ACT & College Preparation Course for the Christian Student

Test-Taking Insight

Scoring

Unlike in the SAT, in the ACT the questions do not follow a specific order of difficulty. If you feel stumped by a difficult question, quickly move on to the next question.

Remember, you get the same number of points for an easy question as for a hard one, so try to answer as many questions as you can.

Each section is scored on a scale of 1 to 36. The four sections are averaged together to get the composite score. If you write the optional ACT essay, you will receive an essay score from 2 to 12 and a combined essay and English score from 1 to 36.

According to the Triumph College Admissions website, Here are some rough estimates of how many questions you need to answer correctly in order to get a particular score.

ENGLISH	READING
18 (40 of 75) — about 53% right	18 (20 of 40) — about 50% right
21 (48 of 75) — about 64% right	21 (23 of 40) — about 58% right
24 (56 of 75) — about 75% right	24 (26 of 40) — about 65% right
27 (63 of 75) — about 84% right	27 (29 of 40) — about 73% right
MATH	SCIENCE
18 (26 of 60) — about 43% right	18 (17 of 40) — about 43% right
21 (32 of 60) — about 53% right	21 (24 of 40) — about 60% right
24 (38 of 60) — about 63% right	24 (29 of 40) — about 73% right
27 (45 of 60) — about 75% right	27 (34 of 40) — about 85% right

What is your target score?

ATH

Cube Roots

Find the cube root of each of the following:4

27x3 – 27x2y + 9xy2 – y3
15x2 – 1 – 75x4 + 125x6
144a2 b2 + 27b6 + 108ab4 + 64a3
x6 – 8y6 + 12x2 y4 – 6x 4 y2
1 + 9x + 27x2 + 27x3

CIENCE

Analysis

In what we may term “prescientific days,” people were in no uncertainty about the interpretation of dreams. When they were recalled after awakening they were regarded as either the friendly or hostile manifestation of some higher powers, demoniacal and Divine. With the rise of scientific thought the whole of this expressive mythology was transferred to psychology; today there is but a small minority among educated persons who doubt that the dream is the dreamer’s own psychical act.

But since the downfall of the mythological hypothesis an interpretation of the dream has been wanting. The conditions of its origin; its relationship to our psychical life when we are awake; its independence of disturbances which, during the state of sleep, seem to compel notice; its many peculiarities repugnant to our waking thought; the incongruence between its images and the feelings they engender; then the dream’s evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it — all these and many other problems have for many hundred years demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory. Before all there is the question as to the meaning of the dream, a question which is in itself double-sided. There is, firstly, the psychical significance of the dream, its position with regard to the psychical processes, as to a possible biological function; secondly, has the dream a meaning — can sense be made of each single dream as of other mental syntheses?

Three tendencies can be observed in the estimation of dreams. Many philosophers have given currency to one of these tendencies, one which at the same time preserves something of the dream’s former over-valuation. The foundation of dream life is for them a peculiar state of psychical activity, which they even celebrate as elevation to some higher state. Schubert, for instance, claims: “The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter.”

Not all go so far as this, but many maintain that dreams have their origin in real spiritual excitations, and are the outward manifestations of spiritual powers whose free movements have been hampered during the day. A large number of observers acknowledge that dream life is capable of extraordinary achievements — at any rate, in certain fields.

In striking contradiction with this, the majority of medical writers hardly admit that the dream is a psychical phenomenon at all. According to them, dreams are provoked and initiated exclusively by stimuli proceeding from the senses or the body, which either reach the sleeper from without or are accidental disturbances of his internal organs. The dream has no greater claim to meaning and importance than the sound called forth by the ten fingers of a person quite unacquainted with music running his fingers over the keys of an instrument. The dream is to be regarded, says Binz, “as a physical process always useless, frequently morbid.” All the peculiarities of dream life are explicable as the incoherent effort, due to some physiological stimulus, of certain organs, or of the cortical elements of a brain otherwise asleep.

But slightly affected by scientific opinion and untroubled as to the origin of dreams, the popular view holds firmly to the belief that dreams really have got a meaning, in some way they do foretell the future, whilst the meaning can be unravelled in some way or other from its oft bizarre and enigmatical content. The reading of dreams consists in replacing the events of the dream, so far as remembered, by other events. This is done either scene by scene, according to some rigid key, or the dream as a whole is replaced by something else of which it was a symbol. Serious-minded persons laugh at these efforts — “Dreams are but sea-foam!”5 (Sigmund Freud, Dream Psychology)

Which statements are true (according to this passage)?

We obtain matter enough for the resolution of every dream if we especially direct our attention to the unbidden associations which disturb our thoughts — those which are otherwise put aside by the critic as worthless refuse.
Some think of dreams as a spiritual experience.
Dreams foretell the future.
1. I
2. II
3. III
4. All
5. None

OCABULARY

At Agincourt6

G.A. Henty

The long and bloody feud between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy — which for many years devastated France, caused a prodigious destruction of life and property, and was not even relaxed in the presence of a common enemy — is very fully recorded in the pages of Monstrellet and other contemporary historians. I have here only attempted to relate the events of the early portion of the struggle — from its commencement up to the astonishing victory of Agincourt, won by a handful of Englishmen over the chivalry of France. Here the two factions, with the exception of the Duke of Burgundy himself, laid aside their differences for the moment, only to renew them while France still lay prostrate at the feet of the English conqueror.

At this distance of time, even with all the records at one’s disposal, it is difficult to say which party was most to blame in this disastrous civil war, a war which did more to cripple the power of France than was ever accomplished by English arms. Unquestionably Burgundy was the first to enter upon the struggle, but the terrible vengeance taken by the Armagnacs — as the Orleanists came to be called — for the murders committed by the mob of Paris in alliance with him, was of almost unexampled atrocity in civil war, and was mainly responsible for the terrible acts of cruelty afterwards perpetrated upon each other by both parties. I hope some day to devote another volume to the story of this desperate and unnatural struggle.

Suggested Vocabulary Words

In 1402 the king, influenced by his wife, Isobel, and his brother, the Duke of Orleans, who were on terms of the closest alliance, placed the entire government in the hands of the latter, who at once began to abuse it to such an extent, by imposing enormous taxes upon the clergy and the people, that he paved the way for the return of his uncle of Burgundy to power.
The change was disastrous for France. John was violent and utterly unscrupulous, and capable of any deed to gratify either his passions, jealousies, or hatreds.
When he recovered, the two princes went to mass together, dined at their uncle’s, the Duke of Berri, and together entered Paris; and the Parisians fondly hoped that there was an end of the rivalry that had done so much harm.
The Duke of Burgundy at first affected grief and indignation, but at the council the next day he boldly avowed that Orleans had been killed by his orders. He at once took a horse and rode to the frontier of Flanders, which he reached safely, though hotly chased by a party of the Duke of Orleans’ knights.
The duke’s widow, who was in the country at the time, hastened up to Paris with her children, and appealed for justice to the king, who declared that he regarded the deed done to his brother as done to himself. The Dukes of Berri and Bourbon, the Constable and Chancellor, all assured her that she should have justice; but there was no force that could hope to cope with that which Burgundy could bring into the field, and when, two months later, Burgundy entered Paris at the head of a thousand men-at-arms, no attempt was made at resistance, and the murderer was received with acclamations by the fickle populace.

NGLISH

Miscellaneous Examples for Correction

Correct these sentences.

(A) I use to want a pet monkey (B) who could do tricks.

(A) About a year ago, (B) I sat in the park and (C) sulked.

The trouble (A) started when I went into the house (B) to lay down.

EADING

Details

The arrival and conquest of William and the Normans radically altered the course of English history. William instituted a brand of feudalism in England that strengthened the monarchy. Villages and manors were given a large degree of autonomy in local affairs. Although he began the invasion with papal support, William refused to let the church dictate policy within English and Norman borders. William died as he had lived: a warrior.

The next noteworthy king was Henry Plantagenet, Henry II. Among other things, Henry II developed common law. No longer were the feudal lords and the churches in sole control of judicial matters. Now the state was in control of judicial matters. This naturally gave a central government and its monarch more control than ever.

There was opposition from the church. Notably, Saint Thomas à Becket, opposed his king’s actions. Henry II had Becket assassinated in 1170.

Henry II was a capable general as well as monarch. Henry’s domain included more than half of France, all of Ireland, and most of Scotland.

Eventually the throne passed to Richard I, the Lionhearted, who ruled only briefly until he went to the Crusades. His younger brother, John, replaced him. John was a shrewd but cruel monarch, who won the scorn of English noblemen. The nobles forced John in 1215 to accept the Magna Carta, or Great Charter, by which he admitted his errors and promised to respect English law. The Magna Carta of 1215 required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no freeman could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.

The Magna Carta influenced later constitutional documents, including the United States Constitution. When John died in 1216, King Henry III assumed the throne and confirmed the Magna Carta in 1225. The monarchy continued to affirm the Magna Carta throughout British history. In England certain fundamental rights limited government’s power. At this time no other nation could make that claim.

England prospered in the 12th and 13th centuries. The population doubled from about 1.5 million to more than 3 million.

Several kings later, Edward I assumed the British throne. Edward I created the Parliament, which was essentially the king’s enlarged advisory council with a new name. Later, Parliament divided into two houses, Lords and Commons, and controlled fiscal matters. Edward conquered Wales and tried to conquer Scotland. Neither Edward nor his son, Edward II, could conquer Scotland. In 1314, at the Battle of Bannockburn, King Robert Bruce confirmed Scotland’s claim to independence. Later, Edward gained consensual right to rule Scotland but he never really conquered it.

Next, Henry V won a brilliant victory at Agincourt, France, in 1415 and had his success confirmed in the Treaty of Troyes (1420). He married the daughter of the mad French king, Charles VI, and claimed control of both kingdoms (although Henry never controlled all of France). In 1422 both Henry and Charles VI died, bringing the nine-month-old Henry VI to the throne of both countries. It was during this time that the French nationalist/religious mystic Joan of Arc was active.

Ultimately, Henry VI was an awful, if not insane, king and he lost control of the government. England lost all their possessions in France and this set the stage for the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485).7 (James Stobaugh, British History)

One noteworthy development in the English Plantagenet reign was:

The claim to the French throne
The defeat of Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession
The founding of the English colony of Jamestown
The Reformation

The following facts can be inferred from this passage:

Henry II was a ruthless, pragmatic monarch.
England prospered because of an abundant harvest.
Henry V won a brilliant victory at Agincourt, France, because of the superiority of the English long bow.
Scotland was a very hard country to conquer.

I
II
III
IV
None
All
I and IV
II and III