HOW TO TAKE THE ACT:Test Taking Strategies

WHAT DOES THE ACT MEASURE?

The ACT measures Academic Achievement. It doesn’t pretend to measure your analytical

ability or your intelligence. The people who write the ACT admit that you

can increase your score by preparing for the test.

The test has become predictable.

THE ACT IS A STANDARDIZED (PREDICTABLE) TEST

The ACT asks the same information the same way year after year.

There are always 14 plane geometry questions on the ACT. Not 13, not 15, exactly 14

There are always 10 questions on punctuation. You can count on it.

Even the way the test asks the questions is predictable.

ACT

Good grades are not a guarantee that you will do well on the ACT

It doesn’t matter if you’ve always been bad at taking standardized tests.

Colleges aren’t going to see any of your scores from earlier test.

It doesn’t matter if you hate Math in general, English in general, or Science in general.

The ACT doesn’t measure math in general, it measures the math according to the ACT.

WHAT DOES THE ACT LOOK LIKE?

English Test (45 minutes – 75 questions) Math Test (60 minutes – 60 questions) Reading Test (35 minutes – 40 questions) Science Reasoning Test (35 minutes – 40

questions) Optional Writing Test (30 minutes)

TRIAGE

TRIAGE

Triage is a medical term that describes the technique used by emergency-room doctors when they have several emergencies at the same time.

To save the most lives, doctors separate patients into three groups.

Those who will not make it even with intervention Those who require immediate medical attention Those who can afford to wait a little while

TRIAGE

In the ACT triage, you adapt this strategy somewhat.

See that really tough Algebra problem sitting over there? Forget about it; it’s a goner.

How about that problem on frequency and amplitude? That would take far too long, and even if you got it right, it would still only be worth one point.

Now this problem involving basic arithmetic – this is something different altogether. It’s an easy question, so you should do it right away.

TRIAGE

See that tough, horrible-looking passage about European authoritarianism during the nineteenth century? Let’s see if it’s still breathing after you finish the one about Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.

TRIAGE: JUST ONE MORE MINUTE…

If you find yourself stuck on a question, waiting for divine inspiration, it’s time to move on to another, easier problem.

The temptation to get stubborn and stay with a particular problem can be very strong, especially when you’ve already invested some time on it.

Nonetheless, you need to move on. Why stick with a question that’s giving you

problems when there are easier questions to be answered?

I KNEW THAT!

We’ve all had the experience of riding home in the car and suddenly slapping our hand to our forehead as we finally realized exactly how to do question number five.

By using triage, you can still do something about it.

Here’s how it works:

NOW, LATER, NEVER

Do I want to do the problem now? That is the question you should constantly be

asking yourself during the ACT. If you finish reading a problem and

immediately know the answer, then of course you should do it right away.

TWO PASSES

You need to do each section of the ACT in two passes.

During the first pass, the object is to nail every single question you can answer.

By answering all the questions of which you’re sure, you will never have to hear the words, “Okay, pencils down,” and know that there were several more questions you could have done if only there had been more time.

You will have already done them.

WHAT HAPPENS IF I THINK I KNOW HOW TO DO IT, BUT THEN I REALIZE I WAS WRONG?

Nobody’s right all the time. As you realize you’re stuck, you should put a

circle around the question and move on. This is the time when people tend to get

stubborn. They think, “But I’ve already spent so much

time on this question. It would be a waste to skip it now.”

YOU HAVEN’T WASTED TIME; YOU’VE INVESTED IT.

When you come back to this question on the second pass, you won’t be starting from scratch.

You’ll already have read the question once. You may have taken some notes in the margin. Perhaps reading it again will make you realize

an important point you missed the first time. If not, throw it to the back of the line and count

your blessings. You could still be back there working on

question number 5.

THE SECOND PASS

After you’ve finished everything, you can do on the first pass and bubbled in your Letter of the Day (I’ll explain this later), on all of the questions that you are sure that you can’t do, come back to the questions you circled for a second pass.

Again, think ACT Triage. Most of the “patients” in your emergency

room have now been handled. Look over the remaining problems and ask

yourself the same question; Which one do I want to do now?

THE SECOND PASS

Obviously, none of them struck you as easy the first time or you would have answered them on the first pass.

On the contrary, among the remaining problems, some are probably more likely bets than others.

Sometimes when you read a question again, you realize what the point of the question really is.

This will keep you from having that “Oh, yeah!” revelation on the car ride home.

SECOND PASS

Other times when you re-read a question, you suddenly realize that you will hate this question for the rest of your life and you never ever want to see it again.

Throw it to the back of the list and keep looking.

These are “never” questions. Do them only if you have time to spare.

SCORING MORE POINTS WITH ACT TRIAGE

Deciding whether you will do a question now, later, or never is a crucial part of improving your results on the ACT.

The whole point of ACT triage is to help you invest your time more profitably.

By utilizing the two-pass approach and the concepts of triage, you will, unlike most test takers, spend the majority of your time working on questions that seem easy or at least doable.

As a result, you will score more points.

SO, I’VE DONE ALL THE QUESTIONS I KNOW HOW TO DO AND ALL THE QUESTIONS I THINK I KNOW HOW TO DO. NOW WHAT?

You guess.

GUESSING AND POE (NOT EDGAR ALAN)

NO PENALTY FOR GUESSING

Imagine for a moment that you are a game show contestant.

It’s the final big deal of the day. The host asks you “Do you want to choose

curtain number one, curtain number two, or curtain number three”?

As you carefully weigh your options, the members of the audience are screaming out their suggestions, but you can bet there is one suggestion no one in the audience is going to yell at you: “Skip the question!”

YOU MUST FILL IN AN ANSWER EVERY SINGLE QUESTION ON THE ACT

There are 215 questions on the ACT. If you filled out your name, and then went to

sleep for the entire test, you composite score would be 0.

If, however, you filled out your name, went to sleep for most of the time, then woke up and picked a letter (we’ll use b and g) 215 times, your composite score would be a 12

EVERY QUESTION

Guessing on every question is not recommended.

However, you can see that it is in your interest to guess on every question you either can’t answer or don’t get to finish in time.

Ah, but there’s guessing and then there’s guessing.

HOW TO SCORE HIGHER ON THE ACT

What is the French word for “eggplant”? What? You don’t know Well then, you’d better take a random guess.

(By the way, there are no questions about vegetables, French or otherwise, on the ACT.)

If you really don’t know the answer to a question, of course, you should always guess.

Before you choose an answer at random, take a look at the problem the way you would see it on the ACT.

What is the French word for “eggplant”?A. 茄子B. ( 名 )  ナス（野菜） ; 深い紫色C. AubergineD. 명 .  가지 ( 식물 ); 가지열매 ; 진보라색

Suddenly the question looks easier, doesn’t it? You may not have known the correct answer to

this question, but you certainly knew three answers that were incorrect. 

POE

Process of Elimination (POE for short) enables you to make your guesses really count.

Incorrect answer choices are often easier to spot than correct ones.

Sometimes they are logically absurd; sometimes they are the opposite of the correct answer.

If you find a wrong answer, eliminate it. While you will rarely be able to eliminate all of

the incorrect answer choices, it is often possible to eliminate one or two, and each time you eliminate an answer choice, your odds of guessing correctly get better.

LET’S TRY ANOTHER QUESTION

What is the capital of Malawi?A. New YorkB. LilongweC. ParisD. Kinshasa

• This time you could probably eliminate only two of the answer choices.

• However, that means that you were down to a fifty-fifty guess – much better than random guessing.

LETTER OF THE DAY

Which makes more sense – guessing the same letter every time or switching letters?

If you think you’re better off switching around, think again.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, you will pick up more points consistently if you always guess the same letter.

Sure you won’t get all of your random guesses correct, but you will get some points.

LETTER OF THE DAY

It doesn’t matter what letter you pick as your Letter of the Day.

Contrary to popular opinion, you won’t get more questions right if you guess “C.”

On the ACT, each letter will be right 25% of the time.

Just be consistent.

WORKS CITED

Martz, Geoff, Kim Magloire, and Theodore Silver. Cracking the ACT. 2007 ed. New York: Random House, 2007.