I have 3 act books and 1 psat book. I’m not planning on taking those tests this year, but I want a head start. School starts in a week and I just got these books.
I have:
Barons act 36
Real Act prep guide
1296 act prep questions
And cracking the psat
Like I said I have school coming up next week so I would like a way to study for the tests using these books while studying for my classes.
Thanks.
Adding some ACT prep to your homework every weeknight is a good idea. I would add 1/2 hour to your schedule.
If you are planning to to take the PSAT for NMF consideration, start there.
Some SAT prep books have a page after each practice test. They set up a grid, list types of problems, and let you know which problems were on what topic.
Every single time you do a practice section, hit that page. Highlight the ones you got wrong, circle the ones you skipped.
After a few practice tests, you’ll have a roadmap as to the types of problems that are bringing your score down. Are you consistently missing the proportion problems? Or the quadrilaterals? Either study those topics or start skipping them, because they’re hurting you.
Are you getting # 3 or 4 wrong, but # 15 right? You’re probably rushing as you begin the exam; the early questions are the easy ones that most kids get right.
My point is that you don’t just want to do endless questions; you want to look at what you got wrong and what you’re consistently getting wrong. Those patterns will enable you to improve your score.
I think the grid idea is terrific. Here’s what worked for me. After taking practice tests on another standardized test, I went through very item. I wanted to know if I had answered correctly because I knew the material or was lucky. I looked at incorrect answers to see how my wrong answers compared to the correct one. That way I figured out what knew ell what I needed t learn. It didn’t take that long and the time to do this decreased. I made notes and even flash cards of content I didn’t know. This turned out to be less time consuming as I went along and added information on my notes and and flash cards. I carried flash cards on a topic with me (discretely) and studied them. As kept taking practice tests and studying answers, my scores kept improving because I had a personal study guide.
If I wanted to make myself crazy, I would have taken practice over and over and not pay attention that my scores were based on different questions… But taking one practice test and studying my notes really helped me learn more and get higher scores as I took more practice tests over time.
Here’s a hint. Whatever study questions you are studying are so unlikely to be on the actual test, that memorizing test questions and correct answers mean you are studying the wrong stuff. Ever heard somebody say when getting a low or disappointing score that they thought they had really learned the study questions. There can be any number of specific questions, but relatively few content areas on the test. I focused on expanding my knowledge of content areas and paid attention to my own study guide on topics that were harder or had more content to learn.
This really worked for me, but we all learn and study differently. Think about how you learn most efficiently and effectively and study the way that works for you.