<p>The people telling you to relax are just as much help as the people giving you Act advice. You can have a perfect 36 act, 2400 sat, and infinite 800’s on all subject tests etc and still get declined from harvard and other top schools. </p>
<p>Colleges want a well-rounded person and you can infact get into a college with bad scores due to extra-cirricular alone. You can also guarantee the fact you will get into a college you want by having both outstanding extra cirricular activities and test scores.</p>
<p>Being 100% serious: dude you are already pretty ahead of the college game. not saying you should stop studying and trying to improve your scores, but HONESTLY the best thing you could possibly do at this time is pick up <em>many EC’s</em> or get <em>really</em> good at one.</p>
<p>Come on guys, I never asked for life advice here. Please stop posting such things. And btw, it is impossible for me to get “really good” at any ec because I am going to an academy for my junior and senior year. My school right now has virtually nothing in common with this school, so no ec could overlap.</p>
<p>Anyway, I am still accepting any ACT advice. :)</p>
<p>Not trying to be a dick or anything here, but If you didn’t want people to post that stuff, maybe you shouldn’t have titled your thread “High School Freshman retaking ACT”</p>
<p>Here is ACT advice. Since you have so many more test dates to take the ACT, start reading classic novels, jotting down all the words you don’t know on flashcards. By the time you’re a junior or senior, you’d be surprised how much better you are at reading. It’s very unlikely to make drastic changes, particularly in reading, in short periods of time.</p>
<p>The reading section is something that is learned through years. Thats why you need to keep reading books. This will help your reading comprehension. You will be a super ACT kid by the time you get to your junior year if you are already starting. I plan to look at stuff for the GRE my freshman year of college. Just keep practicing doing reading passages to improve. Maybe do a passage a day and you will be a reading maniac! Try different strategies. You have awhile before you seriously have to worry about it, but it is good that you have started looking at stuff now. DON’T make it a priority though, because you don’t need to put that pressure on yourself so early.</p>
<p>So basically, to improve your reading just practice. To improve your english and math, get a book and do the practice problems and read over the rules of grammar and math. You seem to be good with math considering what you are in. </p>
<p>It looks like you have science covered.</p>
<p>GOOD LUCK! You will do great on the test because you will have so much time to prepare.</p>
<p>You’re wasting your time and your money. You aren’t going to get a score you are satisfied with during your freshman or probably sophomore year, so do you simply plan on retaking it two to three times every year until Jr./Sr. year? Could just take the practice tests if you like and save yourself some money. </p>
<p>Not the comment you were looking for but this topic is ridiculous enough for me to post it anyway imo lol.</p>
<p>Okay, take the ACT after 10th ATLEAST because there’s so many things you haven’t learned yet. You could take the ACT like 40 times before 10th if it was allowed and your score would never drastically change. You have to learn more through tedious work. </p>
<p>I stress taking the ACT after 10th for a serious score because 10th grade teaches a lot more than you might think. Sign up for some honors english, a more difficult math class (like precalc), and chemisty-- and by the end of 10th your scores will improve if you put in a lot of effort. Before 10th grade I had a 28 as my highest score(Now I look back, what a damn waste of time… My score never really changed much from the 1rst time), and after taking the Test in June, my score is now a 32! I never expected to get over a 30 but from taking Calculus, Honors English, and Chem (understanding the techy jargon on the ACT makes it much easier to manage. Chem helps a bit on like 4-6 questions) I was able to improve my score signficantly.</p>
<p>Mindset:
On the test day, get lots of sleep, eat over 2000 calories even if you’re anorexic, watch youtube vids or anything fun, have fun, screw around, and just be very positive on life even if you’re an extensionalist. Good mind set and lotsa sleep > any studying or cramming you can do the night before trust me. I tried doing practice questions from one of those ACT books just yesterday–I got all of them wrong and had to read each question 4-5 times… Why? 'Cause I was tired and not in the best mood. If my mind set was that crappy on the real test, I would have a much lower score.</p>
<p>lmao. most of the stuff for the test you should just wait for. i’m sure if you take alg 2, and pre cal, your math will pick up by itself.</p>
<p>as for the reading, read books… that should make you be able to read faster?
but anyways, these are skills that should be acquired over a long term. I don’t think you should be taking it yet.</p>
<p>so, to sum it up. “relax, wait till your junior year”</p>
<p>cjgone’s comments are interesting. I coerced my daughter (who was a 8th grader) to take June’s test and have a composite score of 28 (E 32, M 25, R 27 S 29 and W 08). This was her first ACT. I will not sign her up for another test before 11th grade since she was not motivated to prepare.</p>
<p>I was surprised by her science score since she never prepared for ACT. What she told me was she did not read the problems, she went to questions directly. I never took the test and am not sure students are supposd to do.</p>
<p>egbert, blatantly ignoring the advice of plenty of people who have completed high school doesn’t make you any smarter or cooler or whatever adjective you want to use. it’s just a test. if you want to take it a hundred times, i couldn’t care less. but why would you waste that money? the test is DESIGNED for those who have at least completed sophomore year, and easier still for juniors and seniors. i’m sure all of the people that have tried to help you said what they did because they’ve been through high school… honestly, schools aren’t going to want a kid who can’t take constructive criticism (or at least pretend to).</p>
<p>But see, those people are not giving me constructive criticism. I stated very clearly that I was looking for test advice, not advice on my personal or high school life.</p>
<p>They are not “dumb comments” though just because they do not directly answer your question. Sometimes the best answers are those that do not give it to you directly. The people on here are giving very good advice. It is also test advice, but you just don’t understand.<br>
You see, people are telling you to hold off until 11th grade because that is the best test advice. The ACT is designed to test your college preparedness. You are not prepared as a freshman or sophomore because there is a lot you haven’t learned. The ACT is all about a process. You learn as you grow and this test is designed to test juniors in high school. The test makers look at the normal curriculum and base the test off of this. So there is stuff on the ACT that you have not even seen yet (such as some math questions). Also, notice how the science section covers all of the basic sciences. This is because the test makers believe that by the end of your junior year you should have gone through all of these subjects and therefore better understand the charts and questions.
So in general, the best advice for you is to wait. That is why people are telling you that. Do what you wish, but your score will improve with more experience.</p>
<p>“So there is stuff on the ACT that you have not even seen yet (such as some math questions).”</p>
<p>I will have a really intensive precal course done by the next date, and I will be in the middle of AP Calculus BC.</p>
<p>“Also, notice how the science section covers all of the basic sciences. This is because the test makers believe that by the end of your junior year you should have gone through all of these subjects and therefore better understand the charts and questions.”</p>
<p>This coming year, I am signed up for AP Physics B, AP Biology, and AP Chemistry. I think that I will have a pretty good grasp on the science. ;)</p>
<p>They ARE giving me dumb advice. They have no idea how much I have learned since June about every subject on the ACT. They just assume that because they thought taking the ACT early was pointless, it doesn’t mean that I’m not significantly different.</p>
<p>Please guys, stop posting about things other than direct ACT advice.</p>
