Registration Strategy and Tips

When you register for the ACT test date held in February each year, there are a few tips that you need to keep in mind. I am constantly asked by parents what is the best month to take the ACT and what is the strategy for taking it more than one time. With that in mind, let's take a look at the Do's and Don'ts.

Why the February ACT Test Dates are Ideal

The biggest advantage of taking the ACT test in February is that you have the Christmas break to study and you have plenty of time after getting your score report to study for a retake on the June test date.

If you are taking the ACT for the first time in February, you should really prepare yourself by at least taking a full-blown practice test before that date. Just the familiarity with taking the full 3 1/2 hour test once before will help improve your score.

Retaking the ACT Test on the June Test Date

About three weeks after you take the ACT in February, you will receive your score report. The thing to do is to look past your "composite score" and focus on the English and Math sub-scores.

These will tell you exactly where you can focus your studying efforts to quickly bring up your score. "Just studying everything" is a very poor strategy that ensures you will work a lot harder than you have to.

Consider an ACT Prep Course

A very good strategy to increase your score over what you got on the February ACT test is to find a short, economical ACT prep course that will allow you to zero in on the exact areas where you need the most help. This will give you the quickest boost to your score.

What Parents Need To Know

Many parents come to me with frustration and anxiety, worried that their student is not going to do well enough on the ACT test to get into the college of their choice or qualify for scholarships to help pay for them.

My answer is always the same; sometimes less is more. The more you stress out about your student's ACT test score, the more they will feel pressured. That is never a good thing with a test as important as the ACT.

Two ways that parents try to help their students that actually end up hurting them are: spending a lot of money on ACT prep courses and badgering them to study.

The reason that spending a lot of money on ACT prep courses is such a bad idea is that it just raises the stakes, and the pressure, on your student. Keep your expenses on ACT prep lower, at least at first, and let your student see some return on investment. Only then should you consider spending more.

The other way that students have trouble with increased anxiety is with their parents reminding them constantly to study. It is actually the most beneficial to study for shorter periods of time more frequently. When feeling hounded by their parents, students tend to put in marathon study sessions, although only once in a while, to get their parents off their back. Marathon study sessions are not very effective, and they are dreaded by most students anyway.

The best way for a parent to help their student get a high score on the ACT test is to back off and be confident that they will do their best. This confidence can come from a brief, inexpensive online video course like that from College Exam Tutor that will keep the pressure low, while strategically positioning your student for a dramatic increase in ACT test score.

ACT Scoring and the Average ACT Score

The ACT (American College Test) is a national college admissions exam that tests knowledge and ability in four major subject areas:

Science

Reading

Mathematics

English

The exam format is 215 multiple choice questions, broken into four separate tests, and also a separate thirty minute writing test. ACT test results are accepted by all four year universities and colleges across the United States.

Across the nation, an average of over 43% of high school graduates have taken the ACT before they graduate. The Midwest and Rocky Mountain region have the highest percentage of students taking the ACT test. Nearly all high school students in Michigan, Colorado and Illinois take the test before they graduate.

The ACT test is much less popular in the north Atlantic. In Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, and Delaware under 20% of high school graduates take the ACT..

Average ACT Scores 

ACT scores, grades, and class rank are the main criteria a college uses to determine if an applicant will be accepted. The ACT test scores out of 36 points, with a possible score range from 1 to 36. The nationwide average ACT score is fairly consistent from year to year, and was just over 21.1 in 2009. Nearly 30% of ACT takers score between 19 and 23. Over 55% of all ACT takers score between 17 and 25. While technically it is possible a student can score a 1 on the ACT, over 99% of students earn a 12 or above.

The average ACT score fluctuates from state to state. The states typically having the highest average ACT test scores are Washington (23.1), Connecticut (23.3), Massachusetts (23.6), and New York (23.1).

The states scoring the lowest were Florida (19.8), Washington DC (19.1), and Mississippi (18.9).

The minimum ACT required score for admission will differ for each school. Although there are exceptions, most public colleges require an 18.

Most Ivy League schools only accept applicants whose ACT scores are in the 90th percentile, which in most years equates to a minimum score of 28.

Achieving a 36 on the ACT does not require getting every question correct, but is difficult nonetheless. Only 1 in every 4,000 students earn a 36.

Typically a score over 34 puts a student in the top percentile. A score of 30 is considered to be very good and is only earned by the top 4% of all students.

How the ACT is Scored 

The ACT score is calculated by using the average of the scores from all four test sections. All of the sections are scored on a scale of 1 to 36. If the average score is not a whole number, the ACT rounds the score up to the nearest whole number. Like other standardized admissions tests, the ACT has created a "College Readiness Benchmark" for each subject area.

The readiness benchmark is supposed to be an accurate gauge of whether a student is intellectually and academically ready for college. The ACT college readiness minimum benchmark scores are 22 for mathematics, 18 for English, 21 for reading, and 24 for science. The weighted average of all four of the college readiness benchmarks is 21.25, which means a student who gets a 21.1 does not meet the level of readiness that the ACT indicates is required to succeed in college. Surprisingly, the ACT reports that only 23% of all test takers in 2009 exceeded the benchmarks in all of the categories.

Studying for the ACT Test

The best way of studying for the ACT test is surprising to most people, because studying the test material more is usually not the answer. The answer is not simply doing more practice tests either.

The key to studying for the ACT test is realizing that the majority of what is on the test is the material you have been mastering all throughout high school, and although a review is in order, the highest scores are gotten by the students who are good test takers.

Test taking skills are crucial, because knowing the material is not nearly enough. The ACT test is timed and everyone who has taken it will tell you that time management is the key. If you can't get all the questions answered in time, it really doesn't matter how much you know.

There are a few time management strategies that are commonly accepted but very, very wrong. The most popular "strategy" involves rushing through the early questions on the Math test because those are supposedly the easiest and you need to save time for the questions that are at the end. This is a horrible strategy.

The best way to study for the Math portion of the ACT test, for instance, is to master the "easy" questions so that you can quickly solve them and have more time for the harder ones. That means studying the "easy" stuff like pre-algebra and basic geometry. Most students get hung up on studying trigonometry, but there are only four trig questions on the whole Math test.

Remember that studying for the ACT test means learning test taking skills that will help you not only with the ACT, but all throughout college as well. Get an affordable, strategic ACT prep course that teaches these skills and you will be on your way to your best possible score.

How to Study for the ACT Test

Sometimes the most valuable ACT test tips are the ones that are the most simple. While many students knock themselves out studying for the ACT test, the ones who get the best scores are the ones who work smart instead of just working hard.

So here are three tips to study for the ACT test:

1) Don't study for longer than 30 minutes at a time. Marathon study sessions just burn you out and are NOT an effective way to retain information. Study for a half hour and then take a 20 minute break.

You'll retain just as much as if you studied for the whole 50 minutes, AND you'll be fresh to study another cycle right away.

2) Don't just keep taking practice tests over and over. Take one practice test and analyze what TYPE of questions you got wrong and then practice answering that type of question until you are able to get them right quickly.

3) Figure out if you are a verbal, visual or kinesthetic learner. Do you remember things best by hearing them (verbal) or seeing them (visual). Or do you fidget a lot and need examples and stories to make things stick in your brain?

Whichever of these applies to you, change your study habits, locations and even study partners to fit them. Don't try to force yourself to study in a way that is not effective for you.

So remember the most important ACT test tip of all. Work hard, but don't JUST work hard; work smart as well!