<p>My daughter cannot seem to overcome test anxiety on the ACT. She's taken it 3 times and her highest composite is a 26. On practice tests and in test prep classes she gets 32 every time. Even the expensive test prep people don't seem to understand it. She's a strong student w/4.2 weighted gpa and she scored a 4 on the AP AB Calc test, so she's taken difficult tests before. She takes mostly AP & IB courses and does well in all of them. She's running out of time. Any recommendations? Also, any recommendations on good schools that may consider her with this score. Her highest subscore was 29 on math & she wants engineering.</p>
<p>That is a pretty big gap. Can she talk about what happens when she takes the test ? Normally I would say this will go away with practice, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Does she have anxiety issues with other tests ? </p>
<p>If she has a good academic record she should still be able to get into most schools, with that score…any school with a selectivity rating above 75. Where are you located ?</p>
<p>Is she a perfectionist? She may be spending too much time checking and rechecking questions.</p>
<p>She does extremely well on the first half of the test but gets more nervous as time runs out. Yes, she is a perfectionist and working hard to overcome that. Test prep people say she self-corrects rapidly and “knows” the material. Last time she finished with time to recheck. We are located in Colorado. She wanted more selective engineering schools but now reconsidering that given her scores.</p>
<p>She doesn’t have as much anxiety on other tests just this one, probably because she knows the outcome is so important. She’s gone through multiple test prep books, a summer long test prep with individual tutor, and school-based test prep.</p>
<p>I feel for her. You can start by downplaying this test. Really, really downplay it. Her life will go on, she will go to college, and this may or may not make any difference at all. Try having her do NO studying immediately prior to the test (like a week). Plan on using all 3 test dates left this year and use the same test center each time and the same ritual for waking up and going there. </p>
<p>Try taking away the watch/clock if she has one and tell her just to work it at her pace. </p>
<p>I think UC Boulder is a great school and a beautiful campus, visited there a while back. Your D should be able to get in there with what she has now. GL.</p>
<p>AP and IB tests don’t have a comparable amount of time pressure.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of time pressure on the ACT…more so than on the SAT, in my opinion. If a student doesn’t manage that pressure properly, her score will suffer. </p>
<p>It sounds like the test prep folks who worked with your daughter…didn’t know what they were doing. Your daughter needs to change the way she approaches the time pressure element of the test. Without observing what she’s doing, I would guess that she is getting behind on her pacing…and as time is running out she struggles to think clearly, causing her to miss more questions than she should. I’ve worked with a number of 4.0+ GPA students who had this issue. It’s more common than you might think.</p>
<p>She would benefit from individualized work with the right person. A good teacher/tutor with test prep experience should be able to get your daughter in the right frame of mind. Students perform best on the ACT (and other standardized tests) when they relax and refrain from second-guessing themselves. A student with a penchant for perfectionism needs to change her test-taking approach so that she has time to work through the greatest number of problems. This sort of retraining is best done through timed exercises and full-length test practice.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. She does second guess her answers, which slows her down. She is beginning with a new test prep person tomorrow. I’m hoping this one will be more helpful to her.</p>
<p>Good luck! As long as your daughter is motivated and willing to work hard to reach her goals…anything is possible. I hope that things work out with the new test prep tutor.</p>