Yes hello there it is I, a soon to be senior.
I currently have a 28 on the ACT (32R/32W/26M/21S) Aaaand want to get a 30+. A 32 would make me cry…
(I’m also taking the SAT because reasons, namely pressure from my family. I did terribly the first time 1220, yes I know its a trash score, and idk what I’m aiming for. Maybe 1400+ or high 1300s? I just am not that invested in the SAT but welp here we go)
I’m getting some prep books (A mix of Barron’s/PR + the red book) and have the ACT online program (which is trash btw, but that’s for another time).
And I’m trying out Green Test prep atm, may look into online tutoring for math/science.
I’m takin the August/Sept dates for the SAT and ACT respectively.
Anything else I can do to prepare? I have a pretty low motivation so if I could give me advice on how to motivate myself to study that would be great.
Also is a 30 good enough for schools like MHC/Smith/Connecticut College, or should I aim to bring it even higher? Thx.
My kid uses the ACT online program and she likes it. I looked at it myself and I do not understand why you wrote that it is trash…do you understand why you got the low score? Science is reading…my kid told me she read the questions and not the passage…
— what have you don’t to prepare? I can’t help you on motivation…
take a look at the common data set from those colleges to see whether 30 is a good enough score… I think one of them is test optional…
I suggest you look into each college to see what they need …
How about this for motivation?: the higher your score, the better your chance of getting into your top choices, and of maybe getting merit aid. As for the SAT, take it to pleas your family. Your ACT score is the one that is most likely to improve enough to get you to your goal. The two tests are relatively close togehter, and I personally would not detract from efforts to work on your ACT.
Your 21 in science really sticks out as holding you back. There is only one book on the market that focuses on that section: For the Love of ACT Science. On YouTube, search for the ACT Science videos by the username SuperMagnetMan, too.
Target a 29 in Science (or within 3 points of your Reading score if that starts going up with your other practice.)
FTLOACTSci is an excellent book. They have also released one for math.
Hi @annamom! I said that the ACT online program was trash because I have found multiple errors w/ some of the answers and explanations given: I’ve checked and rechecked my calculations and I’m fairly sure I’m right. I’ve let ACT support know, hopefully they will fix the issues. Also the way the practice for the ACT Science/Reading is strange: for instance, you may have a question from passage 1, but then the next question it gives you is from like passage 4, and so on. I don’t know why anyone would set up the ACT Practice like that. It would make more sense to have all the questions for one passage in sequential order, instead of them being mixed with other questions from different passages. As a result of the errors & the way the ACT Reading/Science practice was set up, it was difficult for me to use the ACT Online prep program, and that’s why I said it was trash. Though looking back, using the word “trash” was pretty harsh. Also, just because the way the program is set up doesn’t work for me doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad overall.
For the ACT Science section I think 35 minutes for 40 questions was a bit of a time crunch for me. The first and only time I have taken the ACT in June 2017 I didn’t have a ton of experience w/ the ACT Science section, so I tried to analyze each passage, which didn’t end well. Thank you for the advice regarding looking at the data of the colleges, I’ll do that.
As for motivation, I wasn’t expecting much and probably shouldn’t have asked anyways, so sorry about that.
@AroundHere yeah I realize a 21 is a pretty bad score…I’ll check out the ACT videos on youtube. 29 seems like a good target score, so I’ll aim for that. I really don’t want to buy more books though because my parents are already spending money on tutoring and books for me to succeed. If things don’t improve in September maybe I’ll consider it.
@Lindagaf Thanks for the book rec! My parents are spending a lot of money on tutoring and books so I think I’ll steer clear of buying more books and stick with what I have at the moment. I’ll check out the videos though.
Sorry @Lindagaf I didn’t realize I already addressed the fact that my parents were spending a lot of money already in my reply to @AroundHere, my bad.
I meant what you have done to prepare? you said you have
… possession of a pile of books is not that much of a plan… may be a schedule on taking practice tests ??
you took the test in June without a lot of experience and it is July now, how much experience have you gained? write a plan with schedule, time and number of practices…
Ok @annamom I understand now. I’ve mainly been using ACT Online to prepare, and have been taking practice tests roughly every week/two weeks to gauge where I am. I’m working a lot so it’s difficult for me to fit in time to study + plan out what I am doing for prep. I feel like I have gained some experience/familiarity regarding ACT Science, plus my science subscore is slowly increasing so that’s good. I’ll definitely set up a schedule idk why I haven’t thought of that. Thank you!
If you have tutoring, your tutor should be helping make a study plan for what to do between sessions. It’s not good tutoring if you’re leaving a session with no idea what to do next.
Thanks for the advice@AroundHere! I set up a plan with my tutors and it worked out very well. I scored a 30 on my ACT, which was my target score 