From expanding test-optional policies to the recent rollout of the new Digital SAT, the college admission landscape has changed a lot in the past few years. Now, it’s the ACT®’s turn. To compete with the SAT and encourage more students to choose the ACT® as their preferred college admissions test, the ACT® will be shorter and more flexible starting in 2025. Learn more about how the ACT® is changing and discover our top test-taking and test prep tips.
Get to Know the ACT® (and how it is changing)
Any student preparing for the ACT® should start out with understanding the basics. Students can take the ACT® on paper or online (availability is limited to select locations, as it is still being rolled out). The ACT® includes four sections: English (75 questions, 45 min.), Math (60 questions, 60 min.), Reading (40 questions, 35 min.), and Science (40 questions, 35 min.). There is also an optional 40 minute Writing section that asks students to take a position on an issue after reading three perspectives. Students who take the ACT® receive a composite score, which is an average of each of the core four sections. You can learn more about the ACT®, including how it compares to the Digital SAT, by viewing this infographic.
The ACT® will be evolving in 2025. Science will be joining Writing as an optional test, providing a more flexible format that helps students play to their strengths. The optional Science and Writing sections will be scored separately. Composite scores will continue to be an average of the core sections of the test (English, Math, Reading). Instead of an exhausting three hour test, the new version of the ACT® will now be a two-hour long test with shorter English and Reading passages. There will also be 44 fewer questions on the test overall. Online test-takers will be the first to take the new ACT® in April 2025, but all students will be taking the updated version of the test by September 2025.
Test Prep Tips
- Create a test prep road map. Since you will want at least three months to study, make sure you register for a test date that fits into that window. Then, work out how to allocate your study time by assessing your strengths and weaknesses with a practice test. Map out deadlines for completing review and practice tests on a calendar to stick to a schedule.
- Practice makes perfect. Regular practice is the best way to develop weaker skills and build confidence. Break down core content into major skill areas like geometry for Math or punctuation for English. Complete practice exercises that drill concepts and take a full practice test before moving on to the next set of skills. Reviewing practice tests to figure out what you still need to review and what pitfalls to avoid in the future.
- Review core content. The ACT® tests skills students should have already learned, but it’s not uncommon for students to have knowledge or skill gaps. Consider reading more to increase your speed and familiarity with different texts. Add more words to your vocabulary to make it easier to not only answer word-in-context and style questions but also decode question and answer choices. For English, focus on grammar and punctuation, especially commas. Math review should ideally include topics like exponents and roots, order of operations, prime numbers, ratios and percents, triangles, slope, SOHCAHTOA for trigonometry, and probability.
- Take care of mind and body. Doing well on a standardized test like the ACT® requires more than just mastering academic skills. Do your best to get on a better sleep schedule, improve your nutrition, and add some more physical activity to your daily routine. To conquer test anxiety, take each question one at a time. Take deep breaths, believe in yourself, and visualize success.
- Get ready for test day. Reduce test day stress by gathering all of your materials for the test the night before (e.g. calculator, snack, ID) and getting a good night’s sleep. If you’re not taking the test at your school, consider test driving to the location in advance to avoid getting lost and locate the perfect parking spot.
Test-Taking Strategies
- Time management. When it comes to taking the ACT®, you want a Goldilocks approach so you’re not going so fast that you make careless errors and miss opportunities to earn points or too slow that you don’t finish on time. To get your timing “just right” taking multiple practice tests is key. The more you take, the more you become familiar with your pacing problems and what question types you can answer quickly and accurately (do these first) and what question types are harder and require more time (do these last).
- Don’t leave questions blank. As you finish a section, it’s time to revisit questions you marked to do later because they were difficult or took a lot of time. If you’re still stuck, then it’s time to guess. Any answer is better than no answer, because at least with a guess you have a chance of earning a point; there is no penalty for wrong answers.
- Read questions carefully. It probably seems like a no-brainer, but a lot of students lose out on valuable points because they misread a question or failed to use clues in the question to select the correct answer. Always underline key words in a question, so you know exactly what you have to do. This is particularly important for word problems on the Math section that require breaking down questions into smaller pieces.
- Have a Reading plan. An effective time management strategy for the Reading test is to complete passages in their order of difficulty. Each Reading test will always include Prose fiction/literary narrative, Social Science, Humanities, and Natural Science passages in that order. If you struggle with literary narrative, for example, consider skipping that passage and coming back to it when you’ve finished the other three. Another way to save precious time on the Reading test is to skim passages to zero in on the main idea by reading the first paragraph, first and last sentences of body paragraphs, and the last paragraph.
- Read first, then answer questions. For other reading tests, you may have been encouraged to preview questions. On the ACT® Reading test, however, limited time means that every second matters. Likewise, for the ACT® English test, it might be tempting to head right to the questions without reading the text. Resist! While you don’t have to read English passages as thoroughly as Reading ones, reading the whole paragraph that features sentences for revision will give you the context you need to avoid careless errors.
- Review all of the answer choices. Even though your initial answer choice may seem correct because it is either mostly true or uses language directly from the text, there may be a better answer you may not have considered. You can use this strategy on the English test, too. Reviewing each answer choice guarantees you select the most concise revisions with the most relevant word choices.
- Support your answers. Whenever you eliminate or pick an answer, you should have a voice in your head that asks you “Why?” The way you justify your answer to yourself should rely on your understanding of writing rules or evidence within a reading passage (not on outside information or general impressions).
- Keep it short. A good rule of thumb when it comes to the English section of the ACT® is to choose concise answers. Shortest answers (that make sense) are often the best answers because they avoid unnecessary words and punctuation in order to communicate ideas in a clear and straightforward way.
- Know when to say no. The ACT® English section often includes OMIT or NO CHANGE as answer choices. There is about a 25% chance NO CHANGE is the correct answer when it’s offered, so give it strong consideration. Likewise, OMIT is offered somewhat rarely, and when it is there’s a good chance it’s the correct answer.
- Be strategic with math problems. Backsolving is a great shortcut that involves plugging each answer choice into the question and seeing which one works. You can also pick numbers for unknown values (just not 0 or 1) in a question involving algebra to eliminate answer choices faster. For word problems, break down parts of the question and translate words into mathematical expressions.
- Plug it in. This strategy works for English and Math, and it’s a familiar one—once you have an answer, plug it back into either the sentence or equation in the question to make sure it works before moving on, confident you’ve made the right choice.
- Use the process of elimination. The path to analyzing the answer choices should begin with identifying wrong answers, which are often easier to identify than correct answers. Be brutal. If there is just one thing (e.g. word, punctuation mark, number, variable) that is off, it’s got to go.
How A+ Can Help
Get started on your test prep journey by taking advantage of one of A+ Test Prep and Tutoring’s free proctored practice tests. Take a real ACT® or Digital SAT under test day conditions, and then follow up with a free consultation. We will review your score report and help you determine which test is right for you. We also individualized test prep programs for both the SAT and ACT® with experienced tutors who will help you get to know the test, review core content, and teach effective test-taking strategies.
At A+ Test Prep and Tutoring, our practices are based on the latest developments in educational theory and research. We have an excellent team of tutors who can help you with standardized testing, executive functioning, or achievement in any other school subject. If you want to find out more about our services, contact us here.
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