Hello, I am a rising junior and I took the ACT last september: 30C 33(eng) 27(math) 30(read) 31(science)
So, I panicked on the math mid-exam because I didn’t know any trig or alg 2, but I’ve raised that to around a 33. I’m taking the ACT this september and hoping for at least a 33, but I still can’t raise my science and reading scores(especially science). What should I do? Do practice passages until my brain is fried or wait until the new march SAT? Thanks.
By the way, I’m a straight A AP student, I just hate passage questions— I overthink them.
Hey fairagoura, I have the same problem with Reading and Science. I think the best way to improve is to do timed drills for these sections and find your weaknesses. For the reading section, you should find out which passages (i.e. Prose, Social Science etc.) you score less on and do them more. And the same goes for science: find out which type of passages are hard and practice them more. For most, the conflicting viewpoints is the hardest science passage. Plus, timing is a big issue for these sections. So basically, practice! practice! practice!
And if you want to wait for the new SAT, go ahead. Personally, I prefer the ACT to the SAT. But your opinion may be different so I advise that you take a practice SAT and see if you like it.
For the science passages, just remember that every answer is given to you in the passage in a relatively explicit way; it’s not like school where you’re analyzing the data.
With science and reading, repeated drills have worked best for me. Try taking a practice ACT by taking two science and reading tests back to back (instead of math and English).
With science, do not read the passage beforehand. The majority of the questions will ask about specific figures or data --do those first. After completing those, you will have a pretty good idea of the experiments and can then answer the general questions. As you’ve probably figured out, the science section is just a convoluted reading section.
Thank you so much for the tips guys! 