D received results and is over the moon. English and Reading stayed the same as on the September ACT. Math went down a point and Science went up by 5. Ended up with a 35.
Key for her was practice, practice, practice. She searched out every past ACT test she could find, identified where she made mistakes and the type of mistakes (knowledge gaps or mind farts), filled in the knowledge gaps, continued to track the mistakes, and committed herself to not replicating them. And taking practice test after practice test on the clock really acclimated her to and alleviated the time pressures.
@KenBone18 if it’s the same as last time the next batch will come out on Friday (I think at 8 am. central), and then it’s on Wednesdays and Fridays after that. So disappointed to be waiting again.
For those of you that are repeat test takers, how did your scores increase? My daughter is a junior and just took it for the first time in October, but is taking it again next month. She only got a 25, and will begin private tutoring in January. Her goal is to hit 30. Hoping with tutoring and plenty more practices and testing, she can get it up. Would love to hear from anyone that got their scores up 3-5 points.
@sebastian007 I took the test a total of 4 times. I got a 28, and then got a 27 and 26, all with private tutors and I was convinced I plateaued, but I stopped going to the tutor, bought 3 books, and took around 15 full practice tests between April and September and ended up scoring a 32C!
33C for my first act, so i’m pretty happy. was hoping for a 34 because that was my benchmark for not retaking but oh well. will just sign up for the december date now and hope for an easier math section!
english - 36
math - 29
reading - 36
science - 32
@sebastian007 I took it 3 times. First time Dec 2015 - 29C, Second time Sept 2016 - 32C and Oct 2016 - 35C. If your daughter really hammers down on the mistakes she makes after taking practice tests, she will do well.
@sebastian007 My D got a 26 on the first practice test she took. She got a 30 on this test. What helped her was going through practice test and being ruthless about her mistakes, so that she would truly understand her erroneous thought process. English and Math are easy to improve. My D improved from a 21 to a 35 on English and went from a 30 to a 33 on math. It did take a few months for her to raise her English score though. Science and reading were difficult for her to raise. Her science score has remained unchanged and her reading score went up 4 points from finding a good strategie. A 30 is certainly possible with prep and dedication.
I don’t know your particular score details or testing behavior but I suggest not trying to answer every question. Students who are challenged with time tend to spend too much time on questions they don’t feel confident about. It’s better to guess quickly and mark the question to return to if time permits.
@sebastian007 - my D is a junior and raised her score 4 points in one month - from C27 in Sept to C31 on the October test. She did have a tutor help some, but her initial score of 27 wasn’t what she expected; she has an excellent GPA so it really rocked her world to have her ACT score come in where it did. It was a wake up call that she had to put in significant time to get results. Her biggest problem was time management so she needed to get her pacing down. She became diligent about setting aside 30-60 min a day for studying prep books during the week then took a full length practice test every weekend. She strictly timed her tests so she could get used to working fast. She was able to raise her scores from 2 to 5 points in each section. It is possible if they can figure out their weakness and focus on it and work like crazy. She is tying one more time in December since we had to register before the score release but either way she’s happy with a 31 as it will work with her GPA for her target schools. Good luck to your daughter!!
So. Um. Took it for fun as an eighth grader, and I somehow managed to score a 36 composite? (36E, 34M, 36R, 36S.) No idea how I pulled it off, but that’s pretty sweet imo - even though I haven’t gotten the writing back yet, which I probably did worse on.
Haven’t the foggiest idea if I can use the scores for college due to the grade they’re from, though, so anyone with information pertaining to that would be incredibly helpful. Guidance counselor said she had no clue.
Pesky Science, or would have had a 32!