<p>I am giving the ACT in a little while and need to know what to do to bring my ACT score up for English and reading. I just gave a practice test and my results were:
English:26
Math:36
Reading:24
Science:34
I made a composite score of 30 and I want to Bring that up to a 33+ and Tips or tricks or books that you would recommend would be great and if not too much please post your stats up as well.
Thanks</p>
<p>I’m not sure about reading (I have like a 26 in that), but I do know a thing or two relating to English.</p>
<p>I started out with an 16-18 ACT English Score, which made me quite angry at school…
I spent about two months or so doing hardcore studying.</p>
<p>The studying I did was actually quite simple, however.</p>
<p>All I did was pick up a 200 page basic grammar book and studied it like crazy. After I had the pure basics down I started to take a lot of practice tests via McGraw Hill.</p>
<p>I plateaued at about 30ish for the ACT English Section. Then I thought to myself, why did I plateau even though the questions I get wrong are near nowhere similar to the previous practice tests?</p>
<p>I figured out you have to be a good test taker. Literally, read every answer choice, and contemplate to yourself what the test makers are thinking, and differentiate between the answer choices. </p>
<p>After doing that I boosted up to a 33/34 simply by getting near 100% on grammar.
The rhetorical questions are easy to improve because you usually miss the same types.</p>
<p>BUT PLZ give me help for science I used to be really good at it, 30+ but my score has decreased a lot and I don’t know why (or maybe I’m taking weird practice tests).</p>
<p>SCIENCE:</p>
<p>Science is probably the section least like the subject that bears its name, at least on the surface. In reality, it’s less physics and chemistry and more “interpreting tables/charts/graphs/etc.” mixed with a bit of “compare these two scientists/students/etc.” as a Science version of reading comprehension.</p>
<p>There are three types of passages in the Science section. You do the first two one way and the last a different way.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Data Representation (3 of these, 5 questions each): almost entirely charts/graphs/etc. with few words. Tend to be the most straightforward.</p></li>
<li><p>Research Summaries (3 of these, 6 questions each): paragraphs mixed with charts/graphs/etc. Tend to revolve around several experiments that you have to examine in isolation and in comparison with one another.</p></li>
<li><p>Conflicting Viewpoints (1 of these, 7 questions): two or three short passages written by “students”, “scientists”, etc. They all talk about the same topic, but have different stances on a key issue.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here are my strategies for the first two:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Read the short blurb at the top of the page to get a very vague, general idea of what you’re dealing with, and then go straight to the questions. Not only does this save time, but it reinforces the central theme of taking the Science successfully: the focus isn’t on understanding the material, but on just answering the questions correctly.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t try to understand the material beyond what you absolutely have to. It wastes time and will usually needlessly confuse you. The ACT makers don’t expect you to be an expert on engines, pendulums, lightning, or God knows what (as can be seen by the fact that comprehension isn’t necessary to answer the questions correctly), so you shouldn’t either.</p></li>
<li><p>Even in the Research summaries passages, the vast majority of questions will be found in the charts/graphs/tables/etc., so spend your time there. Only if you can’t find it there (and sometimes you won’t) should you look to the paragraphs.</p></li>
<li><p>Watch out for the little things. This is the main trademark of high scorers in the Science: they are careful. Most questions people miss have to do with little things like negative signs (-100 is not less than -500, it’s greater), not noticing differences in decimal places or scientific notation between different numbers, automatically assuming that the two things next to one another in a table are what you should be comparing, assuming that the table is in order of least to greatest or vice versa, and so on. Take the time to be careful.</p></li>
<li><p>Take the time to memorize the simple graphs and what they mean about the data they’re representing. These include positive slopes, negative slopes, flat lines, vertical lines, “peaks” (line goes up then down; these lines look like mountain peaks), “valleys” (line goes down then up; these lines look like valleys as well as the letter “v”), exponential-based curve (slope keeps increasing), and the limit curve (slope keeps decreasing, or trending toward a specific flat line). These kinds of graphs all tell you something about their data. Not only will you have to sometimes have to choose between several graphs, but it can also help you with random problems to quickly draw the data’s overall trend</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@ACT33or34
Vey good strategies on the science sections. Even though I got a good score on the science, I think that your post will help me! With that said, I need help with my Reading score. I have done decent on the English (~27), but my Reading scores are not turning out, (~20). I have discovered my problem in this section is that I do not enjoy reading, and I rarely read. My words per minute is quite slow, and I can only finish 3 of the 4 sections. Assuming 80% are correct, and completely guessing on the Humanities passage, I score about 25-28/40 correct.Since I enjoy science, I usually skip the humanities and go for the science passage in the Reading. I have heard that reading about interesting topics are easier to retain. My question is what are some are some techniques for reading faster and finishing that last passage. I have looked up some speed reading techniques, but none of them seem legitimate. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Just as PizzaFatFace suggested, speed reading is so helpful. Stay focused as you do this or it will be pointless. I speed read for about 1:30 and then by then I have a feel for the passage and even have memorized where a few key words are. I go to the questions and breeze through. Try to absorb the question and possible answers carefully though because rereading eats up your time. You should be able to finish the passage in 8:30 minutes. It takes practice though. Also, work confidently but NOT carelessly.</p>
<p>I only have 2 or 3 weeks until the test, and I feel that my reading speed is still not up to par. It takes me, on average, 4-5 minutes to read the passage and another 5-6 to answer the questions. I can finish 3 passages getting around 8-9 of the ten correct. My problem isn’t the difficulty, it is the time restraints. Do you have any tips for increasing reading speed significantly in a couple weeks?</p>
<p>Speed reading 
if you google it you’ll find instructions on how to do it:)</p>
<p>good luck guys!</p>
<p>If you don’t mind me asking, what book did you use to study off of? The grammar book?</p>