My son scored very high on the Pre -ACT (35). Will he still need to do prep for the actual test, or is he good to go? Would love to get it out of the way this summer. Tia!
Speaking from experience, I got a 35 on the pre act as well and ended up getting a 34 my first time on the actual act without studying. however, i still highly recommend getting a prep book/doing a couple practice tests beforehand to make sure that he is completely comfortable with the timing/type of questions to ensure he a good score!
He should still do some prep because the actual test involves stamina as much as anything else. He can buy an official ACT study guide and do a couple of practice tests in test-like conditions to see if he can replicate his earlier result.
To answer your question, I think it depends on the student. My son scored 27 on the pre ACT, but 34 when he took the real thing. The test is also a way for kids to work on problem areas, so if a student preps, they are likely to improve their score. The other issue with the pre ACT is that most kids do it a long time before the actual test. There’s still a lot for them to learn before they take the real test. For those reasons, I don’t necessarily think it’s a good predictor for those who didn’t score well in the first place.
“My son scored 27 on the pre ACT, but 34 when he took the real thing”
Hi @Lindagaf , I was wondering, how much prep did your son do between preAct and ACT? I know you are an SAT/ACT tutor (I’m sure that helps!) and was hoping for a similar result. My youngest scored a 27 on the pre-ACT and just started doing the official ACT online prep (the one that include Kaplan videos) and was curious how many hours of that will make a difference. She’ll sit for the official one this upcoming Feb (junior year).
My daughter had the exact same score progression as @Lindagaf’s son. D19 worked with a tutor one-on-one via Skype 2x weekly, for 3 months prior to Dec '17 ACT. Tutor gave her homework and two practice tests (with timer, in home). She also did a local practice test (offered by a tutoring firm for $50) the week before the actual test. D19 feels getting the timing down is key and only way to do that is to take timed practice tests.
Mine had a huge jump as well. She did a study class at her school and did every practice test she could get her hands on. She spent the summer before junior year combing through the ACT Barron’s book and then did a test/week leading up to the test. Science was the hardest for her with the timing and her lowest pre-ACT section, but for the actual exam she ended up getting a 32 on that section.
@suzyQ7 , yes, my son had a lot of prep:-). Because this might be useful for others, his prep actually spanned a year, though it was very on and off for the vast majority of that time. Much of that early prep was spent reinforcing English usage and grammar, so IMO, it was something he needed to do anyway and wasn’t specifically test prep. He really only began prep in earnest about six weeks before, but we had the luxury of spacing out as needed. He was originally scheduled to take it in Sep., but realized there was no way he’d be ready, so tried for October, same thing again. So it was rescheduled for Feb, but he broke his arm! He finally took it this past April, and I wish he’d just scheduled for then in the first place. By then, he was ready, and had almost another year of school under his belt.
The original thinking was that he wanted to get it out of the way, because junior year is so busy for many kids. I think that approach works for really motivated kids who can put the needed work in, but that isn’t my kid, lol. As far as what I do with students in an ideal situation, I like to start about three months away from test date, if it’s during the school year. At the minimum, I do think kids should prep for at least six weeks for either the ACT or the SAT. Obviously, a student who gets 35 on the PreACT will not need as much prep as a kid who is looking for a substantially higher score than their original PreACT score. I believe most students can bring their score up by several points, especially with tutoring, if they aim to complete at least four full practice tests before test date. The newest official ACT study guide by Wiley has four tests in it.
@nyc235 what year is your child? Sorry if I missed this. If he is going into his junior year, I would say that he could use a tutor (or if he is disciplined) study himself and do practice tests for the ACT and SAT because the PSAT is given in the Fall of 11th grade to qualifiy for NM. I believe that studying the summer before junior year NOT ONLY gets the student ready for the PSAT, but also helps for the ACT. We did that for both my kids, and they both scored 36 in the Fall of their junior year. They had a one on one tutor to go over tips, tricks, strategies and my kids took many full length practice tests of the ACT. They took a few practice of SAT - only for the PSAT prep, but all in all, the studying/tutoring in the summer before 11th helped kill 2 birds with one stone. For them I don’t think the NM was a huge factor (one did not get it, waiting on other) because with the selective schools it would not have helped with merit money—they were just trying for the status of it. Anyhow, my 2 cents. And, my kids never took a pre-ACT.
Thanks–that is very helpful.
Thank you, this is great info!
@Lindagaf So, in the end, my D scored a 29 composite on her Feb ACT (she had a 27 pre-ACT) but she had strong scores in English and Math (34 & 30) but low scores on Reading and Science (27 & 25). She prepped hard for Science between February and April (did like 8 practice science sections and ACT online prep). She also did a bit more math prep. She ended up with a 32 composite in April, with a 33 superstore! Science went from 25 to 32! Reading went from 27 to 34, with no additional prep (she thinks it was a happy fluke) we’ll take it! Testing done, so excited.