September 12th ACT

This was my second ACT test. My first one went alright (E:32 M:28 R:31 S:34 C:31). My math and english scores were by far most possible to improve, which I am very certain I did. My goal in this is thread is to see what score I should expect from this September 12th test based on retrospect and estimation and to open up any discussion related to this test.

English: I am pretty sure I got at least 34 on this section. It seemed extremely easy this time. It seemed easy the first time, but I only scored a 32. Doing practice tests helped me find what ACT “prefers” and cleared up some of my uncertainties in grammar rules. I did not doubt any of my answers.

Math: I am quite certain that I got at least a 35 this time. You might be surprised being that I got a 28 last time. That first time, however, I could not swallow my ego and temporarily skip a problem that wasn’t so easy. Long story short, I took 5 minutes on every difficult problem and when I had 10 left when my proctor called 5 minutes, I panicked and only answered two of the remaining questions. The worst part was that I didn’t watch the time carefully enough to know when to resort to random bubbling and I left seven of them totally blank. This time, I skipped five questions my first time through and got through 55 questions in 29 minutes. It was much less stressful this way, and I was able to finish the remaining five questions in 10 minutes. I can already think of one question that I got wrong, but for every other question I found a clear answer.

Reading: I am expecting a 29, and that is optimistic. I am a hilariously poor reader (relative to my strength in other areas). My timing was awful this time through. The proctor called 5 minutes when I was finishing the third passage. Most of the fourth passage was guesswork and I was unsure of a lot of prior answers. Scoring a 31 in reading the first time was a miracle of sorts.

Science: I am going to expect a 31 this time through. Last time, I left two answers completely blank and got a 34. This time, I had 2 that I was unsure of and 2 that I had to put random guesses for. I do not like the fighting scientists passage. I take the ACT with the intent of taking one reading test and one science test. Not 1.25 reading tests and .75 science tests. I’m not going to write a passage about the origin of pi and expect it to appear in the math section. Likewise, scientific reading is still reading and should not be in the science section, or any section at all. I struggled to get into a rhythm for this section because I had a lot of leftover nerves and frustration from the reading section. Otherwise, I would have done a bit better.

Worst case scenario:
E: -2
M: -2
R: -7
S: -5

Respond in any way that pertains to this ACT and it would be great to hear any guesses on my score.

35 E
35 M
29 R
32 S

33 C

Accounting for your other score, with these values you would superscore at 34.

I can’t finish Science section by time even though I practiced a lot…
How do you have such a high score on Science?

@Hermit9 well that makes me feel substantially better about this. I walked out of the room feeling pretty terribly about it knowing that I probably got 5 wrong in science and a bunch wrong in reading. I hope I get that 33. How did you feel about each section?

@cucuru This time, I certainly felt as though there was a lot more digging for answers than there was in the previous ACT I took. A lot of the questions in the science section follow the same pattern: asks about what will happen to Y when X is at a specified value. So you have to find the graph with Y on one of its axes and see what variable is on the other axis. Then find the graph that connects this variable back to X, and that’s where you’ll find your answers. The science section has definitely gotten harder, the questions involve a lot more working of the provided data. Don’t practice merely to be faster; practice to know what to look for.

@SpaceRanger436 I’m thinking 33-34, though I have an outside shot at 35.

English: 32-36
Math: 35-36
Reading: 30-34
Science: 30-34

The reading and science scores could be higher but I don’t want to get my hopes up.

I’m quite a pathetic reader. Not only do I read unbearably slowly, I often find that two answers seem equally plausible and then I invent reasons for both answers to be correct. I panicked during the last passage, only having five minutes left. Three of my reading answers were completely uneducated guesses, four educated guesses, and in assumption of my own lack of reading skills, I probably got another 3 wrong in the first three passages. I figure about 25% of my guesses were correct. So I should probably expect more like -8 in reading. English I felt zero doubt with any answers, but I’m sure I made 2-3 mistakes regardless. Same with math, besides the one incorrect answer I retroactively noticed. Science, three educated guesses, two random guesses. I bet I got 1 wrong besides those guesses. I just really really want my scores, I’m hardly concerned with my writing test.