<p>My nephew took the ACT as a sophomore and made a 24. He had trouble completing the sections and all the reading. He took it a total of eight times and finally made a 34, which was the highest in his school and got him a small scholarship.</p>
<p>He had a good friend who was also a rival. She had a 33. He secretly took the test without telling anyone in December, which was the last test date before the STAR Student (high ACT) is determined and got his 34. Competition is your friend; just don’t go overboard with it. No reason you can’t have a friendly competition.</p>
<p>My children are rising eighth and ninth graders and they both took the June 8 test in hopes of getting a 30, which will allow them to dual enroll in the local college. They both participated in Duke TIP, and a 30 is not totally out of reach for either of them. They will continue to take it until they are happy with their score or until they can’t take it anymore.</p>
<p>^^ Um seems more like unhealthy competition but ok…</p>
<p>Competition is really unhealthy if you take it to the extremes. However, along with wanting to improve, competition is sort of a motivation to do better.</p>
<p>Yeah I agree competition can be very helpful academically. Makes you push your brain to its fullest potential. I raised my grades and test scores with a little help from healthy competition.</p>
<p>If we’re still sharing strategies, I found in the science section that it was easiest to read the questions first, then refer to the graphs and charts. Really, the science section takes no knowledge of the subject; It’s all graph reading and logic. (I got a 36 on that section, by the way.)
As for math, that got way easier after pre-calc (my score: 34)
Reading required practice. I did about three practice reading tests to raise my score from 26 to 36.
English… I don’t know. My teacher spent about a month drilling it into our heads, but I still only got a 34. That’s one you just have to be good at.
Anyway, if you’re getting high 20s as a freshman, you’re in good shape. Try it after pre-calc and maybe a good science class and I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>I’m a terrible person, and didn’t study at all for either of the two that I took. However, I got a 32 first time and a 34 second.</p>
<p>So, you may not even have to study. Just go with what you know. Familiarize yourself with the testing process (it sounds like you already have) and don’t get overwhelmed with practice tests. You’ll still do fine. Since you still have a long time to go before you graduate high school, take one ACT and study diddly squat. See how it goes and then decide if you want to put a lot of time and effort into getting ready for one test.</p>