EnglishDear ACT Exam Taker,
Hi! Welcome to ACT 36 in just 7 Steps, the only full-length ACT preparation manual written by a student who achieved a perfect 36 on the ACT. This book presents a practical, focused approach to preparing for the ACT and will help you be successful on exam day, just like I was!
Who am I? I’m a student who achieved a score of 36 on the ACT when I took it during my junior year, was admitted to Stanford University, won thousands of dollars in scholarships, and was awarded academic honors such as National Merit Finalist and Scholarship Winner, AP National Scholar, IB Diploma Student, and 2012 Presidential Scholar.
But who am I really? In real life, I’m no different from you. I’m a teenager who loves to hang out with my friends, procrastinate, spend time on Facebook, and pursue my favorite sport—horseback riding. I attended a public school in Minnesota, grew up on a farm with horses and chickens in the backyard, and never knew much about the ACT until well into high school.
However, succeeding academically has always been extremely important to me, and with my eyes set on attending a top university, I knew that doing well on the ACT was a necessity, not an option. For that reason, I set myself up for success by using the same strategies that I’ll relay to you in the coming pages. Just like me, you can use these tips and tricks to drastically improve your ACT score.
So who am I now? I’m an excited 19-year-old who just finished her freshman year of college. But for the purposes of the next few hundred pages, I’m your personal ACT expert and tutor. I’ll share all my best strategies with you so that you too can succeed on this important exam.
Thorough ACT preparation is not easy, and it takes time to get accustomed to the strategies that will ultimately make you successful. When getting ready to take the ACT, I had to balance test preparation with AP and IB courses, an intense athletic competition and training schedule, a job, extracurricular activities, and volunteer work. It wasn’t easy. But looking back, I know it was worth it. My best advice to you is to not shrink away from working hard now—not only with regard to the ACT exam, but with regard to high school in general—for I promise that your hard work will pay off, whether it is with scholarships, acceptance to prestigious universities, or exclusive opportunities. Most of all, I wish you the best of luck with your ACT preparation. I will be with you every step of the way on your journey to achieving a perfect 36.
Sincerely,
Maria Filsinger
ACT 36 exam taker and your personal ACT tutor
These key principles are the foundation of successful ACT preparation. They allowed me to raise my score significantly, and by following these principles, you too can turn ordinary ACT prep into perfect ACT prep!
36 Strategies are my tips and tricks for a variety of question types on the ACT exam. I developed these strategies by carefully reworking each ACT question to uncover which strategies and thought processes had allowed me to achieve my 36.
36 Examples show how my 36 Strategies work on the various ACT question types. Through these examples, you will experience firsthand how mastering my strategies can lead to success on questions across all sections of the ACT.
To help you test your mastery of my strategies, the discussion of each question type is followed by 36 Practice Problem Sets. The best way to master the strategies and raise your score is to solve real ACT questions. Completing each set of practice problems will help you put the strategies to work for you.
One of the most important (and most overlooked) principles in successful ACT prep is review. Working practice problems without reviewing the questions you answered incorrectly will do little to improve your performance. Review can pinpoint the areas you need to work on and identify problems that you can fix. 36 Review—the careful examination of 36 Strategies, 36 Examples, and 36 Practice Problem Sets that you have worked—is the key to locating weak points in your ACT performance.
There are several important facts that everyone should know before taking the ACT.
The ACT is a standardized college entrance examination; it is produced by American College Testing, Inc. (ACT) and required by many U.S. colleges and universities. The first ACT exam was administered in 1959, and the exam has been rapidly growing in popularity over the last few decades, so much so that in 2011, more students took the ACT than took the SAT.
The exam comprises four subjects: English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science, with an optional Writing test. Each of the four required sections is worth 36 points, while the maximum score on the Writing test is 12. The scores are averaged for a composite score of 1 to 36.
Whose idea was it to force high school students to take this exam in the first place? The driving force behind standardized testing was the lack of opportunity for students whose families and geographical areas hadn’t taken advantage of higher education. Aiming to level the playing field, the ACT created an exam by which all students could be measured against one standard instead of against the widely varying standards of high schools and regions. The ACT provides information that a student’s grade point average (GPA) may not, especially due to the grade inflation that results in artificially high GPAs for students at some schools, compared to the grades at other schools where a 4.0 GPA is virtually unheard of. The ACT also reveals a student’s critical thinking ability, which may not be reflected in the GPA of a student who is incredibly intelligent but lacks the drive or work ethic to perform well on assignments and tests.
Some colleges require ACT scores from applicants, some require SAT scores, and some accept either. Find out which exam is required by the colleges you’re planning to apply to. If you’re interested in a school that accepts the results of either exam, you may want to take both the ACT and the SAT to find out which exam you score better on. In fact, you can take a practice exam for each—and not have to pay the fees.
There is a general feeling that the SAT is “trickier” than the ACT and that the ACT is fairer and more straightforward. The ACT tends to be more time-sensitive than the SAT, so ACT exam takers may have to rush to finish a section within the time allowed. The SAT Verbal sections focus more on vocabulary than their ACT counterparts, and the ACT Math section includes trigonometry, while the SAT doesn’t. Both exams include an essay, although the essay is optional on the ACT. The SAT essay is the very first part of the exam, while the ACT essay comes last—a benefit, I believe, because you are warmed up and ready to go instead of starting cold. The ACT includes a Science section; the SAT does not.
Ultimately, you won’t know which exam you’ll perform better on until you take them. To see which exam better fits your test-taking style and gives you better scores, take both.
The ACT contains four or five sections:
English
Mathematics
Reading
Science
Writing (optional)
All sections count toward your score—there is no “variable” section, as on the SAT, that will not be counted. Every one of your answers matters.
The total number of questions on the ACT, excluding the Writing test, is 215.
The entire testing process takes about three hours, or three and a half hours if you take the ACT with Writing.
There are short breaks between sections, when you can sharpen your pencils, drink from your water bottle, and stretch. A snack/restroom break is usually provided after the first two sections, when you can use the restroom, refill your water bottle, and energize with a quick snack.
The number of correct answers in each section is tallied to obtain the raw score. (No points are subtracted for incorrect answers—so it’s important to answer every question, even if you guess.) The raw score is then converted into a scaled score of 1 to 36. The scaled score accounts for differences in the difficulty of the exam from one testing session to another. ACT statisticians use an elaborate system to compensate for slightly harder and slightly easier exams. Their goal is to make scaled scores across several exams reflect the same level of difficulty.
ACT will report your scaled scores, as well as a percentile ranking for each. The percentile ranking tells you how your performance on the exam compared to that of all the other students who took the same exam. A percentile ranking of 76 percent indicates that you scored better on the exam than 75 percent of the people who took it, and lower than 23 percent.
ACT will also report your subscores. In the English, Mathematics, and Reading sections, there are subscores for subsections:
English (1–36)
Usage/mechanics (1–18)
Rhetorical skills (1–18)
Mathematics (1–36)
Pre-algebra and elementary algebra (1–18)
Intermediate algebra and coordinate geometry (1–18)
Plane geometry and trigonometry (1–18)
Reading (1–36)
Social science/Natural science (1–18)
Prose fiction/Humanities (1–18)
Science (1–36)—no subscores
While college admissions offices rarely consider your subscores, or even your scores by section—they focus primarily on your composite score—subscores can be useful in determining your strong and weak subject areas. After you’ve taken the ACT exam once, these subscores identify where you need the most improvement, allowing you to study in a focused and efficient manner.
If you take the ACT with Writing (I’ll discuss the pros and cons later), you will receive two additional scores: (1) a scaled score of 1 to 36 that combines your performance on the essay and the English section, and (2) your Writing subscore of 2 to 12, which represents the combined scores of two readers of your essay, each of whom has scored your essay on a scale of 1 to 6. Neither of these additional scores contributes to your composite score.
The average score on the ACT is about 20, with 90 percent of scores falling between 17 and 23. To attain the average score of 20, you need to answer about half of the questions correctly. On other tests, answering half the questions incorrectly might be terrible, but because of the ACT’s inherent difficulty, 50 percent merits an average score. In many high school classes, 75 percent is equivalent to a C, but 75 percent on the ACT yields a score of about 26—a quite respectable score that ranks at the 90th percentile, meaning that you scored better than 89% of all students who took the ACT.
To achieve a perfect 36 score, you don’t have to answer every question correctly. When I got my 36, I answered two questions wrong, one in Mathematics and one in English. When my composite score was calculated, however, it rounded to 36.
In most parts of the United States, the ACT is offered six times a year, in September, October, December, February, April, and June. The February date is not offered in New York State. The testing usually begins at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning. To find the specific dates, visit the ACT’s official website at ACT.org.
In Summer 2013, the ACT costs $36.50 without the Writing test and $52.50 with it; the fees vary slightly from year to year.* The Writing test costs extra, because the ACT pays two readers to read and score your essay. The $36.50 testing fee includes a score report for you, your high school, and up to four colleges. If you are absent on exam day or switch to the ACT with no Writing before testing begins, the extra $16 for the Writing test is refundable on written request.
There are additional fees for late registration, standby testing, international testing, test date changes, test center changes, sending a score report to additional colleges, telephone reregistration, and the Test Information Release (TIR) service—more about the TIR later.
If you can’t afford to pay for the ACT, ask your school counselor for an ACT fee waiver form; you can’t contact the ACT directly about a fee waiver. Visit ACT.org to see if you qualify. A waiver covers only the basic registration fee, not the additional fees described in the preceding paragraph. Furthermore, the fee waiver applies to a single registration only, whether or not you take the exam on that day.
You should register about a month in advance of the exam date in order to avoid paying a late-registration fee. Visit ACT.org, create a personal account, and register online. You can access your exam scores from your personal account.
Standby testing is available if you miss the registration deadline. Besides the additional fee of $45, you aren’t guaranteed a seat or an exam booklet—seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and the morning can become very stressful. The deadline to register for standby testing is 12 noon (Central time) on the Tuesday before the Saturday of testing.
Answers to this question differ widely, depending on whom you ask. When making admissions decisions, colleges take into account standardized test scores, especially the ACT. Scoring well on the ACT tells these institutions that you are able to analyze data, draw conclusions, make predictions, and solve problems. While many colleges insist that they don’t use ACT scores as a cutoff in the admissions process, the truth is that standardized testing is one of the quickest and easiest ways for colleges, especially those with thousands of applicants, to sort their applicants. Barring extraordinary circumstances, applicants with a score below a certain point may be rejected by certain colleges.
Of course, your ACT score is just one part of your college admissions package. Your high school grades, teacher recommendations, extracurricular activities and achievements, and admissions essays, as well as volunteer and community service, all play a role in the admissions process. A perfect score of 36 doesn’t guarantee admission to a particular school, just as a low score doesn’t mean certain rejection. Admissions offices look at the whole individual, not just the test scores—but why not make the ACT a strong point of your application rather than a weakness? It is, after all, the area in which you can improve most easily in a short period of time. Working hard to prepare for the ACT and achieving a strong score can help you make up for weaknesses in your application that can’t be addressed in a limited time frame.
The ACT is important. It’s not the be-all and end-all of your college application, but it plays a significant role in the admissions process.
This is a hotly debated topic. Most students take the ACT once or twice, once during their junior year and again during their senior year. Most colleges won’t know how many times you take the ACT, since they’ll see only your best score, the one you choose to send. Keep in mind, however, that some schools, such as Stanford University, require you to send all of your scores. I took the ACT three times: once in eighth grade for practice, and twice in my junior year. My recommendation is to take the exam not less than twice but not more than four times. Statistically, most students score better on the ACT the second time; taking it again won’t hurt and probably will help, especially if you practice on your weak areas before taking the exam again. Don’t take the ACT more than four times—the mental energy, effort, and time spent preparing for and taking the exam would be better applied to other aspects of the college application process.
The ACT sends out score reports one at a time. There is no cumulative ACT report that contains the scores from all the times you’ve taken the exam. Be sure you know which colleges require your scores every time you take the exam.
You can send your scores to colleges in two ways:
On testing day, you can select up to four colleges to send your scores to; the cost of sending these scores is included in the registration fee.
You can have your scores sent after you’ve seen them. Keep in mind, however, that this costs $12 per report per test date per college. For example, if you wanted to send your scores from two ACT exams because you scored better on Mathematics and Science as a junior but better on English and Reading as a senior, the cost to send those reports to one college would be $24.
Here’s my recommendation: if you know that you’re applying to a college that requires you to send all your scores from all your exam dates, send your score reports to that school as part of your registration; in all other circumstances, wait until you see your scores before deciding which to send. You would be balancing the additional cost against the disadvantage of not knowing what your scores are (and, therefore, what colleges would see).
If you decide to send scores before you take the exam, you need to know which colleges you are applying to and look up their codes online. A list of colleges with codes is available on exam day, but it is easier to know the codes in advance to avoid last-minute confusion.
The Test Information Release (TIR) is an optional service that includes, for a fee of $19, a list of your answers, a copy of the multiple-choice questions that you answered, the answer key, and scoring instructions. If you took the Writing test, you’ll also get a copy of the writing prompt, the scoring rubric, and your score. You can order the TIR when you register for the ACT exam, but it is only available for certain exam dates listed on ACT.org and does not include any international or special exam dates. You can also order the TIR up to three months after your exam date—after you have received your scores. For an additional fee, you can order a photocopy of your answer document, which includes your essay if you took the Writing test.
TIR materials, if ordered on testing day, are normally sent about four weeks after you receive your score report; you probably won’t receive the TIR materials before the registration deadline for the next exam date or early enough to be able to use them before the next exam. For example, if you order the TIR when you take the ACT exam in September, it wouldn’t make sense to take the exam again until December; this would give you sufficient time to use the TIR materials to prepare for the next exam.
I highly recommend ordering the TIR when you take the ACT exam the first time: you’ll know which questions you struggled with and why, and can review what mistakes you made and how you made them. Analyzing your answers can help you avoid making similar mistakes the second time around.
Many colleges require or recommend that applicants take the optional Writing test. Visit ACT.org/aap/writing to determine if the institutions you are interested in require the Writing test. If you’re not sure which schools you’ll be applying to, I recommend taking the ACT with Writing—just in case.
Some schools use Writing scores to determine course placement, as well as to aid in the admissions process.
The PLAN is a preliminary ACT exam offered by the same company and exam writers that produce the ACT exam. In many high schools, all freshmen and sophomores are encouraged to take the PLAN, and I highly recommend taking advantage of this opportunity.
Your scores on the PLAN will help you prepare for the actual ACT, and will indicate which sections will be most challenging for you. The PLAN can also help students decide which courses to take in their junior and senior years, as well as provide insight into potential career paths. For more information, visit ACT.org/planstudent.
Students with disabilities or learning disorders may request special test-taking conditions. If you have a diagnosis from a qualified professional, you may be granted an alternate test format or more time to complete the exam. For more information, visit actstudent.org/regist/disab/.
Your performance on the ACT measures only one thing: how well you perform on the ACT. It is not a measure of your intelligence, nor does it indicate how prepared you are for college. Of course, being intelligent and taking rigorous courses in high school will help you score well on the ACT, but at the end of the day, it’s just a test, and no single test can accurately reveal your intelligence or academic promise.
If your current ACT score is low, don’t be discouraged. The ACT tests very specific subject matter, some of which you may not have been taught. The purpose of this book is to prepare you to score well on the ACT, and I’m sure you will find that much of the information in this book wasn’t covered in your high school courses.
You’ll need the following materials before you begin your ACT exam prep:
This book. ACT 36 in Just 7 Steps will be your guide throughout the process and will provide helpful tips and tricks for effective ACT preparation.
A 36 Review notebook. Buy a notebook with at least 150 pages, divided into five sections. As you prepare for the ACT, you’ll use this notebook to take notes on questions and areas you’re struggling with, to prepare for your essay, to create your own test-taking methods, and more. Label the five sections as follows:
1. English
2. Mathematics
3. Reading
4. Science
5. Writing
ACT practice exams. Practice is essential, and you will need to work a lot of ACT practice questions. This book provides hundreds of ACT practice questions, but you’ll need more than that! You can buy a book of ACT practice exams, or you can find free exams online. You will need at least 10 ACT practice exams.
ACT’s Question of the Day. Take advantage of the ACT Question of the Day, posted daily at ACT.org/qotd.
Pencils, eraser, watch, and calculator. Since you will use these materials on exam day, you should use them as you prepare. Even though you may have a timer on your phone, it’s better to time yourself with a watch: you can wear a watch on exam day, but you can’t use your phone. Also, practice with the calculator that you’ll use on exam day.
Self-motivation. This is the tool that will help you meet your ACT goals. No one or nothing can magically raise your score without your putting in the effort. Good preparation isn’t easy; it takes energy and hard work. There will be times when you want to give up, times when you wonder how all this effort is ever going to pay off. I can give you strategies and techniques to improve your score on the ACT, but it’s up to you to put them to use.
What drives you to study for the ACT? The motivation to succeed should come from you, not from your parents, friends, or teachers. When I was preparing for the ACT, I knew that in order to be accepted by a school like Stanford, I was going to need a high score on the ACT, and I wasn’t going to let a poor or average score stand in the way of my dream. Discover what motivates you, and remind yourself of this as you study. Is it a school you want to get into? A scholarship you want to get? A program you want to be a part of? Whatever it is, never lose sight of your goal when you’re preparing.
On the first page of your 36 Review notebook, write what motivates you. As you use your notebook during test preparation, look at that page frequently and recall what inspires you to keep working, keep studying, keep preparing.
If you really apply yourself, you’ll exceed even your own expectations. When I was working hard in high school, and pushing myself harder and harder, I kept my goals before me. On your hardest days, remember that all your hard work will pay off.
Most ACT prep books tell you what you need to study for the ACT, but not how to study. This book is different. How you study for the ACT is just as important as—if not more important than—what you study.
If two students have access to the same study materials, why does one student score higher than the other? The answer lies in how each student applies the information, and that is what this book will teach you to do. As you study, keep this in mind: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” This book will help you achieve the perfect practice that will make acing the ACT possible.
Many students pass through high school without ever learning to study properly. Studying is a key life skill that requires a lot of practice, and you have to practice studying to be good at it. In this section, I’ll share the techniques and strategies that helped me achieve a perfect score on the ACT. My method may not be the only way to achieve a 36—certainly, others have aced the exam using other methods—but my method worked for me, and you don’t have to be a genius or a 4.0 student for my strategies to work for you.
Take at least one full-length ACT practice exam before you begin your test preparation. This will provide clues about your strongest and weakest areas. Simulate exam conditions as much as possible: make sure you have a quiet, undisturbed place; time yourself; and take the whole exam in one sitting. After the exam, fill in the following chart:
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
If you’re not sure of the category to which a question belongs, refer to its corresponding section in this book. Your goal throughout ACT preparation should be to significantly decrease your “Number of questions incorrect.” Once you’ve identified your weakest areas, you can focus on them and study more efficiently and effectively for the ACT.
The two pillars of successful ACT preparation are practice and review. The seven steps below outline how 36 Practice and 36 Review work together:
1 · Learn 36 Strategies
2 · Complete an ACT practice section
3 · Score your ACT practice section
4 · Check questions you answered correctly
5 · Check questions you answered incorrectly
6 · Complete your 36 Review
7 · Repeat steps 1 to 6
Learn 36 StrategiesLearn this book’s strategies for an ACT subject area that gives you trouble.
Complete an ACT practice sectionPractice on a section that contains questions related to the weak area.
Score your ACT practice sectionScore the section to discover how you performed.
Check questions you answered correctlyCheck that you understand the technique or strategy behind each question that you answered correctly. Make sure that you could repeat the way you solved that problem if you were confronted with a similar problem in the future. This process shouldn’t take more than 10 or 20 seconds per question. If your answer was just a lucky guess, enter the problem under “Problems to review” in the appropriate section of your 36 Review notebook.
Check questions you answered incorrectlyEnter these problems under “Problems to review” in the appropriate section of your 36 Review notebook. For future reference, note the exam, section, page number, and question number of each problem. Write the main part of the question, as well as the key to solving the problem that you missed earlier. If you can’t figure out why your answer was incorrect, mark it for later review.
You don’t have to enter every single problem that you answered incorrectly—just the ones that are hardest for you. Limit yourself to no more than seven entries per practice section.
Complete your 36 ReviewOnce a week, review your English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science “Problems to review.” In this way, you will maintain your familiarity with the problems that are hardest for you. If you can’t solve some problems, seek help from a parent, friend, or teacher.
Repeat steps 1 to 6Repeat this process for another ACT subject area that gives you trouble. Review the 36 Strategies at least twice to make sure you really understand them. Take all the practice sections of one ACT exam before moving on to another exam; you will then be able to fill in the following charts to track your progress.
Exam 2
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
Number of questions incorrect/Total number of questions
The goal of this seven-step plan is to take full-length ACT exams in manageable chunks of 20 to 30 minutes. Keep in mind that this is a time-consuming process, and working through steps 1 to 6 may take several hours. You can break the process up by performing steps in multiple sessions.
Finding time to prepare for the ACT can be difficult. Balancing several hours of test prep a week with school, sports, extracurricular activities, work, and family obligations can be quite a feat. It is crucial, however, that you add ACT prep to your list of activities and make sure that it is a top priority. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll study for the ACT in your “spare time”—if you’re like me, you won’t have any spare time, as hobbies, sports, and activities rapidly expand to fill all your waking hours. Schedule ACT study time just like you would schedule any other activity. Make your test prep a necessity rather than an optional activity; this will ensure that it actually gets done.
During the school year It can be especially difficult during the school year to find several hours a week for test prep. Here’s a good way to fit it in:
Prep for the ACT for a total of 4 to 8 hours a week.
Prep for the ACT at least 4 days a week.
An ACT prep session should last no less than 30 minutes and no more than 2 hours.
During the summer It’s much easier to focus on test prep during the summer. The temptation of spending time outdoors and with friends can be hard to resist, so be sure to stay disciplined:
Prep for the ACT a total of 8 to 15 hours a week.
Prep for the ACT at least 5 days a week.
An ACT prep session should last no less than 30 minutes and no more than 3 hours.
Squeeze it in You can turn small chunks of time throughout the day into significant progress. Do you have five minutes waiting for a friend to meet you? Ten minutes waiting for a meeting to start? Fifteen minutes waiting in the car to pick up a sibling or parent? All of these chunks of time can add up, and taking advantage of otherwise wasted time can give you an edge in prepping for the exam. Here’s how:
Review the ACT Question of the Day on your smartphone or laptop.
Complete a portion of an ACT practice section.
Outline a response to a sample ACT Writing prompt.
Use this handy schedule to plan your ACT preparation. It’s divided into phases rather than weeks, so that you can shrink or expand it to fill the time you have for prepping.
No matter how much time you have to get ready for the ACT, this phase schedule can work for you. Even if you pick up this book with only six weeks before the exam, you can work through one phase a week. If you get this book in June, with an exam date in September, you have three months to prepare—15 days for each phase.
Using this six-phase schedule, you’ll study all the steps of the book, complete the 36 Practice Exam, and complete 10 additional ACT practice exams. You won’t be overwhelmed if you stick to the schedule and perform one phase at a time.
Complete the ACT diagnostic exam (Exam 1) in a single, timed sitting.
Study General ACT preparation and Step 1 · Prepare for ACT English.
Complete each section of ACT practice exam 2.
Review each question in exams 1 and 2, and write problems for review, questions, and keys in your 36 Review notebook.
Review your 36 Review notebook.
Phase 2
Complete ACT practice exam 3 in a single, timed sitting.
Study Step 2 · Prepare for ACT Math.
Complete each section of ACT practice exam 4.
Review ACT practice exams 3 and 4.
Review your 36 Review notebook.
Phase 3
Complete ACT practice exam 5 in a single, timed sitting.
Study Step 3 · Prepare for ACT Reading.
Complete each section of ACT practice exam 6.
Review ACT practice exams 5 and 6.
Review your 36 Review notebook.
Phase 4
Complete ACT practice exam 7 in a single, timed sitting.
Study Step 4 · Prepare for ACT Science.
Complete each section of ACT practice exam 8.
Review ACT practice exams 7 and 8.
Review your 36 Review notebook.
Phase 5
Complete ACT practice exam 9 in a single, timed sitting.
Study Step 5 · Prepare for ACT Writing.*
Complete each section of ACT practice exam 10.
Review ACT practice exams 9 and 10.
Review your 36 Review notebook.
Complete the final ACT practice exam at the end of this book in a single, timed sitting.
Review the final ACT practice exam, using the solutions at the end of this book.
Review the areas you had trouble with in the English, Math, Reading, and Science chapters of this book.
Review your 36 Review notebook.
You don’t learn anything new in Phase 6. The light preparation during this phase will keep your mind fresh and ready for exam day.
If you’ve completed the schedule above and taken the ACT, but are dissatisfied with your score, repeat the schedule and retake the exam. All you will need is new ACT practice exams.
Notice the major theme of the schedule: review, review, review. You’re constantly reviewing previous questions, areas you’ve completed, and your 36 Review notebook, which will fill up with personal test-taking insights and hints. Although this sounds repetitive and even boring, it’s crucial to review material to make sure that you fully understand it by exam day.
A word of caution—don’t let the review get in the way of efficiency! If there’s a section you score well on (say, Science), you can skim or even skip the review of that chapter and spend the time you’ve saved on improving performance in your weak areas.
A regular schedule helps you stay on track with your ACT prep—and not procrastinate, as most of us are more than happy to do. Set aside particular days and times of the day for study, and respect those times. Slow and steady preparation is the best way to accomplish your ACT goals.
Effective ACT preparation requires focus and concentration; your living room, with the television blaring and a younger sibling running and yelling, isn’t an ideal location. I recommend studying at the local library. Libraries typically have quiet, comfortable study spaces free from distractions. This may sound more boring and isolated than studying at home or with friends, but it has strong advantages. If you’ve never studied at a library before, you may be skeptical. Try this: spend two hours of ACT prep at home, then two hours at a library, and compare how much you accomplished in the two venues. You will be amazed at how much more productive you can be in a quiet, isolated place.
If a library isn’t accessible, find a location that has these features:
Quiet. When you’re trying to learn an ACT concept, you don’t need background noise that keeps you from focusing.
Plenty of work space. Every time you have an ACT prep session, you’re going to need this book, your 36 Review notebook, and several ACT practice exams. A large desk area will provide ample space to spread out your materials.
Away from home. A friend drops by, your mom asks you to do chores, your younger siblings are yelling, or you decide to take a break that turns into a two-hour nap—these are just some of the distractions that keep you from working effectively at home.
Away from friends. Studying with friends can be fun, and you may have a friend with whom you study well. ACT prep, however, is a process best undertaken alone. Friends can cause you to become distracted, lose focus, and waste time that you can’t afford to lose as you prepare for this critical exam.
Away from technology. With the increasing popularity of smart-phones, as well as addictive social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, staying focused while studying is harder than ever. While studying for the ACT, stay away from your laptop, smartphone, iPad—anything with Internet access. The ACT is a paper-and-pencil, written exam, and you simply don’t need technology to assist you.
I recommend putting your phone in silent mode and placing it out of sight, or even turning it off completely. You can take a break every hour or so for a snack, texting, and Facebook/Twitter time. I also recommend that you don’t listen to music while you study. Some students claim that it helps them study or that they are more productive when listening to music, but test prep requires a lot of concentration—and music, especially music with lyrics, can be a huge distraction.
In a sea of overwhelming test-preparation requirements, there is good news! The amount of material that you actually need to memorize in order to do well on the ACT is quite small. With the exception of a few key rules and equations, you won’t be doing any memorization during your ACT preparation. Unlike many of the tests you take in high school, the ACT doesn’t test rote memorization—it tests how well you think and solve problems.
What is this—a self-help book? In a way, it is. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of physical and mental health when approaching the ACT. Regular exercise has been proven to enhance memorization and studying. When you improve your physical health, your mental health improves, too. Exercise is one activity where music is acceptable, even beneficial. If the isolation of indoor studying has you feeling cooped up, lace up your running shoes and grab your iPod!
Eating healthy can also help you perform better. A healthy diet increases energy and makes it easier to focus, and it beats the crash of sugar and caffeine highs.
Throughout this book, you’ll encounter 36 Strategies—the building blocks for success on the ACT. Many of these strategies are subject-specific, but there are five general strategies that will help you at every step of your preparation.
1 · Practice how to take the ACT
2 · Write it all down
3 · Bubble one page at a time
4 · Skip and return
5 · Always guess—always
Practice how to take the ACTThis strategy seems obvious, but many people invest their time and money in a test-preparation program like this one and don’t change how they approach the exam. They may read the book and pick up a few tips along the way, but they don’t “buy into” the strategies presented. It is crucial to apply the strategies provided in this book in your everyday practice, and not just save them for exam day. It is the hours of practice using the strategies that will allow you to use them effectively when it really counts.
Don’t be afraid to change your test-taking habits; trust in the strategies in this book, even if they are different from your ordinary approach. They should be different! A test-prep book wouldn’t help at all if it advised you to prepare for a test as you always have.
Write it all downWrite it all down in your exam booklet. All of it. Some test takers leave their exam booklets as clean as if the booklets had just come out of their packaging. They read the questions without underlining key information, check the answer choices without using their pencil to eliminate some, and go straight to bubbling in the answer sheet. They’re making a huge mistake!
Writing in the exam booklet gives you an extraordinary advantage: it allows you to “think” with your pencil as well as with your mind. When you read a question, underline words or phrases that contain the most important information. When you review the answer choices, strike through the ones you know are incorrect, and circle the correct answer. This takes only a few seconds, and it will save you time when returning to skipped questions. Of course, you should make sure that none of your marks blocks out answer choices that you may need to revisit.
Many test takers don’t write in their exam booklets, because they were forbidden to do so by teachers who were saving the booklets for next year’s class. Holding all this information in your head makes a test much harder than it needs to be. Writing in the exam booklet organizes your thinking and helps you focus on the most critical parts of questions and answers.
When you close the ACT exam booklet after three hours of testing, it should be covered with squiggles, jottings, circles, and other marks.
Bubble one page at a timeYou can save a lot of time by circling your answer selections for all problems on a page, then bubbling in your selections on the answer sheet for all the problems at once. This strategy has several advantages:
You will save time. Flipping back and forth between your exam booklet and answer sheet wastes valuable seconds.
Especially in the Reading and Science sections, this strategy helps you focus on the set of questions on each page as a whole, rather than on each individual question.
The satisfaction of bubbling in a full page of answers (usually for four or five questions) gives you a confidence boost every time.
Skip and returnOn a timed test like the ACT, saving a minute on a question here and there can lead to big gains over the course of the exam. For this reason, it’s crucial that you skip every question that you don’t know how to answer.
Many students stare at a difficult question for a few seconds; confused, they read and reread the question, staring blankly at it with the hope that an answer will magically appear; and they try different approaches without success. By the time they guess or move on to the next question, not only have they wasted valuable time, but they’ve taken a blow to their confidence that may affect their performance on other, easier questions.
You—the savvy, prepared ACT student—will use a different strategy. You will immediately skip a question that meets any of the following conditions:
You can’t figure out what the question is asking.
The question confuses you.
You can’t eliminate more than one of the answer choices.
Skipping a question after spending only a few seconds on it can be scary, but it will help you immensely in managing your time. If you have the willpower to skip a confusing question immediately, you’ve done the hardest part of this strategy: the skipping. When you reach the end of the section and return to the questions you’ve skipped, you’re likely to find that some of them make sense almost instantly! You’ve given your brain a fresh start that increases your chances of solving the problem.
Even if you still can’t figure out some skipped problems, you’re better off than if you had wasted time on them and not finished the section—perhaps not getting to questions that you could have answered in a few seconds.
When in doubt, skip. You can return to the question later.
Always guess—alwaysThe ACT does not penalize you for guessing incorrectly. Always guess. If you can’t figure out a problem at once, use the skip-and-return strategy. If you return to the problem and are still stumped, guess. Chances are, you’ll guess correctly at least some of the time, and that will boost your score.
Don’t let previous answer choices influence your answer choice for the question you’re working on. Just because your last five answers were C doesn’t mean that the correct answer to the current question isn’t C.
When marking the exam booklet, don’t cross out parts of questions or answers so that you can’t read them. If you return to a question and realize that you read it wrong, you can read the answer choices again—if you haven’t aggressively crossed some of them out. Cross out the answer letter rather than the answer itself.
Don’t be frustrated by days when your study sessions seem to accomplish little. Your efficiency will fluctuate—some days will be better than others.
While you’re studying, take breaks and eat snacks. Take a break every hour or so; snacks will ensure that your brain and body aren’t running on empty.