<p>Science for me. I took the Feb. test and guessed on the last 10 questions. Somehow, I managed to pull off a 29. But that's pretty low compared to my two 36's in English and Reading.</p>
<p>I have only taken practice tests so far – I am preparing to take the ACT for the first time in April. Reading is the hardest section for me.<br>
I really don’t understand how it is any reflection of my college readiness when I could do much better with just two more minutes per passage in reading. Oh, well, I am just trying to get better. No use dwelling on how unbelievably unfair it is. JMO.</p>
<p>math for sure</p>
<p>Science…just cuz i never feel 100% confident bout my answers but i have to keep moving cuz of time constraints</p>
<p>Math, for me. I took algebra and geometry in 7th and 8th grade, so my brain tends to overcomplicate every type of question…</p>
<p>Science can also be hard because there are so many questions with distracting language! But it’s still better than math!</p>
<p>Considering my English score was 11 lower than my math and 7 lower than my next lowest score (reading), I would say English. :)</p>
<p>I personally can’t understand how English is hard, unless you make a silly mistake… two years ago I got a 36 on English and a 22 on Science. And I can’t understand how you can get through all those science passages in only 35 minutes.</p>
<p>^ dyslexia don’t help ;). I wish I could get a 36 on English…</p>
<p>science is the hardest for me 
its at the end of the test, and its so easy to get lazy / not be methodical.</p>
<p>Reading is definitely the hardest for me. I’m not sure what it is about it. I think it’s because I feel rushed and sometimes have to make my best guess on questions. Science used to be the hardest (constant 20’s and 22’s on practice tests), but I think once I learned how to take it, it got way easier and my scores jumped 10+ points.</p>
<p>For the reading section, it helps to answer all of the questions regarding a passage–just circle the answer in the test booklet–before you fill in the bubbles for the questions. This helps maintain your focus on the passage and basically streamlines your answering process. It helped me jump from a 31/32 to a 36!</p>
<p>Honestly I’ve heard so many people say science was hard but it was one of my perfect scores. I feel like you don’t even need to know much about science, just how to read tables and interpret data. The hardest for me was math because there’s so much information to keep straight and not enough time to check answers.</p>
<p>You definitely had to know some relatively esoteric science facts for December’s test. For example, knowing 9.8 m/s squared was kind of important, and for sophomores who might not have taken physics, the majority don’t know that. You also had to know that gravity is basically a constant no matter where you are on Earth.</p>
<p>Those are just a couple off the top of my head.</p>
<p>While the Science section can be difficult, there are a number of ways to beat it. I took the ACT 3 times and Science was the only section I could score a perfect on. Books from Kaplan and The Princeton Review are great when it comes to any section on the ACT so if science is killing you, brush up on it. For me Reading was the most difficult. My score varied from test to test, but it was always my lowest. Math can be the most impossible section however. If you do not know trig for example, you have a one in four chance. Again though, there are strategies to beat the math section too. Don’t assume the ACT gives you an accurate college-readiness score. It is a standardized test that anyone can destroy when they apply the right strategies.</p>
<p>English 34
Math 34
Reading 31</p>
<p>Science 29</p>
<p>So. True, the science section is really just reading comp, but it’s about science, so.</p>
<p>Science</p>
<p>10char</p>
<p>When I was a student, I thought the most difficult section was science as well–I scored a (lowish) 34 composite with 35 English, 35 Math, 36 Reading, and 29 Science. So it isn’t <em>just</em> reading comp skills that matter on the Science. I teach test prep classes now (and ACT comprises probably 75% of what I teach) and I think that science is more tricky, than difficult. For one thing, it is the last section (besides the essay), so I think a lot of students are getting worn out by that point. It really isn’t a test of your science knowledge–I took a single Geology class in college, so it isn’t like I know more science now than I did in high school, yet I never get more than a couple of problems wrong in the section now. (And I do the sections quickly–of course I try to get every question right but I am not in test taking mode because my need to get a good score is far behind me! 
). Yes, there are a couple of outside knowledge questions but the knowledge is something you are likely to know and/or have a fighting chance of getting right using process of elimination. Mostly, the ACT is really good at asking questions that sound confusing, but really aren’t difficult (since the answer basically has to be in the passage). A few key strategies can really help you move through the science section more efficiently, so that you get the easier points more quickly and have a better chance at and more time for the difficult questions. That said, it does seem that my students’ scores are “stickier” in this section than math or english, but that’s not such a surprise–it is always going to be easier to improve on sections that test knowledge (like math and english), then sections that test reasoning and comprehension (like science and reading). </p>
<p>If I had to nominate an overall hardest section I might go with reading (my own score notwithstanding). There isn’t anything to learn, like there is in English and Math, and while there are strategies, I think they are more difficult to apply than those in the science section. </p>
<p>For students with gaps in their background, math can be quite challenging, but “all” you really need to do to improve is to fill in those gaps (and testing strategies can put band-aids over some of those gaps, enough to get you an above average score, at least–not that I think most CC posters are merely hoping to get in the low-mid 20s on any section). </p>
<p>(This post isn’t a shill for paid test prep, btw–I work for a major company and there is plenty of business! Just some of my thoughts as a person who has spent a lot of time with the ACT in the last year +).</p>
<p>At least 70% of the students I’ve talked to about this have said Science resulted in the most difficulty or the lowest score for them.</p>
<p>On my first ACT I did the worst on Science (31 vs. 35 E, 36 M, and 32 R) and on my second I did the best (35 vs. 35 E, 34 M, and 32 R). And on the SAT I got a 710 in Math, a 740 in CR, and a 780 in Writing. I guess this means I do the best, on average, in English/grammar/writing-type fields, but there’s not much of a pattern.</p>
<p>Science, it’s useless and doesn’t measure your aptitude for science at all.</p>
<p>For me, I’d say either the English or the Reading, because I’m just awful at comprehension and grammar. </p>
<p>However, on the Feb test date, I got a 34 in English, and a 35 in Reading. </p>
<p>But a 29 in Science, which was pretty unexpected. I did think the section was harder than usual, and if I had gotten a 30 on the section, my composite score would have been higher as well :/</p>
<p>I think it really just depends on you and your own strengths and weaknesses.</p>