How i went from an 18 to a 31 in ONE year.

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
1

<p>So i took the ACT in June of '07. I thought i was going to do well on it, as I am a pretty good student in school. I had never taken the ACT before, so i took it cold. Here were my results the first time I took it.</p>

<p>C:18
E:17
M:22
M:17
S:16</p>

<p>Then after taking the test a year later, here is what i got</p>

<p>C:31
E:35
M:35
R:30
S:25</p>

<p>So here is what i did to raise my score. At my school, I got one of those free ACT practice test booklets that the ACT hands out every year. You can go to actstudent.org and find them.</p>

<p>Then i went and i got the red act book. </p>

<p>Before I started to study, I went around looking for official practice tests from the ACT. I knew that these would be the only "real" way to gauge what I could do. I got my June '07 with the answers back. Then I found some on the ACT website, and then I got a friend to let me copy his book an answers from a few previous dates. Also i found this book on ebay. </p>

<p>Getting into the Act by Act (1997)</p>

<p>And finally i got the big blue SAT book. That was the most help.</p>

<p>So i had about 11 official ACT tests and practices after my search</p>

<p>3 practice:Red Book
1 2005-2006 ACT practice
1 2006-2007 ACT practice
1 2007-2008 ACT practice
1 June 2007 ACT TEST
1 April 2007 ACT TEST</p>

<h2>3 practice: blue/white ACT book from 1997.</h2>

<p>11 total
Here is my secret to what i did.</p>

<p>I went through ONLY the Math and English parts of the official practice tests. I heard these were the easiest areas to improve on so i attacked those first.</p>

<p>For 11 days, I did the math and english parts of all the tests. This was around mid july 07. </p>

<p>The most important aspect of taking those tests was not the actual taking them. It was why I got problems wrong. I would spend hours trying to figure out why i got some certain english and math problems wrong. It was like my brain was trying to tackle a grizzly bear. It made my head hurt literally. All i would see was english and math in my dreams.
<em>To do well you must understand the principle behind the problems</em>*</p>

<p><em>Do not ever write in the ACT practice books</em>*</p>

<p>After i took the first ACT practice test, i stored it away intact. I would do the test in time, but if i came upon a math problem that i did not understand, I would stop the timer and try to figure it out, no matter what. My math and english scores went up about 2 points each after taking the first initial practice test. All my work was done on a white sheet of computer paper, where i numberd it myself and kept it in a neat order. These answer sheets were essential in getting my score up.</p>

<p>Then I took the second practice test. I noticed that my scores went up about 1 point in each subject from the first practice test. On my answer sheet i circled all the numbers that i got wrong and stored it away carefully.</p>

<p>Naturally after going through the practice tests and circluing on my answer page the ones i got wrong(NOT IN THE BOOK!!!!!) my scores raised to about a 29 in math and a 27 in english. Those were pretty good for me, but i wanted higher. This is where my old answer sheets came in.</p>

<p>I would cross reference different ACT tests on the questions i missed to see if i were missing a princple. And sure enough I was missing them all over the place in english. I missed things like where to put commas and what is rhetorically correct. This did not take much time to do, because there arent that many principles on the tests.</p>

<p>The same thing happend for math. I would realize i would miss most of the last 10-12 problems. I knew how to do most of them, but i always fell for the tricks. To get my mind to recoginize tricks i turned to the Big BLUE official SAT book.</p>

<p>There i did all the math practice tests. I did 1 aobut every 2 days becuase i was tired of studying. I would notice that these questions were tricky from the beggining. And the last ones were really tough. It took my mind a while sometimes to figure out why i was missing them. I had done the math section of that book the same way i did the ACT: did not write in it, but wrote and kept on the answer sheet. The SAT math tests got easier and easier.</p>

<p>Then i lied dormant from about Septemeber to May with no studyign at all. </p>

<p>I had the june 08 ACT coming up, I knew i had to get back in shape. I started in mid may.</p>

<p>I pulled out my 11 practice tests(they were not written on, off course).</p>

<p>I worked the math and english portions again, and the results were pretty good. My brain knew what to look out for in Math and English. After doing the first practice test, i got the score of 30 and 30 each. I went back to my old answer sheets to see if i missed any of the same questions, and if I did, pay extra time studyign that problem. As i went through the practice tests, my scores went constintly higher in Math and English. They ranged from a 30-36 in english, to a 29-31 in Math. Those last 10 were the bane of my existance. I would miss less of them, but still i would miss at least 5 or 6 of them. I still had 2 practice tests that I had not reworked.</p>

<p>Then i went back to the faithful SAT book. I reworked not all, but alot of the harder problems from that book in MATH. Then i went back to those 2 practice tests that i had not reworked. The results were astounding. I got a 35 and a 34 on the math sections. My brain had finally evolved and adapted to take on hard math problems. It had a much easier time with english.</p>

<p>Come ACT day, i thought the math and english were a breeze. 35 on both. As for reading and science, ill post my stratagy another time on those. Those were completely different animals that i have yet to fully tame.</p>

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<p>ty dude…that helps mucho…waiting for ur reading and science strategies.
:)</p>

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<p>Can you link to that SAT book?</p>

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<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The Official SAT Study Guide: The College Board: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874477182]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874477182)</p>

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<p>You are amazing, I can only imagine the will power and focus you have! My first ACT score was 28, and my second was a 30, M-34 Eng-32 R-29 Sc-25
I am aiming for a 32+ but will be content with a 32, gotta take it this september. I will be taking about, 1 or 2 sections as practice at home about every 4 days. Then on weekends i will take the exam in bulk/at once, in the morning, to improve my stamina and concentration.</p>

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<p>kthnx so much. I am gonna try this out. I need to know what to use to ace the reading and science parts though.</p>

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<p>so im back with reading startagies</p>

<p>NOTE: I am still working these out, and the information could change.</p>

<p>Ok so for the reading. </p>

<p>On the natural and social science passages, I have found that it is best to briefly skim these passages. You can either try reading the first and last scentences of each paragraph on those. It seems to work for me. I can get a general idea of what each passage is talking about. But sometimes i underline things that i think might be key ideas and i also underline techincal details of passages. For the Natural and Social sciences, the info is seak out. Most of it does not ask for deep meaning of things.</p>

<p>For the other 2 passages, I would reccommend thourgly reading these, but not to the point where you loose massive amounts of time. For me, if i skim through these passages I dont understand them have to waste even more time trying to find the relavent info in the passage. I read them and try to understand whats going on. That way you can answer the questions pretty quickly and not have to go back to the passage. </p>

<p>These reading stratagies seem to work for me, but everybody is different. </p>

<p>Finding out what works for you in reading is analagous to spending 2 weeks in a cave meditating trying to find your soul. It is a long and ardous processes, but once you know what works for you, you can highly develop and hone the technique. </p>

<p>Also doing reading passages in the red book is extremely important, because the ACT people explain why every answer is wrong. That way you learn techniques to the ACT reading. You learn to watch out for things.</p>

<p>I have not tried these new stratagies out on an ACT practice test yet. These have been recently developed, but the official scores in the practice books show a 30-33 in reading. </p>

<hr>

<p>As for science, I am still developing a stratagy, but i will keep everyone posted when i figure something out that is for us normal people, who don’t look at scientific graphs all day long and who don’t have etremely fast processing skills.</p>

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<p>The big blue SAT book does not have the solutions to the answers, but it does have the answers. Luckly if you go to the SAT preperation page, they have the answers and explinations to all the math problems.</p>

<p>If you are stuck on a math problem from the SAT blue book, PM and i will type out the solution and how to work the problem. For me know, those problems are a breeze. It really goes to show how your mind can adapt and how much it can grow.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the tips! And congrats on getting a 31.</p>

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<p>Congratulations. That is quite amazing. I got a 28 the first time, 29 the second time, and aiming for a 31 in September.</p>

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<p>wow… 18 to 31 in a year.. that’s very impressive.. that makes my 30 to a 35 in a year seem dinky b/c i only went up 5 points… you went up 13… very nice job.. with that rate of increase, you’re bound to get a 33+ or so on the test, i’m sure.. congrats and bravo!</p>

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<p>peytoncline, i would say that you going from a 30 to a 35 is much more impressive. I set the bar pretty low so it was not hard to increase. But with a 30, it is hard to increase by a few points because 1 question alot of the time is worth 1 point. What strategy did you use if you have even used one? I am no where close to having a 100% efficient study method. </p>

<p>I bet its just that you have are naturally alot more smarter than i am. Congrats on the 35</p>

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<p>Wow..this is probably the best act-help post! That’s amazing how you went up so much!!!</p>

<p>So you’re basically saying for math I should do all the problems in the SAT Blue Book, and all the problems in real ACTs ONLY? (11 real ACTs you found)? </p>

<p>My plan originally was to keep doing practice tests and I have kaplan, PR, and the red book. Should I still keep doing kaplan and princeton review anyways, and then move on to the real tests? And should one do all the tests timed? Thanks</p>

<p>I need to make the jump from a 25 composite to at least a 30. Blahh. =/</p>

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<p>comet88, ur wrong. a finalist at our school got rejected</p>

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<p>great job, mc3. congratulations :)</p>

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<p>Not sure how many people this will help since most CCers have over a 30
but for those who don’t it’s certainly an invaluable study aid</p>

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<p>im basically in the same boat as you. screwed off in school, got a 3.3 unweighted GPA (3.7 weighted), and now learned a lesson.</p>

<p>i want to go to UC Santa Barbara/ U of Illinois Urbana Champaign, but my grades are drafgging me down. so only way is getting a good ACT score.</p>

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<p>Wheres the link to the SAT preparation page?</p>

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<p>dude your dedicated man. i wish i could focus like you. i’m going to try to follow this plan. thanks a lot!</p>

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<p>^^^ yeah.. improving that much in a year is a great accomplishment</p>