I’ll share what my D did to improve her test score, hoping it’s helpful for others.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, she scored a 27 on ACT her first attempt and was discouraged, but decided she wanted to try it again. She hates tests. We then signed her up for SAT and ACT on consecutive weekends in June (after school is out for us). We got the Red Book and the Blue Book from the library and the week before each test she took practice tests a section at a time (timing herself like the real test) and then went over the results so she understood her mistakes and why each answer was correct. For SAT she focused on M and CR. When she was studying for ACT she noticed a glaring weakness in knowing how to use commas, and researched comma rules on YouTube or something. I think she also went over the SAT vocal they had studied in AP Lang and comp. She would ask me if she didn’t understand something and we discussed each question she didn’t understand. This is all she did for test prep, and for those two weeks it was a part time job. She had some fun doing other things those weeks too. Her ACT composite improved by 5 points to a 32. Her SAT score ended up being the better of the two tests, especially M and CR.
It’s frustrating that test scores matter so much, especially for being able to pay for college. Her college list is such that she probably could have been admitted to most of her schools with the 27 but affording them would have been impossible. The higher score seems to have opened some doors for her that her otherwise very nice application would not have done by itself.
What were the sub-scores? (The math and science are the easiest to increase with timed prep.)
What math class is he taking now? (The ACT has 4 trig problems on it, and if he’s only in Alg II right now, that is four incorrect answers, on a Math test that is not forgiving.)
That belng said, since LAX season just started, the chance for more prep has probably passed until this summer.
If he is remaining consistent in one area, I would target his lowest area and concentrate on improving that. Also, maybe consider a June testing date when hopefully there are fewer distractions.
Holy crap my son did the same exact thing with semi-colons and “it’s, its.” Every single practice exam had at least one it’s-its (several had 2-3) and my son would miss it most times.
We fixed that, covered the comma issues, and he got a 36 in English. Stunned me. He’s a STEM kid and we have probably spent the least amount of time on English in our homeschooling. Granted, he started at 30 or 32 for English which also surprised me. But the previous semester he had an intensive English lab at community college. That helped a great deal.
I really think it helps if you have the time, as the parent, to cover some of the missed questions. Test prep centers will do this, but nobody looks at it as closely as I do. Granted, my son will tolerate it from me. Some kids don’t handle that well and it’s better coming from a tutor.
Yes… I agree with that. I was my kids’ prep tutor, too.
Here’s what I’m thinking about this after a overnight mulling…
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For now, I’m forgetting about standardized tests…my kid needs a break, i need a break (though all of your tips on mastering the test are extremely helpful and I will refer back to them! Right now, I"m trying not to be Tracy Flick’s mom in Election who says “maybe if you’d made more posters” when the student council race is lost. 
somebody said upstream, “look at colleges that are based on the scores your kid has now.” that’s good advice…live with reality and then see what happens in future.
I do continue to rail against the unfairness of the test scores (while being unable to come up with a better system)…S was at a friend’s house last night who was just accepted to Duke (great basketball game, btw) and I thought, “no reason for my kid to even fill out the application there” but that’s reality. Nothing wrong with that.
Also, i always think this about CC but the commenters here are truly among the smartest (and many times most supportive) people that I know…that’s why I use this place for everything from dry skin remedies to where to travel next to how to (truly) accept the kid you have (and have them accept the parent they have!)
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I have one kid who wasn’t making progress with ACT. Got the exact same composite score 4 or 5 times in a row…then took a Logic course at a community college in the summer before senior year, and the next time the score was 3 points better. Maybe it was the Logic course, or maybe it was just luck, but we were certain the kid could do better, and were willing to try anything. I don’t see anything wrong with taking the ACT and SAT over and over…they aren’t that expensive, and you only need to nail one of them once to make a significant improvement in your admissions profile and the financial aid you will get.
OP, if your kiddo is currently taking pre-calc/trig or AP English Lang, simply another semester of instruction might be enough to bump up his scores a bit. One of my kids had a huge leap between 9th and 10th grade PSAT scores just base on what he learned at school. (The school had 9th and 10th graders take it, too.) he didn’t prep at all for either test.
When he did take the SAT for real, he did some practice exams, but then DH would sit with him an go over WHY he missed questions. Scores went up another huge chunk.
Once of my nieces had a 2080 SAT and was unhappy. Tried the ACT, got a 29 and was really frustrated. Told her to think of the Bio section as reading comprehension, not science, and to pace herself with the timing. Retook and she got a 34. It didn’t change where she went to college because of finances, but it did get her full tuition and an additional $3k/year scholarship. Good thing because both her parents were unemployed for her first two years of college.
Will also +1 to the posters who say to make decisions on the kid you have on the couch, esp. if he/she is a kid who needs parental support and external organization to do well. One of my kids with terrific scores and ADD/executive functioning issues got to college and could not manage his life and his studies. It was not pretty.
I couldn’t get my kids to put any real practice on the SAT though luckily they generally still score well. But my younger son left 100 point in math on the table despite being in Calc BC. What a difference 5 years make. He decided to take the Officer Candidate School exam and studied non-stop for 2 months and did fabulously. I couldn’t help thinking, now if you’d just studied for the SATs like you are studying for this you’d have aced the math too! I think most of our kids have no idea how to use commas.
My kids don’t know how to use commas. Not just the one in that story. I don’t know if they weren’t taught or it just went in one ear and out the other. Yet there were plenty of questions about proper placement of commas on the ACT, and that’s a learned skill. It was easy to improve.
I believe in not going crazy with the test prep, but taking the tests as many times as is reasonable to see what happens. I have seen both my D’s randomly go up and down in sections of both the ACT and the SAT, t to the extent that I do not feel the tests are a science. If you feel your kid is “smarter” than the scores he is getting, then go for it!
Older D did a Stanley Kaplan class for the SAT, but was dissatisfied with her math score after 2 or 3 attempts. So she took the ACT to see what would happen. No additional prep. Her math score went from a 650 to a 35.
Younger D wasn’t thrilled with her 670 on SAT verbal after the 3rd attempt. Her PSAT verbal score was higher and she had scored a 35 in English on the ACT. So should took the SAT one last time and got a 720. Again, no additional prep, but a 50 point gain.
Especially since your son scored a respectable 29, let him try to take more tests to see if it is to his advantage. He doesn’t need to send in the scores. I would not go crazy studying. I think the actual test taking experience and the variability within the test questions can account for larger ups and down than the test companies would want you to believe possible.
@intparent My low-stress casual prep method has worked for my kids. I see little point in spending a lot of time studying stuff one has already mastered. My son is going to take the test twice in April, once for the state and once on a regular test date. He’s probably going to do a complete review of math, because if he can get that or reading or science up to 36 he will have a 36 superscore. I doubt he will be able to make a true 36.
Glad to see @uskoolfish agrees with me. It’s cheap to take the test, so just sign up and take it. Don’t make a misery of it. Take it and take it and take it. If nothing else you will end up with a good superscore.
D wound up going up each time she took it (3). Mostly I think it was maturity (10, 11, 12 grade) but we did go over strategies and her wrong answers in between. I think she took one practice test.
She went up 5 points over the 3 tests (6 if SS).
But, like I said earlier, S didn’t, his went down. So YMMV.
Seems like a massive waste of time, money and Saturday morning sleep for most kids. IMO, much better to take some practice tests at home under real conditions. If the OP’s kid consistently scores 29/30, then don’t feed the test $$ beast anymore. OTOH, if the kid is frequently clearing 31, then focus on the weak spots, at home, and take the test when ready and confident. The latter is really the key.
Some of the schools that are looking for a 36 tend to require all scores.
@bluebayou You are misunderstanding what I’m saying. Both d’s did practice, classes and individual tutoring focusing in math which was their “problem area.” But in the end they had to decide if they were done or not. Older D had to decide if a 650 or so was as good as she could get in math–but considering she was an A student in honors and AP math, felt her scores did not correlate with her grades.
So the question was–to stick or play another hand? ( In this case the ACT. ) Well the gamble paid off when after no additional studying, she went up to a 35 (99th percentile).
As for order d, she had already scored a 35 on the ACT English. ( But her math scores were poorer on the ACT. ) She believed she could do better, and again, with no additional prep went up 50 points on SAT verbal.
So for us the question we asked was–what else did she have planned that particular Saturday morning? And, was the payoff worth it? So the answer was nothing was planned, and sacrificing Friday night plans for 50 more points was well with it.
Wow, no wonder parents and kids are so stressed out these days.
I remembered an international friend from Bolivia in my high school who scored 29 on ACT (a really good score, I think). I believed he ended at Northwestern. Of course, this was like 35 years ago.
Fast forward 30 years, my boss’ kid had a 34 ACT and 4+ weighted GPA. Got rejected by both of our sought-after flagship state u’s.
My SIL came to visit last week. She was really sweating her kid’s third attempt at the SAT (first two times in the high 2000’s). I guess thrice is a charm - got up to mid 2200’s.
I am so glad that my kids are done with all this - they just need to graduate (and stop spending my money). :o)
Best not to take it more than 3 times.
Best not to send in 3 scores for any one test. If kid didn’t take it the 4th time, she would have had a 1950 rather than a 2000, which I personally think helped her to get into NYU which has score choice. Considering she didn’t study AT ALL to go up that much, it was worth it!
@bluebayou To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever, ever, taken a practice test at home under real conditions.
The test costs $40 plus $20 to get the answers back. It’s virtually free. Even if the kids never learn a blessed thing, from a statistical standpoint they are likely to deviate up or down a point, and even more likely to deviate up or down on their individual scores. For schools that superscore you simply group all the upward deviations and raise the ACT score by a point or two.
Most kids aren’t going to start taking the test until their junior year. The last viable test date is December of their senior year. So they really have very few test dates even if they take it every possible time.
Also, a lot of schools that give out full-tuition scholarships superscore. They do not require all scores. With superscoring a student who might otherwise have only a 34 or 35 can have a 36, and the 36 does make one more likely to get a scholarship.
It is probably best if the first two test tries are one each of the ACT and SAT, since some do better on one than the other. Then, if desired to do additional preparation and retry (particularly if just short of an automatic-for-stats scholarship), start with the one that is initially higher.