<p>The reading section is what pulled me down on the October test from a 31-32 composite to a 29. I didn't finish the last section (I have no clue why as I am a fast reader with good reading comprehension), and I guess what happened was I spent too much time on the questions. Anyone have advice on pacing myself so I can finish with time remaining?</p>
<p>if you're spending too much time on the questions, you may be second-guessing yourself</p>
<p>what i did was i read the passage quickly (about 2 minutes to read it), and then I answered the questions as fast as possible, trying not to think hard about them but to just go with my gut from what i had read... for some of the questions, i did have to look back at the passage, but after it was all said and done, I averaged just under 8 minutes and 45 seconds on each passage (which left me with about 5 seconds of time left over at the end... not much, but i finished all the questions)</p>
<p>i brought my reading from a 23 up to a 34 in just a few months by doing this; basically, i just tried very hard not to second-guess myself, and it worked out</p>
<p>^ Yeah I pretty much did what Peytoncline did and I raised my reading from a 23 to a 30.</p>
<p>You just have to bust your *** for 35 minutes. I'm a pretty terrible reader, so I really had to work hard for that 30.</p>
<p>^ i was with you, guitarman, my reading skills are fine when i'm just reading, but reading in a short period of time and answering questions along with it is just really hard for me; but i figured it out, eventually</p>
<p>to read it and comprehend it to answer all the questions, i read the passage for about 4 minutes and answer the questions. How can I cut that 4 minutes down to 2 minutes?</p>
<p>heres a piece of advice: start from the last passage and work your way to the first passage- the last passages tend to be harder so you focus more on those questions and when time is running out, you can do the first passage quickly</p>
<p>I wouldn't necessarily advice a certain order to read the passages. Natural sciences and social sciences passages were my strong points, so I always did those first. Not only was I able to get the easier-for-me questions done first, but it also gave me more confidence and made me second guess myself less on the humanities/prose.</p>
<p>If you're a fast reader, then I'd agree with others that second guessing is the main problem (it was my main problem). To counter this I would read the questions, come up with my own answer, or at least a general feeling of what the answer would be, and then look at the answer choices. It was a lot better than when I looked at the answers with an empty head.</p>
<p>I went from a 24 in reading in april to a 36 in reading october.</p>
<p>Here is how i did it.</p>
<p>READ the passages for comprehension. Thats it. Nothing more.</p>
<p>If you have a problem reading quickly then I suggest you take some time to read more books and read as quickly as possible to increase your words per minute reading ability. It helps. Kaplan is on point with their Reading passages and they are much longer and will help prepare you for the Reading on the ACT. Just re-do Reading practice tests in the Red Book until you get a 36 on all 3. You may not score perfect on the real thing, but your score will increase.</p>