I hope you are having a great week. We are enjoying beautiful spring weather here in the Houston area. Unfortunately, we are also experiencing the high levels of pollen than go with it.
I have a number of students taking the ACT this weekend, which is why today’s article focuses on tips any student could do between now and the Saturday test.
Can the number of times you contact a college impact your chances?
Your contact with a college or university is considered “demonstrated interest.” Some schools consider demonstrated interest as part of their admissions criteria while others don’t. The philosophy is that a student who has taken the time and effort to make contact with a school is more likely to accept an offer of admission and eventually enroll. At a school that tracks and considers demonstrated interest, your contacts wit the college can impact your chances of admission.
Clearly it is too late to do an in-depth study for this weekend’s ACT, but there are things all students can do in the next couple days to help improve their performance (and scores) on Saturday’s ACT. These 10 quick tips for taking the ACT will help students who have been preparing and those who are attempting to cram at the last minute.
1. Plan Your Food
This tip doesn’t top most test prep lists, but I think it is an
easy thing every student can do. Think about it; marathon
runners closely monitor and plan the food and drink they will consume. While
you are not expending energy through prolonged physical exertion, you are
working for four hours in a state of heightened mental exertion. You
don’t need to have your blood sugar plummet for lack of food or spend half the
test with the jitters from the double espresso you had that
morning. Think through your breakfast and pack appropriate
snacks to eat during breaks.
2. Set a Target
Goal for Each Section
Whether you’ve been studying for weeks or just started thinking about the
ACT, you should have score goals for each of the four graded
sections: English, math, reading, and science. If you have
previously taken the test, use those scores to guide your expectations.
If you have never taken the ACT or PLAN, you may want to take one of the free
full-length practice tests available from your guidance counselor’s
office. Make sure your target goal for each section is
realistic based on your abilities.
3. Familiarize
Yourself with the Scoring System
Once you have a score goal, you can determine how many
questions you need to answer correctly in order to reach that score.
You may only need four of the five English passages or 60% of the math.
Because there is no penalty for guessing on the ACT, you
may choose to focus your attention of a portion of the questions and guess on
the rest; this gives you more time per question and may help you reach your
target goal.
4. Print Admissions
Ticket & Verify Test Date and Location
Seems stupidly obvious, but I don’t have enough fingers to count the number
of students I’ve worked with who were surprised to find they were registered
for a test date or a location other than the one they expected. Also,
when you print your admissions ticket in advance you have time to call tech
support if you have trouble accessing your registration online. Avoid
surprises on test day; check in advance.
5. Review Basic
Math Formulas
Unlike the SAT, which provides basic formulas at the beginning of every math
section, the ACT expects students to have this information memorized. You
should know area for triangles, area and circumference for circles, and volume
for cubes and cylinders. A2 + B2 = C2 is
essential and can save you from memorizing the distance formula for coordinate
geometry problems. The ACT has a handful of trigonometry questions, most
of which are quickly solved with knowledge of sin, cos, tan, and the unit
circle. Students are assumed to know the slope intercept equation for a
line (y=mx + b) and occasionally questions will ask for the equation for a
circle [ (x-h) 2 + (y-k) 2 = r2 ]
or parabola (y=ax2 +bx + c). Make a formula
chart you can review this week and look over before you go into the ACT on
Saturday.
6. Work a Few Timed
Passages
You don’t need to complete multiple full-length tests before
Saturday. You do need to become familiar with the material
tested and the pace you intend to keep in order to reach your
goals. If you can complete a full 45-minute English section or a 35-minute
reading or science section, great. If not, do one or two passages.If you need to complete 80% of English section in order to reach your score goal, then you have 45 minutes for four passages. Before Saturday, set your timer and see if you can finish a passage in 10-11 minutes. If so, you know you are on track; if not, you know you either need to speed up or adjust your goal.
7. Verify You Have
an Approved Calculator
The ACT limits the calculators students can use. You
MAY NOT use your TI-Nspire or TI-89 and you do not want to be
dismissed from the exam for using an unapproved calculator.
Generally TI-83, TI-84, and non-graphing scientific calculators are
approved. You can always get a scientific calculator from your local
drugstore for under $20. For more information see: What Calculators
Are Allowed on the ACT: Common Mistakes to Avoid.
8. Brush-up on
Grammar Rules
Just as you will want to review common math formulas, it is
helpful to brush-up on the commonly tested grammar rules. Start
with punctuation (something not tested on SAT writing). Make sure you
understand how to use a semicolon, colon, and dash. Review the difference
between plural and possessive so you won’t have apostrophe questions.
Spend some time with practice questions looking for the following errors:
subject / verb agreement, passive voice, pronoun-antecedent agreement, pronoun
case, parallel structure, modifier placement, adverb / adjective use, verb
tense, and idioms. Most students will have studied these rules in
school, but it may have been a few years, so a quick review can be helpful.
9. Practice Reading
& Analyzing for Specific Details
You have probably figured out that ACT reading and science are more about
your ability to ferret out particular details from a passage or data set than
your ability to read or recall basic principals of science. However, if
you are in the habit of reading slowly, absorbing information, then drawing
conclusions based on the information provided, you will struggle to finish.
Work through a couple reading and science sections untimed. Take note of
where you found the answers. Once you see the pattern and
understand how most questions simply want you to find details, you can improve
your accuracy on these sections.
10. REST!
Your brain can’t perform at its best if you are exhausted. Take
some extra time to rest. Start by unplugging from technology each
night. It might be a good idea to turn off your phone, computer, etc. by
9 pm each night and plan to get an extra hour or two of sleep. Of course,
you can’t put off assignments or tests for this week, but you can trade in some
free time for extra sleep.Do what you can to prepare for this weekend’s test. Remember colleges are looking for a student’s best scores, so if this ACT isn’t your best, you can always retest.
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Megan Dorsey is a nationally recognized expert in test preparation and college admissions. She is an experienced teacher who has helped thousands of students improve their SAT and ACT scores. Before founding College Prep, LLC, Megan served as a college counselor at Westside High School, where she developed the SAT and college planning curriculum for the Houston Independent School District (HISD). In her last year at Westside, the graduating class of 550 seniors earned over $14 million in scholarships.
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Megan Dorsey
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