The prepscholar site suggests this strategy and notes these advantages:
“…you focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You also eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8’s answer into question 7’s slot. By saving just 5 seconds per question, you get back 300 seconds on the 60 questions. This is huge.”
Given the time constraints of the ACT, seems like a good strategy. The only downside I can see is the possibility of running out of time to bubble in answers.
anyone try this?
btw, my daughter tried the prepscholar site and thought it was well designed with good content. However, she was scoring 34 and 35s on practice tests and there wasn’t enough helpful content for her so we canceled our trial. There’s a lot of great free content on the site and I would have had no qualms signing my daughter up if she was scoring below a 32.
This alone seems significant enough to the point that I wouldn’t suggest waiting until the end to bubble in answers (I also scored a 36 on ACT math). Gridding errors might be more likely if you have to rush near the end to fill in those last few answers. But each to his own.
I think choosing when to bubble in the answers, especially on the math section, is overkill. Focus on understanding the concepts better that way time won’t be as much of a problem. I always grid question-by-question on the math section. However, for English and Reading, it can be helpful to grid after each passage, so that the material is fresh when answering the questions.
I would recommend filling in the answers after completing each question. This way the question is fresh in memory and you are likely to grid the answer accurately. Of course one needs to pay close attention to writing the answer correctly and in the correct spot. If you postpone it for later, you have to ensure that you write the answer clearly in your booklet and mark it in a way that makes it clear that it is the answer you are supposed to grid. But if gridding the answers at the end comes naturally to you, then go for it.
my d practiced this and found it saved quite a bit of time. In the end, it was of course her decision, but she decided to use the strategy on the actual test.
Make sure you start filling your answers when there is three minutes left, whether or not you are done. If you have extra time after you have gridded all your answers, you may go back to whatever problem you were on and complete it/finish checking it. I always gridded at the end. I don’t know if this actually saved me time, but in theory it should.