Anyone have any tips for the act test?

[hillkill]

I'm taking the tests tomorrow and I'm very nervous. Anyone have any tips or pointers?

My general idea of doing it is take 1 minute per question. If I can't figure it out in a minute, I'll guess.

[Ad Bot]

[Rykuta]

I haven't taken the ACT in over 7 years but I'm going to assume it hasn't changed much.

Math is math, knowing how to do math is the only secret to doing good on this section.

Writing is dumb, I didn't even have to take this section but if you do, they really enjoy when people rewrite the questions and then answer the rewritten question more than actually answering their written question for some reason. (Or so my friends have told me).

Science is basically just reading comprehension with charts, you don't actually have to know any science to be good here, just how to look at graphs and tables.

Reading comprehension is basically a speed test more than an actual comprehension test; Just read the first paragraph, the last paragraph, and the first sentence of every additional paragraph and you should be able to pretty much answer all of the questions or know where to look. Watch out for definition questions because if you're someone who actually knows the dictionary definition of a word; expect to get a lot of those wrong; they want the definition they used; not the real one.

English I don't remember too much, watch out for redundancies in sentences, I guess. For example, if someone asks you to fix a sentence, I remember the solutions to usually be just trimming fluff and not changing much else.

As far as pacing I tend to not worry about that, if you can't immediately answer a question or know how to do it; just skip it until you finish all the others, then go back and try to redo them. Then you can do your idea of taking a minute per question and just guessing if you can't figure it.

Last thing is not to worry too much on the ACT, most people take it like 4 times to get the score they want; sleep is critical too.

[Nicepoint]

Try to explain the things to yourself out loud, if you can't, that's where you need to rehearse

[Nonnel]

It's not bad. Don't freak out, get lots of rest, and study the sections you don't have full faith in yourself in.

[TristanLuigi]

just stay focused, that's it really
I went into it almost completely blind and I ended up with a 35, there's not that much you can do to prepare except maybe review for math if you haven't taken geometry in a while

[ultimamax]

Brush up on your algebra and whatnot

On the science section if you read the entire passage you'll almost run out of time. Just read the questions and then backtrack to the graphs/charts that look relevant.

It's not a big deal if you don't do that good the first time lots of people do it more than once

[hillkill]

I remember literally nothing about tan, cos, and sine. I also don't know radians (I've been told there's calc questions like this).

[ultimamax]

I remember literally nothing about tan, cos, and sine. I also don't know radians (I've been told there's calc questions like this).

I can't remember if there's actually trigonometry on the ACT. There's almost certainly not calculus though, that'd be loving crazy. Most peopledon't even get to calculus before college.

Radians are just a different way of expressing an angle. Instead of degrees, which are arbitrarily cut up into 360 degrees, radians are cut up based on the ratio of ratio to the circumference. Here's a good intuitive visual

[SeventhSandwich]

The advice I post every time this thread comes up:

My tips are to remember that the ACT is essentially a time trial (in contrast, the SAT trips people up by phrasing the questions in a confusing way). Your score will pretty much depend on whether you can finish all of the questions with the time you're given.

On the writing section, spend at least 2 minutes just calmly thinking about everything you're gonna write (especially the evidence you're going to use in your essay, since the logical organization of your essay is what they actually grade). If you can write an essay in 20 minutes, you can do it in 18 too.

On math, don't do unnecessary algebra. If you have a problem where you can figure out the answer backwards (i.e., plugging the multiple choice answers into a given formula), do that. You don't get bonus points for rigorously proving the algebraic solution.

Lastly, on science, absolutely do not read the preamble that's given before each section. The science section tests your ability to understand what a graph is saying (like whether x is increasing along with y, or whether x & y are correlated, etc). There will likely be only one question on the entire science section that relies on a background understanding of the concept being demonstrated, and it's usually extremely simple (IIRC, on my test it was asking for the real reason why water is sucked up into a beaker when a match is lit underneath it). Unless you stumble upon a question that can't be answered without it (which you won't) then don't bother reading it.  I'm not convinced that it's possible to finish the entire science section if you actually try to read and absorb the background information in each section.

[ultimamax]

The advice I post every time this thread comes up:

Good advice. Remember to keep in mind that the essay has nothing to do with your composite score - its a separate score that lots of institutions don't even give a stuff about. Don't freak out about it unless you want to get into a school that values the essay score.

[Drydess]

are radians even on the act? i think i recall they arent

[Nonnel]

I remember there were a few sin, cos, tan questions but not enough to make a real impact. I didn't remember anything about them going in. You've got a 25% chance to guess them right

[FireFlame2]

I fell asleep 5 times and I still got an 18... Also heard if you guess all the same answer you'll get a 15 but I wouldn't trust that.

[hillkill]

I want to at least get a 21. Anything below a 20 in the university I plan on going to needs to take a separate placement test to see if they qualify for being a student.

[Rykuta]

I fell asleep 5 times and I still got an 18... Also heard if you guess all the same answer you'll get a 15 but I wouldn't trust that.

Well, if each question has a 1/4th chance of being right, regardless of which one you pick (assuming you guess on all of them) then that means your total /average/ likely percentage correct on each section is about 25%. Which means that if the ACT is out of 36, you can expect to get a 9.

If the distribution of ACT answers (a, b, c, or d) is not equal; then that changes the expected result based on which specific letter you pick, and which ones are more likely to be correct.

Though getting a 15 average is a bit of a stretch; I guess it's theoretically possible.