Official ACT Prep Guide 2016-2017: Mostly old wine in a new bottle

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1

This is the first major update to the Official ACT guide since 2011 and this guide is a complete disappointment. All my comments below are based on the analysis of the math section of the guide.

The number of practice tests in this guide is 3, compared to the 5 in the 2011 Real ACT Guide. Students need more practice tests, not fewer.

The practice tests are a patchwork of questions from the the 5 tests in the Real ACT Guide and recently released ACT tests from 2015.

First Practice Test: The math section in the first practice test in the guide has around 40 questions from the June 2015 ACT test (Form 73C), and the remainder are a combination of new questions and questions from the five tests in the Real ACT Guide.

Second Practice Test: Half of the math questions are from the Test#2 from Real ACT guide and the remainder are either new or from the other tests in the Real ACT guide.

Third Practice Test: Half of the math questions are from April 2015 ACT test (Form 73G) and the rest are from Test#4 from the Real ACT Guide.

Because they have reused part of the tests that are in the older Real ACT guide, this makes the practice tests in the older guide useless. I don’t know if this was done deliberately to ensure “planned obsolescence” of the older guide.

My final recommendation is to use the April and June 2015 ACT tests on their own, and use the five practice tests in the Real ACT Guide, 3rd Edition for additional practice. I do not recommend buying this guide.

As I have said before, this analysis is based on the math section only, but I am pretty certain it will be mirrored in the remaining sections of the tests as well. I will leave it to others to analyze those sections.

2

Thanks for this! I was thinking about buying it, but I saw from an online sample that the first test is on Crackact and was afraid that the other two tests may also be on there. Do you know if the english and reading portions are from tests on Crackact, in the red book, or new ones?

3

Yes, even in English and Reading they have taken portions of April and June 2015 ACT tests and mashed them together with the 5 tests in the Real ACT Guide 3rd Edition. I would say do the full April and June 2015 tests separately, and keep using the Real ACT Guide. Skip buying this guide.

4

@QuantumACT, have you seen the Math scales for the first 2 tests in the new ACT book? Judging by the scales, the questions the ACT mashed into the 2 original 2015 tests seems to have made the difficulty level way harder.

Intentional or not, maybe the ACT addressed one of the biggest complaints with the last ACT book, that the Math in particular was way too easy compared to recent tests?

Or maybe the book included as many hard math problems as possible to represent the Math on any given ACT test?

5

Just got my copy of the book and this is truly a shame. They released less tests, and tests that were in the old book anyways. Thank god for crackact

6

Do you guys think the answer explanations in the new book would be a reason to consider getting it, since the released exams do not have explanations?

7

@bctnln1059 Have you used all of the tests in the old red book?

8

We’ve used the first three.

9

Anyone have good samples for the newest types of math problems ACT added to recent tests? Thanks!!