My Daughter has a good ACT score (32), but she has 29’s on Math and Science, which she would like to improve. Several of her choice colleges will allow superscore. She says a lot of students who are attempting to raise their superscore will retake the ACT and spend a majority of their time on their weak subjects and then rush ( or even “Christmas tree” the bubbles on the other subjects - Is this a good idea or even legal?? Sounds suspect to me.
Is it “legal” to focus on 1 or 2 subjects in prep? Yes.
Is it a good strategy to focus prep on math and science? Possibly. Depends on the student.
Can you spend more than the allotted time on a section of the actual test by banking unused time from another section? No. That’s a recipe to getting a test flagged.
OK, maybe “legal” is not the right phrasing - You have to report the entire score, so lets say she gets a 33 or 34 on math and science, then bombs English and Reading. How will colleges judge a reported score like that, even if she has a 36 and 34 on another test for English and Reading?
I think you are overthinking this.
If the college says the use score choice for ACT, then they will evaluate based upon the highest score on each section. In the 10 minutes (or less) that an AO reads an application, s/he is not going to have time to “judge” it any more than that.