words. Some they will eventually absorb and some they won’t. My kids have both had that light bulb goes on moment after encountering some word we had discussed (or they had studied) in some book, even well-loved books they had read multiple times.</p>
<p>I’m all for quality reading. And I don’t believe that SAT-cramming can substitute for it. But one of the posters asserted the SAT is just a test of what they’ve been taught in school, so why study? Well, it would be nice if we all had access to that school. But if your kids, like mine, are not lucky enough to go to a school with uniformly strong academics, then they will benefit from filling in some holes. My daughter definitely had major holes in certain areas being tested on the SAT that should have been taught but were not taught. There were things being tested that she had never heard of and just didn’t know. Since she had the best grade of any student in most of her classes, I have to believe that those things were simply never taught. If it had been taught, she would have known it.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add that studying could be particularly important for students coming from disadvantaged background or non-native English speaker households. Some of the literacy skills that middle class native speakers may have easily internalized at an early age may not come naturally to such students and it may be very helpful to study it in a more formal manner. Perhaps this is what happened with the OP.</p>
<p>@saynet This situation happened to my daughter one year ago. In the spring of 2013, she took the ACT without writing with all juniors at her high school and scored a 23. Two weeks later she retook the test, this time with the writing portion and scored 26. Both these scores followed test prep. After a summer of relaxing, she gave it one more try in September. She came home feeling good about her effort. She had been able to finish this time and the desks had been spaced farther apart, an environment favorable to her as an ADD student who had been denied accommodations. This time she scored 34.
Much like you, we were concerned whether her exam would be flagged. Although we knew she was capable of answering the questions in a repeat ACT, we had no idea whether she would be lucky enough to have another high concentration, low anxiety test day.
I’ve read sometimes a wide score range will be questioned if there was an exam with a similar pattern of answers in your testing room. We waited and waited for a flagging letter from ACT requesting an additional exam. But you know what? It never came! They never questioned her score.
I am hoping, saynet, the same will hold true for you. </p>
<p>@LastOneOut wow I feel much better knowing that there was a person with similar situation as me 
Thank you for your reply and I really hope that same thing would happen to me! </p>
<p>You better sign up for the next test. You don’t want to wait for the last minute before submitting EA and found they withhold your score and request you to verify it by another test.</p>
<p>If the testing service withholds the test score they will provide the OP an opportunity to retake the test for free. S/he doesn’t need to sign up and pay for that honor.</p>
<p>I think as long as you have the backup 27 you should be ok.</p>
<p>I think having a tutor and spending the time on studying for the SAT or ACT depends largely on the student. My oldest son went into them without studying and was fine. However he took the SAT in 7th grade, the PSAT in 9th & 10th grade so we knew that he would do fine. We also took him to a prep center after 10th grade and had them give him a practice SAT to see how much it would cost to “Prep” him. He scored a 2100 on their practice one and they wanted over $2,000 to help him raise his score. Um… no thanks DH had no interest in spending that kind of money…when we figured his target schools would except a score similar to that. </p>
<p>We plan on doing the same thing with our 10th grader however he has ADD so it’s possible that he will need some sort of tutoring and studing to get a decent score. Some kids need the tutoring others don’t.</p>
<p>
Although it will be free, the timing may be bad for EA/ED.</p>