<p>Hi this is my first time posting and I would appreciate any help! I'm a junior and I just looked at my scores from my state's March ACT administration and I have a few questions. I received a 27 (33E 29R 26S 21M), and while I am not completely crushed, I am sad because I know I can do better. How much do you think I can raise my composite score? How much did your score improve over time? What prep book would you recommend? I sort of skimmed through the official ACT guide and took the practice tests. I would like a different one to read. Thanks!</p>
<p>Alright well I’ll just talk about each score individually:</p>
<p>English- There’s not really much you can do to work on this, other than maybe take a few more practice tests.</p>
<p>Math- I think people waste time trying to learn all these tricks on how to do better on the math test, when they simply don’t know the material. If you got a 21 on math there are obviously a lot of holes in your math education. I recommend that you get like 10 practice math tests and sit down with a friend or teacher who is really good at math and just start working through each problem until you understand how to do it all. The math section only goes up through basic geometry, and most of the questions can be answered just by working it backwards with your calculator. </p>
<p>Reading- Since you got a 29, you obviously aren’t too bad at reading. Every ACT book seems to recommend “working the passage,” which means underlying key parts and circling sections. I think this is a huge waste of time, and time management is the most important thing on the ACT. Since none of the material is that hard, they make it hard by giving you an unreasonably short amount of time to do it in. You should just skim the passage in 20-30 seconds so that you can answer the main idea questions, then reference back to the passage for the rest of the questions. Again, you should just do practice tests to get better.</p>
<p>Science- The most important part of doing well on the science question is to not read the passage at all. If you read the passages you will always run out of time. You should immediately look at the questions then look back at the graphs. You DO NOT have to understand what the passage is talking about in order to answer all of the questions correctly. The first time I took the science section, I read all of the passages, ran out of time, and only got a 31. On my second attempt I didn’t waste my time with the passages and I got a 36 on the science section.</p>
<p>I got a 35 (36M, 36E, 36S, 33R) without ever opening an ACT book. I think practice tests are the only thing that helps. I raised my score from a 33 to a 35 by taking 2-3 practice tests.</p>
<p>Thank you so much I appreciate the reply.</p>
<p>I didn’t prep, but my score improved 3 points in a year. (30 to 33)
This was Soph to Junior year.</p>