My son used these books to review for the ACT: The Best ACT Math Books Ever (1&2). They were a comprehensive review of math, plus questions. Then he did a bunch of old ACT math sections. Math was his weakest point, but still, he got a 34 in math, and didn’t have enough time. Afterwards, he said that if he had had Calculus beforehand, he thinks it would have helped him to do the problems faster.
He can raise his other scores just by doing a lot of practice sections.
We had those books too. I think they would have helped D22’s score if she had actually used them very much.
If nothing else works you could go test-optional
My D’s test score came back with some automated comment on it, basically implying she was not college material. I can’t remember if it was ACT or SAT. I wish I had a pic of it because I don’t recall the exact wording. Like your kid, she was in mostly AP classes in high school. FF, she is now a sophomore at a great LAC in the PNW with a ton of merit aid and pulling A’s. She applied TO. Try not to worry too much.
You should easily be able to pinpoint the gaps by going through every single wrong answer and determining why he got it wrong. This is something alot of kids fail to do in prep. Just taking tests over and over will not do it. For example, you mentioned the tutor determined there were gaps in Alg 2. If you had done an inventory of the wrong answer in the prep tests, that would have spiked out. Then you can focus on reviewing the math that he’s got a learning gap in.
Same with the other sections, the most important part of prep is reviewing every single wrong answer.
Good luck!
S1 is a quick thinking, smart, decision maker. Not a big studier. He was very suited to the ACT. Took it 3 times and never got below a 30, even though he had to take it early because of athletic prospects.
S2 struggled with the speed of the ACT. Much more deliberate of a thinker. Tends to get rattled under pressure. Ultimately, though, he is a great studier, as he perseveres. Engineering type, comfortable with logic. It took him 3 tries at the ACT to break the “30” barrier, and still felt that his results didn’t reflect his level of knowledge. He had much better results with the SAT, where time is not so much of an issue, just knowledge and logic base. Even there he took it three times, and wasn’t completely satisfied with his results, especially with the reading section.
Just seeing the last few responses; as an update our son went to his counselor to discuss options at school for filling the gaps. The problem with using the ACT practice tests to figure out what was missing is that it does not address issues sequentially. He hoped that his school would allow him to audit this years honors Algebra II class… since the school is back in person and the curriculum is full board… not missing sections because of covid. Anyway they said “no.” So we went ahead and ordered Saxon Math third addition tests/answers/ and text book. He is on test “#6” and is working through all the material he never got last year in ALG II and geometry. Saxon continually reviews concepts from one section to the next so he is picking up and really learning what he needs to know. Their materials have good explanations so he is able to understand the math he misses.