Good idea or not? Take 1st ACT without accommodations and with no prep

<p>It's been recommended that my child take her first ACT test without accommodations and with no test prep as a kind of "baseline." And, don't send scores to any school. Then, take subsequent ACT with the accommodations and prep. Is this a crazy idea? I have no clue. </p>

<p>I don’t think that is a great idea. I would at least do a prep course so that she knows what the test is like and take several timed practice exams as well. This will give her the confidence to go into the real test feeling comfortable with the format at least. You could see how her timing is on the practice tests to determine if the accommodations will be needed. I understand it has gotten very difficult to get accommodations. Keep in mind that many schools require you to send all of your results to them, not just your best ones, so if you have a bad first test, it could have a negative impact.</p>

<p>For the ACT if your child scores greater than 19-20 getting accomodations will be difficult.
The reason is that this is average and acquired without accomodations.
You can apply for accomodations and if granted you can test without them.
The other way around is almost impossible.</p>

<p>NO! Absolutely not. Hoosier96 has it exactly right. If she scores in the average range or better without accommodations, the ACT WILL NOT give them to her. I’m texting with one of my current students about the same thing right now. I hate telling her not to take it Saturday, but it’s the right thing!</p>

<p>If that reason alone isn’t enough to persuade you, why on earth would you take it with no prep? It’s a waste of money and time. If she wants a baseline, take an official practice test at home. There are several free official tests available online for practice.</p>

<p>So glad you posted the question. Good luck to your daughter!</p>

<p>This is a great idea if you’re participating in a statistical analysis of how ACT scores can be improved upon with subsequent prep/testing. I’m guessing that’s not your scenario. Whether to accept accommodations is a very personal decision. That aside, I would never recommend taking a test like this without prep. You’re basically saying the first test is a throwaway. So what is the advantage?</p>

<p>My D is ADHD and is taking without accommodations (we’ve never asked for accommodations). Taking with meds. I guess. It’s her body. She has prepped and is scoring 30s on the practice test so let’s hope that carries over. I don’t recommend taking without prep (she took a school wide practice test without prep). Holding back on sending scores till we see how she does. She did abysmally on the practice test and then got serious about prep. </p>

<p>I want to make sure that you also know that if your child takes the ACT with accommodations, it extends the test to five hours – but those five hours are not regulated by a proctor or anything like that. It is completely up to the student to determine how much time to spend on each section. The first time my son took the ACT, he only finished the first three sections, and maybe answered a few questions on the last section before he ran out of time.</p>

<p>As we prepared for the next attempt at the ACT, we carefully watched how much time it took for him to complete each section. We had our son work at speeding up EACH SECTION, so that he could make sure to make it to the Science section of the test (which is where his best efforts would pay off). He definitely improved.</p>

<p>I’ve been chewing on this all day, and I agree with you guys. There is nothing to be gained from a raw, no-accommodations, no-prep first-time ACT. She’s planning on the June ACT, so there will be a good number of weekends to do practice tests, get the timing down, & study any gaps. I’ll also let her school know on Monday we have to arrange the accommodations. Because she’s had years of IEPs, neuropsych evals, RTC placement, and is now in a sped school, all involved believe she’ll qualify for the accommodations (but, you never know!). She’s our one and only, so all this is new to us. Also, because she’s in a tiny sped school, we are not part of the great college-prep trail you’d find at a general high school. Thanks for your wise advice! </p>

<p>Absolutely not, don’t do it. My son took the PSAT without accommodations and is in the commended range for NMS. He took an AP exam without accommodations and got a 3. Although he did get “decent” scores on them, they do not relate to his level of prep and taking the practice exams at home with accommodations (extra time is not an accommodation though).</p>

<p>And if you are set on a “baseline”, your child should at least prepare for it, because if you let slip “eh, she didn’t even look at one practice exam before the test”, they will look upon that most unfavorably. Unethical to recommend that to you, it would be accommodations with studying that would be a fair baseline.</p>

<p>The point is not to get a higher score, the point is to not let the disability interfere. In my son’s case, and I would say in other cases of students with ADHD and some other LD’s, it could matter on a particular day whether the accommodations were absolutely necessary. But the accommodation is intended to level the playing field so the disability does not interfere.</p>

<p>Thanks. Now, we just need to get the school to start talking to us about this. I should probably read the accommodations info at CB and ACT soon, so I can start figuring out the timing on accommodations request/s, appeals if needed, etc. </p>

<p>More and more highly selective schools require or strongly request all scores from all standardized testing. If those types of schools are on your radar, there is no “throw away” score. Stanford, for example, requires ALL ACT and SATs taken.</p>

<p>From this feedback, we’ve decided it’s best for DD to aim for her best possible scores each time she takes a test. She will not be in the tribe of students aiming for highly selective schools, however. She’s looking for a a low-stress LAC with small classes. I’ll ask her neuropsychologist what he thinks her ACT/SAT scores will be based on her most recent neuropsych testing. I can’t imagine the ACT being much over 25 - but we really have no clue yet. </p>

<p>Or you could just give her a practice test for each and see how she does?</p>

<p>Yep. Doing that. It’s difficult to figure out practice test sessions if there might be test accommodations based on functional impact of disability. So, we’ll try out everything and hope for the best. </p>

<p>My daughter has AD/HD Innattentive. She took the ACT the first time without extended time and got a 19. We were able to get her 504 plan accommodations sent to the ACT testing board and got approval for the extended time. My daughter actually finished the next time in about the same amount of time because you are allowed to do each section at your own pace. She said it was so much less stressful than the first time. She got a 21 her second time. For her this was a good score as we were not looking at highly competitive schools. Best of luck to your daughter!</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>I’d recommend against taking without accommodations and had my son wait. Not so much because they won’t grant accommodations after a normal score, but because it may set expectations of the HS and the kid. </p>

<p>For other reasons, my daughter, whose LDs are less debilitating, took the PSATs without and then a year later with accommodations and her improvement made it easier to argue with the ACT to give her the same accommodations. Incidentally, she did reasonably well the first time but significantly better the second time so that didn’t disqualify her for accommodations at the ACT, which was the test she wanted to take. My son took the both tests within a month. Did very well on both. If we had gotten the SAT results sooner, he might not have taken the ACTs. My daughter did well enough on the ACTs that she didn’t retake, though I think with some work, she could have gotten 2 points higher. </p>

<p>Incidentally both did or are doing well in college. So there is light at the end of the tunnel, though I think it came in part from picking schools and programs well. </p>

<p>One option is to pay a private consultant to do a practice test under testing conditions. They use actual past tests so you can get an idea of how your child is likely to do when time pressure, unfamiliar surroundings, and stress are factored in. You can then target her test prep to her areas of greatest weakness and look at whether or not you think she’d benefit from extra time.</p>

<p>Great ideas. Thank you.</p>

<p>A change of plans: Now, the plan is to delay taking the ACT for the first time until fall. Just do unrecorded practice tests prior to that, instead. </p>