ACT Test Tips

The ACT consists of four compulsory multiple-choice tests on English, mathematics, reading and science and a fifth optional writing test. The test structure is somewhat unintuitive so below we have provided a table summarising the structure of the ACT:

The ACT test is designed to assess your readiness for college and allow the colleges to differentiate between students. Unlike GCSEs, A-Levels, or the IB, however, the ACT only partially tests students’ understanding of content: instead, the ACT largely tests students’ critical and lateral thinking as well as their ability to perform accurately under time pressure. Therefore, exam technique matters greatly for scoring highly on the ACT.

Preparing for the ACT exam requires a strategic and well-structured approach. In this section, we'll cover essential steps to take before the test, including creating a study plan, utilizing available resources, understanding your scores, and taking practice tests. These tips will help you prepare in an efficient and effective way.

Fundamental to your ACT preparation will be creating and following a realistic study plan. We suggest that around 3 to 6 months in advance of your test, you should take your first practice test to gauge your starting point and identify topics and skills for improvement.

Through approximating the revision time needed in each area you can calculate a total amount of preparation time needed and divide that by the weeks you have available to prepare. We strongly recommend that you then assign specific revision topics to specific slots in your schedule.

As a rough guide, every 1 to 2 weeks, depending on how long you have to prepare, you should take practice tests to monitor your progress and recalibrate the focuses of your revision. Sit these practice tests at the same time as you will sit the official test: you need to acclimatize your body to working optimally at that.

We have discussed how ACT practice tests are an essential part of a successful ACT study plan but simply completing the tests is not enough. These practice tests can be used to measure your progress and help tailor your preparation.

To get the most benefit we strongly suggest going through each test, question by question, and analysing where you are losing marks. For each question you answered incorrectly, ask yourself what skill or piece of knowledge was lacking. Look for patterns and try to determine the areas that are your weakest and tailor the next phase of your preparation to working on those areas.

You may wish to develop a system to keep track of your mistakes and targeted areas for improvement so you can continually assess your progress.

Despite the wide variety of resources available that can be used independently, students will usually see the strongest score improvements by working with an experienced ACT tutor.

A tutor can help you analyse your practice tests, plan your preparation, and work with you to improve in specific skills and knowledge areas. A-List Education has a team of highly experienced tutors who can help you achieve your ACT and college admission goals.

There are a few simple tips you can follow to help you avoid losing marks for questions that you know how to answer. Our top tips that apply to all sections are:

- After working out your answer, quickly reread the question to check you have done what was asked.

- Answer every question – there is no penalty for incorrect answers.

- Stick to your timing plan. If you can’t work out a question within the time you have allocated to it, guess and move on.

Below we have given our tips for each test.

- Pay close attention to any underlined parts of passages and remember that the question could be about more than one aspect of language.

- Watch out for questions without underlined sections. These are asking about a larger part of the passage or the entire passage.

- Choose the best answer by reading and considering all the options before making your final decision.

- Reread the sentence with your selected answer to ensure it fits well.

- Ensure your answers are contextually appropriate. Sometimes an answer might be grammatically correct but not fit the context of the passage.

- Ensure that you are choosing answers based off of the grammar rule that is being tested, NOT off of what “feels right”. You must thoroughly learn these (American) grammar rules before you sit your practice tests and then continually review them throughout your ACT preparation.

- “Sense check” each of your answers. Is your answer what you would expect?

- Remember that the test can be taken without a calculator. Make sure you use your calculator in a way that it is saving you time, not costing you time.

- For all the graphing and simultaneous questions, utilise your graphing calculator rather than working out the problems by hand.

- For any questions that give a graph, diagram or shape, use the dimensions of that provided shape to “guesstimate” your answer rather than spending time working on the geometry/graphing working.

- Always ask yourself if you can use the answer choices to help you: for any question that asks for a single variable as the answer, then try plugging each answer back into the question information. The correct answer will correctly align with the provided information. This should turn your working from painful algebra to straightforward arithmetic.

- Skim all the passages and pick the one you think is easiest to answer first. Leave the hardest passage until last.

- Always skim read the passage first to gain a general sense of its topic before turning to the questions.

- Always read each question thoroughly and go back to the relevant passage sentence before you answer. It is crucial to gather passage evidence first before turning to the answer choices! Often in the ACT, the exact answer choice is spelled out word-for-word in the passage.

- Eliminate effectively: look for wrong pieces of the answer choices. The correct answer choice must fully match the question. It is often faster to weed out the wrong pieces rather than seek the right one.

- Unlike the Reading section, do not read the passage information first – go straight to the questions.

- Like the Reading section, always go to the relevant part of the graph/experiment when answering a particular question.

- Watch out for conflicting scientific viewpoints: focus on the first and last sentences of each viewpoint to find the areas of conflict.

- Always double check the labels of the axis and tables.

- Before you begin planning or writing, make sure you understand exactly what the question is asking you.

- Spend approximately 5 minutes reading the prompt and planning your response.

- Think through what key argument you are making and what your key ideas are as you start planning your essay.

- Make sure your essay plan is realistic in the time you have available.

- Try to back up any claims that you make with evidence or a logically consistent argument.

These tips will help you manage what can be a very stressful day and maximise your performance in the ACT.

You should try to approach your test day as you would any other and stick to your usual routines: try to go to sleep and wake up at your usual times, consume caffeine if you usually do and exercise as you usually would. You want your body and mind to function in a predictable way! You should eat breakfast in your typical manner however you may want to consider avoiding foods high in simple carbohydrates and sugars as these can lead to “crashes” later in the morning.

Ensure all necessary equipment is prepared the night before including:

• Admission Ticket
• ID
• Sharpened No.2 pencils
• Pencil sharpener
• Approved calculator
• Watch (optional)
• Snacks
• Water bottle

To reduce anxiety, confirm at least a day in advance where you need to be, at what time, and how to get there. Familiarising yourself with the test location and route will help you feel more at ease and focused.

There is no penalty for incorrect answers in the ACT so you want to make sure you put an answer for every question – even if it is a guess! Just as we wrote in the ACT Math section of this guide, students benefit the most by guaranteeing that they have answered and gotten correct the Easy and Medium level questions first and only then tackle the Hard questions. The majority of students also benefit by guessing some of the Hardest questions to give themselves more time to get more questions right that they do work through.

The ACT is a fast paced test: we have found that different students find different strategies for increasing their speed better than others. You are likely to benefit most from developing your own pacing strategy by taking practice papers.

Here is a list of strategies you could experiment with if you need to improve your pacing:

• Skim through all of the questions at the start of the test and attempt only the ones you know you will be able to get straight away; then go back to the start.
• Give up on a question if it is taking too long, mark it, and return to it if you have time.
• Guess strategically: can you eliminate any answers?
• Try to stay calm and trust in your pacing strategy to avoid being overly distracted.
• Don’t panic if your first practice tests take much longer than the allowed time; you will naturally improve with practice.

It is possible to develop a mathematical system to follow with a watch that’s based on how much time you can allocate to the questions and checking your answers. Our experience with these approaches has been that they are difficult to stick to and can be too distracting. You are best off improving your pacing by taking practice papers.

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