My life is getting ruined by the ACT

Test Preparation
1

Hi Guys,

I’m going to be a senior next year in High School. I have an excellent nearly perfect GPA in mainly IB HL and AP classes, but my ACT score is really bad.

I’ve taken the ACT twice: the first time I got a 24 and the second time I got a 25. I really need to get around a thirty but I just can’t seem to do it. I’ve started taking more practice tests and hopefully I’ll have a tutor (but it’ll cost my parents roughly 800 dollars). It’s so stressful because my parents are freaking out about my low test score and they’re saying they need the extra financial support from colleges that a higher ACT score will give me. I’m getting really stressed out and it seems like to me the last chance I have to take the ACT is in September because applications are due in November for college.

I’m really stressed out over this and I just want it to be over… my parents are driving me crazy and my low ACT scores are ruining my entire resume for college. What can I do?

2

Fish181, yeah, ACTs are basically cut off scores. If you don’t hit the 25-75% range or higher for a school, you have almost no chance of getting in. They will not even look at the rest of your application in most cases, unless you have special circumstances like you’re a recruited athlete or have some special extraordinary talent.

Getting from 25 to 30 is entirely doable during one summer. I’ve helped many people make that improvement, and in fact much more.

But you mentioned taking practice tests. That’s necessary, but most people take them the wrong way, so they end up taking 20 tests and not improving at all (or maybe 1-2 points…barely anything).

I once heard this analogy: ACT prep is like a fitness program for weight loss – it’s important to step on the scale to see what you weigh, but weighing yourself doesn’t help you lose any weight. Taking a test is like stepping on the scale. You’ll find out your weight (your score), but it won’t help you improve. You have to do some dieting and exercising between tests, which means you must review things carefully.

However, people often believe that going over the questions they got wrong constitutes “studying.” That is sloppy studying and incredibly ineffective. Instead, you must analyze WHY you got the question wrong, then master the concept BEHIND that question. Understanding that specific question really doesn’t matter because it will never show up again–it’s the CONCEPT that’s important.

Bruce Lee famously said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who has practiced a kick 10,000 times.”

That means don’t try to do surface level review of 100 questions you got wrong because they will all be different concepts. You won’t really master any of them, so you will continue to get similar questions wrong. Instead, become an expert at a FEW concepts at a time. It’s much better to be excellent at some concepts than so-so at all concepts.

Also, do not simply brush off careless mistakes. These are killer and cost people 2-5 points. They are easy to ignore because there’s nothing to really “learn” – you already know the academic concept. But somehow you still got the question wrong. So figure out WHY that happened – do not chalk it up to careless. Do not just tell yourself to be more careful.

Be PHYSICAL and take active steps to correct your carelessness. Circle things. Take notes. Don’t jump too many math steps in your head. Most of all, do not simply tell yourself to be more careful. You have to take ACTION to be more careful, not hope you’ll pay more attention next time.

Basically, do NOT blindly do a million practice questions. Document the specific weaknesses, then systematically master them one at at time.

3

Maybe consider the SAT?

4

Students typically earn very similar scores over repeated testing; that’s based on norms/sample, questions selected for inclusion in a particular version of the test, and statistics. The author made many excellent points, but let me add a few ideas.

First. Scores are based on the number of items answered correctly. Your goal is getting points. If you know an answer to a question, mark your answer and then verify that your bubbled your response correctly and at the right question number. Don’t look back. Continue through gathering up points. Second pass. Look for questions that you now remember the answer and mark it. If you can narrow down to two choices, then try to figure out why choice is more likely correct and mark it. These you may want to review. Third pass if time permits. Look at the personally difficult questions and ask yourself whether one of the choices makes sense. If so, mark it. There is no benefit taking time to chew your pencil when faced with hard questions. These tests are scored on the basis of total number correct and not relative difficulty of test items correctly answered.

If I were really determined to earn a low score, I would freak out, shut down or however your test anxiety is manifested. You must learn to control this anxiety such as learning relaxation techniques like sitting back and closing your eyes for a few moments, deep breathing or whatever other strategy you use to relax. You’ll use that strategy at other times like taking a blood pressure test. And spending time being frantic about doing all test questions and how well you are doing o r hypothesizing possible negative consequences from your test performance poses more threats to your final score than relaxing for a few moments. So, take the emotion out of taking tests! Also don’t think that SATACT are trying to trick, judge, measure your IQ or all sorts of other evil intents. You are one of thousands taking the test-why would you be singled out for devilment by large companies. As the cheashire cat said to Alice, And who are you?

I have had students expect surprise that they knew all the answers to questions in the test-prep manual and didn’t perform as expected. I did find one test question from the book but that was very rare.When studying. answer the question and then explain to yourself why your response was correct. Also look at the wrong answers and ask your self why they were wrong. As the initiator said, you need to know the concept because you don’t know whether or not the concept itself is the basis of the question. Further, when preparing for the tests, learn the material. Cramming and memorization are past used in very specific situations such as learning the drivers manual.

Competence builds confidence and vice versa. These tests measure generally what is called college preparation. Learn to love learning. Read anything from classics, to romantic adolescent vampires, to directions in a cookbook. Reading widely and proficiently is best study technique of all.