<p>Anybody?</p>
<p>Make a solid review plan for yourself. Something like an hour working on Science every Monday, an hour working on math every Wednesday, a full length exam every Friday, you get the gist. Something that will work with your lifestyle that you can stick to. Make up rewards for yourself for every week you study as much as you scheduled yourself to. </p>
<p>Also, you should be alright to redo the tests in the red book. If you reviewed them thoroughly enough, you should be able to get a 36 or very close, so don’t take your score on these too seriously, just do them for the extra practice.</p>
<p>The biggest thing will be figuring out your own strengths/weaknesses, and using those to help yourself improve.</p>
<p>@exclamationdot What were your specific strategies for each section? </p>
<p>@purified I can’t say that I have super-specific strategies, but I’ll outline what I’ve been doing since March.</p>
<p>English: This subject has always been the easiest for me, so I haven’t done too much review in it, but I find that going over EVERY mistake you’ve made in practice tests works well, and then looking up why you made that mistake online and learning more about it. For example, if you got a question wrong about subject-verb agreement, go online and read about subject-verb agreement until you understand it thoroughly, and then find practice questions testing the nuances of subject-verb agreement. Odds are, you won’t make that mistake again. It also helps to have a long, comprehensive list or book with grammar rules, and review that every day or so, learning as many as you possibly can. Know that often times to shortest answer is usually correct, you usually don’t need to add punctuation, and answers with passive voice are ALWAYS wrong.</p>
<p>Math: I’ve never been much of a math person, so I do lots of practice questions here. When I get a question wrong, I figure out why, and then I do the exact same question again (without notes or references that I used to correct my mistake) to further reinforce it. Since you’re finding yourself running out of time, but know how to do the harder questions, I would work on using your calculator less, writing faster, and doing the easy questions a little bit faster if you can. You should also give yourself less time on practice tests than you’ll actually have on the real exam. For example, set your timer for only 55 minutes at first, and then down to 50 minutes when you’re more comfortable. That way, if the math section on your real exam is much harder and time consuming, you’ll have an extra 10 minutes that you’ve practiced without!</p>
<p>Reading: Practice, practice, practice. Figure out why you got an answer wrong. Analyze the passage endlessly to figure out why it was wrong, and how you can avoid making the problem again. Any answer choice that seems extreme (works like “always,” or “never,”) is probably wrong from the start. Learn to read actively outside of your ACT studying. Also, a lot of people struggle with time on the reading section. To work on reading faster without losing comprehension, I suggest getting some sort of speed reading software on your computer or for your browser (I use Spreed on Chrome) and using that to read articles, or even long posts on CC, whatever you can. It’ll train your mind to read faster and turn the “inner voice” off. DON’T use this technique on the English section, though!!</p>
<p>Science: This is a tricky one. I can get a 33 in science on one practice test, and a 25 on another. They often vary in difficulty. You just need to practice these, and make sure the experiment proves the answer choice you pick as correct. Don’t waste your time reading the passages on experiments that have charts. Science is the end of the exam, and people are often tired by this point and slowing down. Now is the time to summon up all of your energy and kick the sections butt! Doing full-length timed tests will, in fact, help you with science on the real exam.</p>
<p>@exclamationdot Thanks for the detailed response! For science I find it hard to find the reference in the question and then look for it in the passage within the time limit. </p>
<p>Any advice on how to fix this? </p>
<p>Also, have you found a way to keep your score from fluctuating? </p>
<p>@purified Make sure you’re going to the questions first, and THEN the passage/charts to find the answer for science. You also need to understand what the question is asking before trying to find the answer. If you’re still having trouble doing it within the time limit, just do more practice and speed read/skim wherever you can to save time. </p>
<p>I have not yet found a way to prevent fluctuation. Every test will be a different difficulty, so it’s going to happen. Some days you’ll begin a practice test more tired than other days, and might not do as well. Some days you might do science first, then reading, then math, then English, and do great in science, but poorly in English. On the actual exam, you might have the exact opposite happen. The best remedy for this is full-length practice tests until real conditions: only take a break after the math section, no talking/checking your phone/getting up to have a snack or use the bathroom, timed to the exact minute, go in the order the ACT give, and minimal distractions.</p>
<p>@exclamationdot Thanks again! You were a great help. </p>
<p>@purified No problem, good luck and I wish you the best! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions throughout your studies :)</p>
<p>@exclamationdot Thanks and will do :)</p>
<p>Anybody else?</p>
<p>Bump</p>
<p>Anybody else?</p>
<p>bumping this…</p>
<p>Does anybody have any more tips? </p>
<p>What are some patterns that you guys notice for each section? Specifically for science and reading. </p>
<p>The patterns I’ve noticed are that if your answer option is not supported in the passage then it’s wrong. The reading and science section are really all about being able to find an answer choice that is supported in the passage. </p>
<p>ACT 36 is really useful, if you don’t have it you should buy it or borrow it from the library.</p>
<p>I found the English section in ACT 36 extremely helpful for improving my English score – I just reviewed it until I had memorized most of the rules/tips in the section. I got tripped up by one or two questions on the exam (like hurtled/hurdled, I completely forgot which one was which), but this technique got me a 35 on English even with those mistakes.</p>
<p>For math, I can’t really help you, as I ended up with a similar score and had quite a bit of difficulty trying to improve further.</p>
<p>For reading, I skimmed the text before answering questions. I then read each question, then skimmed the text again to find or confirm the answer. I read really fast, so this strategy worked well for me. YMMV.</p>
<p>For science, you have to ignore any non-relevant information, otherwise you’ll quickly run out of time. I read each question, then skimmed over the data to figure out what the answer was.</p>
<p>For writing, I can’t help you, as my score was pitiful.</p>
<p>Hopefully this helps! Good luck on your next ACT exam!</p>
<p>@purified If you are running out of time on the math section, but you know how to do the problems it suggests that maybe you are doing them in a way that is too slow.</p>
<p>There are a lot of things that can slow you down. For instance, do you find yourself calculating the solution to a lot of equations? Are you plugging in all of the possible answers to find the correct one?</p>
<p>The most important thing is to identify the type of problems that are slowing you down and learn how to do them faster. I would recommend re-taking a practice exam and timing yourself on each math problem on its own. Find the problems that take too long and post some examples here along with the steps you take to solve them. I can try to help show you faster shortcuts.</p>
<p>Ben</p>
<p>@banjoandstuff I retook a test and got a 35. I think my problem was that I moved slowly and cautiously through the test. So when a hard math section came, I would rush because I worked too slow. My new strategy is to go as quickly as possible through easy problems and skip the more time consuming ones and come back to them after. </p>
<p>What is your advice for the reading section? </p>
<p>That really depends on what’s going wrong. Are you running out of time? Are you able to see the mistakes you are making when you re-check the answer?</p>
<p>Of course practice tests are always a good strategy.</p>
<p>P.S. Science and Reading use the same skills so working on one will probably improve your score in the other.</p>