<p>I will be taking the ACT on September, and plan to prepare for it during summer. I was wondering if I could prepare well enough with prep books (such as The Real ACT and/or Kaplan). Do you know of anyone who have scored perfectly, or close to perfect? If so what was his/her strategy? Any advice is more than welcome.</p>
<p>I actually took the June administration of the test this year, and even though I haven’t gotten my scores back yet, I feel confident enough to give you some tips. I really recommend using the Real ACT book for all of your practice test needs. I really haven’t used any other prep books (didn’t take any courses either), as I found them unnecessary.
Now onto strategy…
English: If you’ve ever taken the SAT, you should be similar to the difficulty of its questions. However, the English on the ACT is much simpler to comprehend; in fact, it’s kind of like revising a friend’s essay. As always, whenever taking practice tests, make sure that you understand why you missed a problem, if indeed, you did miss one. 75 questions in 45 minutes.
Math: If you haven’t taken trigonometry/Algebra III/Pre-Calculus, you should acquaint yourself with basic trigonometry skills. SOH-CAH-TOA, the unit circle, and all that goodness. These questions are really straightforward, so if you’ve been doing well in math classes in school, these should pose no problem. 60 questions in 60 minutes.
Reading: Once again, if you’ve taken the SAT, the ACT Reading questions are much simpler in comparison. Most of the answers come verbatim from the passage. Whenever I take this part, I typically skim the passage (about 1 minute each) to ascertain where the information in the passage lies. I immediately jump, then, to the questions and answer them by seeking key words and phrases. 40 questions in 35 minutes.
Science: Seriously, here, just jump to the questions. Not even kidding. You don’t have enough time to sit there and analyze every single passage and graph and chart and table and whatever else they throw at you. Science is your typical glorified reading section. It wouldn’t exactly help to know detailed information in biology, chemistry, or physics, but by the same token, it also wouldn’t hurt. 40 questions in 35 minutes.</p>
<p>What do you think about taking several practice tests? I got a 20 the first time I took the real test, and a 27 the second time. The first time I took it I was freaking out about it. It surely didn’t help. Then, the second time, I took my time on each question. It helped me somehow, although I didn’t have an option but to bubble the “letter of the day” on the questions I didn’t know when time was running out. </p>
<p>Do you think that doing practice tests will bring me up to the 30’s?</p>
<p>Taking practice tests would most certainly help you boost your score. Something to be careful of is to only take the allotted amount of time in each section of the test. In doing this, you get more used to the speed needed to excel and also become accustomed to the general layout of the test more quickly.</p>
<p>Did you take a lot of practice tests before the real thing?</p>
<p>I took 2. On the first one, I got a 31, and on the second one, a 32.</p>
<p>Don’t kill yourself with too many practice tests, because you’ll end up going into the test with the mentality of “Great… another one.”.</p>
<p>You’ve probably heard this before, but you’re smart! What classes are you taking in high school? What college do you want to go to? What score are you shooting for on the ACT? I’m just curious.</p>
<p>Let’s see… I want either a 34 or 35 (a 36 would be nice too, but I won’t retake it if I get either a 34 or 35) on the ACT with a 10-12 essay.</p>
<p>College-wise, I’m thinking Yale, or U of Washington, mainly for Medical School.</p>
<p>Last year (sophomore), I took:
Honors English II
Honors Algebra II
Honors Spanish III
Honors Chemistry
AP Music Theory
AP European History
AP Biology</p>
<p>This year, I’ll be taking:
AP English III (Language and Composition)
AP Chemistry
AP US History
Honors Pre-Calculus
Honors Physics
Honors Spanish IV
Creative Writing</p>
<p>Very impressive. I have to say that you were a lot of help. Thank you very much! Good luck on your college admissions!</p>
<p>No problem and thanks! 
Same to you! Good luck in your future ACT and college endeavors!</p>