To earn a perfect or near-perfect ACT score, you need strategies specific to the ACT. In this chapter, we’ll provide an overview of the universal strategies. Each test on the ACT demands a specific approach, and even the most universal strategies vary in their applications. In Parts II through VI, we’ll discuss these strategies in greater detail customized to English, Math, Reading, Science, and Writing.
The ACT is significantly different from the tests you take in school, and, therefore, you need to approach it differently. The Princeton Review’s strategies are not arbitrary. They have been honed to perfection, based specifically on the ACT.
Consider the structure of the ACT as we outlined in Chapter 1. The Math Test consists of 60 questions to answer in 60 minutes. That’s just one minute per question, and that’s as good as it gets. The English, Reading, and Science Tests all leave you with less than a minute per question. How often do you take a test in school with a minute or less per question? If you do at all, it’s maybe on a multiple-choice quiz but probably not on a major exam or final. Time is your enemy on the ACT, and you have to use it wisely and be aware of how that time pressure can bring out your worst instincts as a test-taker.
There is something particularly evil about tests like the ACT and SAT. The skills you’ve been rewarded for throughout your academic year can easily work against you on the ACT. You’ve been taught since birth to follow directions, go in order, and finish everything. But treating the ACT the same way you would a school test won’t necessarily earn you a perfect or near-perfect score.
On the other hand, treating the ACT as a scary, alien beast can leave our brains blank and useless and can incite irrational, self-defeating behavior. When we pick up a #2 pencil, all of us tend to leave our common sense at the door. Test nerves and anxieties can make you misread a question, commit a careless error, see something that isn’t there, blind you to what is there, talk you into a bad answer, and worst of all, convince you to waste time on a question that you should approach strategically.
When you’re already answering almost every question right, it can be difficult to change your approach. But to answer every question right, you have to do something different. You can’t just work harder. Instead, you have to work smarter. Know what isn’t working. Be open-minded about changing your approach. Know what to tweak and what to replace wholesale. Know when to abandon one approach and try another.
The following is an introduction to the general strategies to use on the ACT. In Parts II through VI, we’ll discuss how these strategies are customized for each test on the ACT.
If time may run out before you finish a section, would you rather it run out on the hardest questions or the easiest? Of course, you want it to run out on the ones you are less likely to get right.
You can easily fall into the trap of spending too much time on the hardest problems and either never getting to or rushing through the easiest. You shouldn’t work in the order ACT provides just because it’s in that order. Instead, find your own Personal Order of Difficulty (POOD).
Make smart decisions quickly for good reasons as you move through each test.
Does a question look fairly straightforward? Do you know how to do it? Do it Now.
Will this question take a long time to work? Leave it and come back to it Later. Circle the question number for easy reference to return.
If you’re trying for a perfect or near-perfect score, there may be no questions that fall into the Never category for you. But even one random guess may not hurt your score, particularly if it saves you time to spend on Now and Later questions you can definitely answer correctly.
The ACT may be designed for you to run out of time, but you can’t rush through it as fast as possible. All you’ll do is make careless errors on easy questions that you should get right and spend way too much time on difficult ones that you’re unlikely to answer correctly. Let your Personal Order of Difficulty (POOD) help determine your pacing. Go slowly enough to answer all the Now questions correctly, but quickly enough to get to the number of Later questions that you need to reach your goal score.
In Chapter 3, we’ll teach you how to identify the number of questions you need to reach your goal score. You’ll practice your pacing in practice tests, going slowly enough to avoid careless errors and quickly enough to reach your goal scores.
Multiple-choice tests offer one great advantage: They provide the correct answer right there on the page. Of course, the correct answer is hidden amid three or four incorrect answers. However, it’s often easier to spot the wrong answers than it is to identify the right ones, particularly when you apply a smart Process of Elimination (POE).
POE works differently on each test on the ACT, but it’s a powerful strategy on all of them. For some question types, you’ll always use POE rather than waste time trying to figure out the answer on your own. For other questions, you’ll use POE when you’re stuck. ACT hides the correct answer among wrong ones, but when you cross off just one or two wrong answers, the correct answer can become more obvious, sometimes jumping right off the page.
POOD, Pacing, and POE all work together to help you nail as many questions as possible.
The worst mistake a test-taker can make is to throw good time after bad. You read a question, don’t understand it, so read it again. And again. If you stare at it really hard, you know you’re going to just see it. And you can’t move on, because really, after spending all that time it would be a waste not to keep at it, right?
Wrong. You can’t let one tough question drag you down, and you can’t let your worst instincts tempt you into self-defeating behavior. Instead, the surest way to earn a perfect or near-perfect ACT score is to follow our advice.
• Use the techniques and strategies in the lessons to work efficiently and accurately through all your Now and Later questions.
• Know when to move on. Use POE, and guess from what’s left.
• If you have any Never questions, use your LOTD.
In Parts II through VI, you’ll learn how POOD, Now/Later/Never, and POE work on each test. In Chapter 3, we’ll discuss in greater detail how to use your Pacing to hit your target scores.