I recently took the February ACT and got my scores back. 27 English 28 Math 31 Reading 24 Science and a composite of 28. My whole life I have gotten very high grades and was hoping to score in the low 30’s as this was my first non-practice ACT. I want to apply at some top colleges and am hoping to get my ACT up to at least a 32 or better. Is this realistically possible and if so how can I achieve this?
…By the way I felt rushed on each test especially the science portion, I am planning on using the McGraw Hill ACT 2014 prep guide but I have heard it isn’t that great.
My daughter and all of her friends got higher scores the second time they took it. Most of them did nothing to prep for it the second time. My daughter and her best friend both got 29s and then got 31s the next time they took it. My daughter did work her way through a practice book over the summer since she was taking it in September. A 31 was enough to get her into the schools she wanted and to be awarded their highest merit awards. If she would have had one more point on any section she would have been able to round up to a 32. I have to wonder if she had done more test prep if she could have gotten the 32 or 33. My daughter thought the biggest thing she did to raise her math score was just to complete her junior year. You got a very good first score, so I wouldn’t view it as disappointing. Just view it as your first score.
I would recommend the red book released by the test makers. It should be the most accurate measurement. If you’re having trouble with timing, the only real solution is to practice. You may want to start without a time limit and give yourself a chance to have a good look at the question and get a feel for how you should reason out your answers. Then try to speed up. For the English and Math sections, your speed will probably increase just by learning more, especially the English. Learn the grammar rules that you make mistakes on. You should definitely learn when to use what type of punctuation (http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/act/chapter5section1.rhtml gives a quick run through). For the science portion, it may be beneficial to just quickly skim over the introductory paragraphs that tell you what everything is talking about then quickly go to the questions (a lot of people even completely skip over the paragraphs, but I personally feel more confident giving them a quick skim to understand a little better). Since the questions usually specify what graph or section they are talking about, you shouldn’t have to analyze the charts or graphs before you start the questions. I think you should be fine if you just practice more. It’s best to practice just one section at a time, so that you can really spend time to specialize in each (for example, if you decide to work on english, do all of the english sections instead of going through a whole test).