OK so you may have seen my forum earlier. I was flummoxed about how I did so well on the reading on the ACT even though I had done so bad on previous practice tests, especially the one the night before.
I just cracked it!
I was looking through old study materials. I make a LOT of random notes on sheets of paper that I read on the line into the test. On one of the math sheets I found my answer!
I believe what happened is in the morning I woke up all stressed and was like “I need a new strategy”. Something on google coughed this up, and I decided I had nothing to loose by applying it.
I wrote down the following “First and last paragraph, first sentence of each paragraph”
That was enough to remind me what my strategy was that did me so well!
- Read the intro paragraph VERY carefully. Understand everything.
- Read the first sentence (or sentences if the first sentence has no info) of each paragraph.
- Skim the rest of the paragraph as fast as possible picking out words that can help you map it.
- Continue for the other paragraphs. Make notes so you have mapped out the passage for later reference.
- Read the last one or two paragraphs VERY carefully.
- Answer all questions sequentially, if you are not sure about your answer guess and mark it. Chances are you will understand the passage better after answering the other questions.
- At the end come back to the ones you were shaky with, you can spend up to 8 minutes on each passage so use the remaining time if you need to look up anything in the passage or search for a word.
And that is it!
I applied that to my final practice test and it worked! I had to practice a bit to get my accuracy above a 30 level, but my score went up a bunch and I had a lot more comfortable of a time cushion.
Good luck guys and gals!