<p>Can you use them on the test, because they said don't use them.</p>
<p>I do'nt get why and am worried but I do everything with mechanical pencils and feel strange without them....hm.</p>
<p>What do I do?!?!?</p>
<p>i used them and it was fine.</p>
<p>I think the reason is their erasers. Not sure about the specifics, though. I believe it had to do with a lot of them erasing poorly and not removing the darkened spots on the answer sheet enough for the machine to tell the difference. Could be wrong, though.</p>
<p>i think that the regular pencils erase worse than the mechanical ones...just my opinion tho</p>
<p>if i'm really uncomfortable writing with a regular pencil, should i defy the rules and write with a mechanical one?</p>
<p>yea...I dont think it will make a difference...</p>
<p>I will use one too.</p>
<p>Isn't the essay supposed to be in ink, though? or is that the AP...</p>
<p>Mechanical should be fine.</p>
<p>everything is in pencil....</p>
<p>The essay is supposed to be in pencil.</p>
<p>Mechanical pencils are not strictly prohibited by ACT, but you are repeatedly instructed not to use them. Some test supervisors may get overzealous and actually take them away from you, so you better bring a regular pencil as a backup.</p>
<p>Mechanical pencils work fine but they ARE a frequent source of scanning problems. I believe this is due to the marks partly rubbing off on other people's answer documents, inadequate erasures, or both.</p>
<p>Regardless of what kind of pencil you use, I HIGHLY recommend those soft white retractible "click" erasers. The eraser on your pencil is not adequate.</p>
<p>And, by the way, regular pencils fill in those bubbles significantly faster than mechanical pencils.</p>
<p>It's not a matter of the erasing quality but the reason is that some students were caught slipping formulas into the clear mechanical pencils, some regard this as a frivolous case but then again it would be difficult to keep track of all of the pencils. So that is why they are prohibited.</p>
<p>This one girl kept pestering the proctor about mechanical pencils because she really wanted to use them. The proctor, a former ACT test taker, told us that she has used mechanical pencils on the test and didn't have any issues. However, because ACT consistently discourages the use of them, she said that it was better just to stick with #2 pencils. She didn't have a problem with us using mechanical pencils though.</p>
<p>sxsepu, that sounds like BS. I mean, you can easily store all the formulas you could ever need in a graphing calculator. Why would anyone try to put them in a pencil?</p>
<p>It's a scanning issue. If it were a cheating issue, they would be strictly prohibited, and they aren't.</p>
<p>i dont see the difference and im sure it wont even matter....i think that mechanical pencils have erasers waaaaaay better than regular pencils which basically tear up the paper</p>
<p>Whether or not you can use em depends on the proctor - i've had two proctors, one who said I absolutely could not use a mechanical, and one who didn't even check.</p>
<p>I used a mechanical pencil for all my ACTs. It's fine, unless you have a crazed proctor. I use .5mm HB lead and a good eraser, and have rarely had problems with scantron style tests. The only problems I have had are when I used a poor eraser.</p>
<p>Do you know for sure that it didn't interfere though? There's probably no way of knowing whether the scanning machine had a problem with it or not unless you received the answers to the test and can memorize which answers you chose on it for every question. Even if it faultered on just a few questions, that can be enough to lower your score significantly. </p>
<p>I'd go in with what exactly what ACT recommends for the test just to be safe. If it's an issue of writing better with mechanical pencils, simply bring regular ones along to use for the multiple choice questions, and use the mechanical pencil on the essay where the writing really matters. The essays are supposedly scored by person (although from some of the scores i've seen on good essays, it's made me think differently), so a mechanical pencil should make no difference there.</p>
<p>The essays are each scored by two people; three if the first two disagree by more than a point.</p>
<p>What's your idea of a good essay, mo? Were these your own essays? If not, how did you read them?</p>
<p>It does matter what you write your essay with, because the people who score them do not get your paper, they get a special scanned image that only picks up pencil well. Ink, for example, would not be legible. Mechanical pencil, I expect, would be just fine.</p>
<p>I used mechanical pencils, and I don't recall ever being told not to. Maybe I just wasn't listening to the proctor ;). Anyway I still ended up with a 34 so I think it's okay</p>
<p>Mrs Ferguson: One was my own essay. The three others I did not read, but did hear similar stories from others in my position. All were high scorers in English in particular and also the other subjects on the test. I received a 35 in English on the test.</p>
<p>I can only speak for myself. I've gotten straight A's in English/grammar since 1st grade, and I don't think i've received an Essay score below an A in elementary/high school (though there may have been a high B at one time). I'm not pretending to be a wonder-man at essay writing, but I do believe I should have received a score that was just a little higher than the 4% percentile. It's unfathomable for me to believe that the essay I wrote was worse than 96 out of every 100 people who took the test...</p>