This depends. When working with students, I ONLY use official ACT or SAT study guides, or I find old tests online. I personally think that practice tests from Kaplan, Barrons, etc… are next to useless. There is no need to use them when it’s easy to find plenty of official tests. But even official tests can differ in small ways from the test a student might get on test day. Using official tests is the best way to prepare.
1 Like
Mine practiced with official ACT for the first time and got a 36 in all sections. Took about 4-5 tests of that and did some with princeton review. She got a 34 composite (36M, 33S, 31R and 35E). She never had issue for math as she’s into competition math, Reading gave a big challenge to her (she’s not a fast reader in anyway). Next test, she read Ericka’s tips and followed some of it, and incorporated regular reading into practice. All along she practiced her reading with SAT material and science with officially retired ACT tests. She got a 35 composite now (36M, 35S, 35E, 35R). She did a total of about 2-3 weeks preparation. I feel right material and strategy comes handy in these kind of test preparation.
1 Like
You don’t have to submit scores though so not sure why you consider it to be on their record
Because students might be reading this next year or the year after, when some colleges might require all test scores, as several have done previously. And even now during Covid there are still colleges requiring test scores. There are also colleges that prefer to see test scores, even if they say scores optional or recommended, and this might be true again in the next year or two.
Actually to clarify, I meant that a student doesn’t need to submit scores from a test they took as baseline with the ACT even if they submit scores from a later test. You can choose to send scores for a certain test and that is all they will see. If you super score that is a different and they will see all scores for each section of the tests that are included in the super score.