<p>I took the GED (equivalent of a high school diploma) and passed easily about two months ago. The reason I took it is because i’ve had an illness that prevented me from attending high school, but i’ve always done excellently in school. All of my scores on the GED were in the 99% percentile, which is supposed to have been gathered by giving the test to a few thousand graduating high school seniors. That means that, supposedly, less than 1 out of 100 graduating high school seniors scored higher than me.</p>
<p>I plan to take the ACT in April, so I picked up a book, ARCO “Mastering the ACT”, from the local library. I just took a thorough diagnostic test at the beginning of it. The test is identical to the ACT in regards to the number of questions and time. It also has a reference chart that shows the equivalent ACT scores for the tests. My scores were:
E: 23, M: 17, R: 27, S: 8 (Yes, that’s an 8!)</p>
<p>What should I make of this? That’s an 18.75 average score. I believe that falls into a percentile somewhere in the range of 30% or perhaps even lower. Is this book any good? …And no, I haven’t received any blunt trauma to the head recently.</p>
<p>Science is NOT that hard. All you have to do is mine for information within the passages and MOST passages (especially with charts and tables) don’t need more than a glance of the overview to get most questions correct.</p>
<p>Take that, and let me know. I’ll give you more strategies. I also had been struggling with science, but ended up with a 35/36 in it in Feb.</p>
<p>I suggest using Princeton reviews “Cracking the ACT.” It has powerful strategies that effectively raise lower scorers to the medium-high range.</p>
<p>Then, get your hands on “Getting into the ACT” or the “Real ACT prep guide” that have 2 and 3 real tests respectively. Practicing the skills you learned with the princeton review book with these real tests before the April date should get you AT LEAST mid 20s if not higher!</p>
<p>Try not to feel bad. We ended up getting lots of ACT books and the ARCO one was the absolute worst in terms of coming up with realistic tests. Real past tests or sample tests developed by everyone else gave my daughter much different scores. This is the only book we threw away – didn’t even want to give it to anyone else because it was so bad. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, you will see that many people dislike the ARCO. I know, we should have done this first – we just were in a bookstore and happened to grab the ARCO.</p>
<p>So, even though my daughter didn’t get very good scores on ARCO, she did very well on the actual test. In terms of prep, she liked the the Princeton Review and Barrons books. There was also a Dummies or Idiots book that helped her relax after the trauma of trying ARCO first and also gave some insight into how to deal with tricky questions. Sometimes unfamiliarity with the latter can lead to poorer scores.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions everyone and for the info DianeR. The ARCO book definitely left me feeling a bit… lacking. It’s getting a one way trip back to the library.</p>
<p>I took the timed real ACT test at the link hyperpuritan provided, and my scores were much better. They were:
E: 35, M: 23, R: 34, S: 29
Average: 30.25
Talk about a confidence boost!</p>
<p>My main issue was with Math. It’s been a couple years since I took the courses with homeschooling. (only up to geometry, no trig) Many of the questions I felt were right in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite recall the formulas and theorems. I think with just a little reviewing, I will easily be able to bring that score up to at least a 29. </p>
<p>The science score was a big relief. The ARCO test appeared to be more about actual knowledge of the subject than reading comprehension, and with 7th grade being the last time I had a science class, I crashed and burned on it. Luckily, the ACT appears to be almost the complete opposite.</p>
<p>By the way, does anyone know how the scores are handled regarding decimals? For instance, a 36 / 36 / 35 / 35 averages out to 35.5. Do they always round down?</p>
<p>It has a very, very good and thorough review of math topics and ACT-type problems. It gives a great deal of practice problems and starts at the most basic level. A lower scorer can easily work through its problems and increase dramatically, IMO.</p>
<p>Btw, ACT does round UP, so a 30.5 in reality would actually be a 31.</p>
<p>Thanks, that’s good to know. A straight 36 across the board would be extremely hard to get.</p>
<p>And for the link to the book too. I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>I was browsing through the library again today and got really lucky. They had not only the 2004 copy of PrincetonReview’s Cracking the ACT, but also received the 2006 copy merely days before. I grabbed both of them since the practice tests in them appeared to be different. I’m only up to page 70 in it so far, but I can already see a major improvement in it over the ARCO. The topics it addresses are almost identical to those that I took online on the ACT practice test, while almost none of the ARCO’s were even remotely close.</p>
<p>Check to see if your library has “The Real Guide to the ACT” (at least I think that’s the title). It’s published by the makers of the ACT, so while it doesn’t have very good strategy tips, it has the most realistic practice tests available.</p>