ACT Test Timing - Finishing in Time, Answering Every Question

Anyone who is at all familiar with the ACT knows how difficult it can be to finish all the questions before the clock runs out. "Time Management" is one of the most discussed aspects of the ACT, but "hurry up and don't waste time" is really insufficient advice. It's not enough to realize that with 60 questions in 60 minutes for the Math test, for instance, that you should spend no more than one minute per question. What students need is a really detailed, practical way of improving their time management skills.


Step 1: Master the Times / Sections
First and foremost, it's important to know the 4 parts of the ACT, number of questions and minutes AND sections, inside out. Students should be able to rattle off by memory that the English test comes first, followed by Math, a short break, and then Reading and Science are last. Parents can help by asking "how many questions are on the Reading test?" (40) and "how many passages does the Reading test have (4).


Step 2: Know Your Times


The English test has 75 questions and is 45 minutes long. While there aren't really 'sections' as such, the two areas tested (the types of questions) are rhetoric and grammar & punctuation. The Math test has 60 questions, is 60 minutes long and has Algebra, Coordinate Geometry and Plane Geometry, and Trigonometry. The Reading test gives you only 35 minutes to read four passages and answer 10 questions on each. The Science test also lasts 35 minutes and has 40 questions, divided among 7 different sections.


Step 3: Know Your Minutes and Benchmarks


Students need to know ahead of time when they will need to be checking the clock for benchmark times to see if they are behind. For instance, about halfway through the time allotted for the English test (22 minutes), you should be at question 38 to ensure that you are on time. You should complete 15 questions every 15 minutes for the Math test, and complete one Reading test passage every 8 minutes. Finally, for the Science test, you should be done with about 20 questions after 17 minutes.


Step 4: Practice the Calculations


It is surprising to see that many students are not proficient at the math skills necessary to manage the clock, so be prepared to practice this critical technique. For instance, if the clock says it is 8:14 and you are starting the English test, what time will you be halfway through? The answer, 8:36, should be written down on the test booklet before going to the first question so you can look at it and the clock periodically. Be able to instantly calculate the benchmark times from any starting time.


Finally, take practice tests to ensure that you are becoming proficient at completing all the questions in the allotted time. Learn how to just guess on questions that you aren't sure on, or that will take too much time to figure out. By watching the clock, comparing the time to your benchmark times, and having the discipline to move on from questions that could get you bogged down, you will master the Time Management aspect of the ACT and get your best score.


Visit http://www.collegeexamtutor.com/ for more information about the ACT and how to prepare, as well as the "7 Keys to College Success" course on making a successful transition to college.

Test Anxiety - Overcoming the 3 Causes for Doing Poorly on Tests

Countless students are frustrated by the fact that they do great on all their assignments and then when it comes to their tests, they blow it. They are frustrated, discouraged and beat themselves instead of understanding that this is a common phenomenon that CAN be overcome.

The first thing is to have a thorough understanding of the three major causes of Test Anxiety. Next, it is necessary to have a strategy for addressing the specific cause / causes that are holding you back.

Psychological

Although this is the cause that most commonly gets the blame, it is NOT the greatest villain. Most students feel shame about poor test performance because they think it means that they are weak psychologically, choking when the pressure is on. But when you read on, you will discover two more powerful causes that may be in play.

If it does turn out that the Psychological factor is your biggest problem, then the best way to address it is with practice tests and visualization. By vividly imagining yourself doing great, whizzing through the test on test day, while you are completing a practice test, you can retrain your brain to be calm and confident instead of anxious. Having a number of successful practice tests is a very powerful way to curb test anxiety on test day.

Physiological

This is an extremely powerful cause of poor test performance and most commonly overlooked. When a person is under stress, they begin to breathe less. Shallow breathing deprives the brain of oxygen and seriously hurts your ability to perform. (In extreme cases, this causes a person to faint.)

A great example of this is in studies that the Air Force did during World War II to determine the performance of pilots in high altitude environments. They found that very simple tasks, like dealing a deck of cards, became increasingly difficult as they got less oxygen. This happens by flying to higher altitudes, or it happens with shallow breathing brought on by anxiety. You actually cause yourself to be less sharp and resourceful by being nervous. Thus, the psychological cause can trigger a physiological problem!

The great news is that you can beat this with a technique the Army calls "combat breathing." Take 8 deep breaths, inhaling for three seconds through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Count to 3 while inhaling, hold it for 1 second, and count to 3 while exhaling. It will take you only 56 seconds to do this and you will oxygenate your blood to ensure that you are at full intellectual functioning! Do this before a test and even during a test and you will see a huge difference in your performance.

Improper Study Methods

The third cause for poor test performance is the inability to recall what you studied because you didn't study using the correct method. Everyone learns and retains information differently. Some are visual learners who need to see things to remember them, others are auditory learners who do better hearing information, and still others are kinesthetic learners, who need to 'feel' and experience the subject matter.

By taking a Learning Styles Assessment, you can begin to understand how important it is to your test performance that you study in a way that is compatible with the way your are wired intellectually. A digital voice recorder is a great tool for auditory learners, and talking and joking in study groups really accelerates the learning and retention of kinesthetic learners.

The best way to internalize these practical strategies for improving test performance is with further practice. For a four hour online course, go right now to http://www.CollegeExamTutor.com/ and sign up for the ACT preparation course, whether you are taking the ACT or not. This course begins with a Learning Styles Assessment and focuses on test taking strategies and eliminating test anxiety, which will be a great help to any student.

ACT - How To Get Your Best Score

Begin With the End in Mind

The best way to approach the ACT is like an efficiency expert or a troubleshooter. Before you do anything, take a practice test to see where you are. Only then should you start studying in earnest, so you know exactly where to focus your efforts.

Far too often, students approach the ACT without a good strategy that will give them the maximum results with the minimum effort. It's kind of like throwing a whole bowl of spaghetti against the wall to see what will stick! A smiliar approach is also advocated by many Test Prep companies, who can justify charging $600 to $1500 because their curriculum is so long and involved. This is great for them, but not so great for the student.

By taking a practice test first, a student will be able to get an idea of a realistic expectation for a score that they can achieve, while also narrowing down which areas they need to work on. Before you can set a target, you need to know how far away that target is.

Caution: All Practice Tests Are Not The Same!

Bookstores are chock-full of ACT study books that have several free practice tests included. They are everywhere - and can be found online without even paying for a book. However, they are not all the same. While any practice test can give you a general idea of how well you will score, only those tests with a breakdown of the scores into subscores will give you what you need to zero in on the areas where you need to study.

Like the official ACT Score Report sent out after you take the ACT, the most helpful practice tests will have the Math and English portions broken down into subscores. (The Reading is also broken down into subscores, but that is not nearly as helpful). These subscores will enable you to save the time, effort and frustration that are wasted when you just try to "study everything." Just as a mechanic would never try to fix a car without proper diagnostic tools, a serious student will not want to invest time studying until getting a detailed diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses.

The College Exam Tutor ACT Prep course teaches the detailed strategy for diagnosing an ACT score in order to get the maximum results in the minimum time. For more information, visit www.CollegeExamTutor.com and learn more about the 4 hour course that helps you work smart and not just hard!

College Success in the First Semester

Why do so many college freshmen get low grades their first semester? Many parents think that it just all the "freedom" with nobody around to supervise them, but there is something else far more important.

No matter how well a student did in high school, college is a totally different experience, with totally different expectations. Unless a student learns the specific skills ahead of time, the first semester will be their frustrating learning curve experience. That CAN be avoided.

Preparation for on-campus success should begin a few weeks before the student arrives in the Fall. It should include preparations for the social as well as academic aspects of college. There are quite a few specific things that students can do that don't require much time in order to arrive on campus the first day well on their way to being plugged in socially and poised academically to a successful first semester.

For more information, visit http://www.CollegeExamTutor.com/7-Keys.htm

ACT Math - Why Students Struggle

The Three Sections


The math portion of the ACT is divided into three parts, basically corresponding to freshman, sophomore and junior math. Interestingly enough, the freshman math is where many students do poorly, as this math is two years old for them and not 'fresh' in their minds! The good news is that a quick brush up is generally all that is needed to bring up this part of their math score.


There are 60 questions on the math test, and they are divided as follows:

• Pre-Algebra / Algebra - 24 questions (basically freshman math)


• Intermediate Algebra / Coordinate Geometry - 18 questions (basically sophomore math)


• Plane Geometry - 14 questions / Trigonometry - 4 questions (basically junior math)

Where Many Students Go Wrong


The biggest fear that most students have is that they will not know how to do the problems on the test. With the math test, the culprit is trigonometry. However, worrying about 4 questions out of 60 does not make sense. Instead, students should focus on the area that has the largest number of questions, which is algebra ! Once they are very confident in that area, geometry is the next priority.


The Best Strategy


In the algebra area, the most mistakes are generally made with figuring out how to set up the equations for the word problems. So this is the best opportunity for studying that will give the greatest return on your score!



Do as many practice tests as you can, focusing on algebra equations and you will see your score rise quickly. Most mistakes made on this, the biggest portion of the math test, are made in determining from the word problem what the formula should be! That's right, the majority of the time that students are punching numbers into their calculator, they are on the wrong path. The reason that they don't realize it is that the multiple choice answers always provide options for the most common errors. Students complete the problem, see their answer as one of the five options and move on to the next problem never realizing that they got the question wrong!

The Main Thing

No matter what portion of the test you are working on, just as in life, you want to focus on the most important, high value things first. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing! And in the math test, it is algebra!

Guessing is KEY to the ACT

When should I Guess?

Unlike the SAT, there is no penalty on the ACT for getting an answer wrong. Therefore, it is absolutely a waste to leave any question unanswered. If there is only 5 minutes left and you have 20 questions to go, it is best to just guess on all of them and then use the time to go back and read some of the questions to try and get the best answer. This will ensure that the clock doesn't run out and you have unanswered questions! You will get zero points for a question that you didn't answer, but you have a shot at getting a point if you guess the correct one.

What are my Odds?

The English, Science and Reading tests all have 4 answers to choose from, so your odds are one in four, or 25%. That means in our scenario above, where you just randomly guess on 20 questions, you could expect to get 5 of them right! The Math test is a bit different, with 5 answers to choose from, so you have a 20% chance of guessing the right answer. Either way you slice it, 20% or 25% is much better than zero percent for a question left unanswered!


How do I Increase my Odds?

Guessing is not just for last minute desperation. Unless you are one who will get a perfect score, there will be a LOT of answers that you aren't sure of. The good news is that you can turn this into a positive instead of a negative. Instead of focusing on the fact that you didn't know the answer, see if you can eliminate one or two obviously wrong answers and then guess from the remaining choices. If you eliminate 1 Math answer from among the 5, you will have increased your guessing odds from 20% to 25%. That is something to focus on, because it is a victory, however small, and can keep you from becoming demotivated during the test.

Remember that almost no students in America will know the answer to every single question. If you go into the test expecting that, then you are less likely to get discouraged during the test. Take away a small victory from every question.

1) Increase your odds by narrowing down the possible answers.
2) If you have to just guess without having a clue, focus on how much time you just saved by quickly moving on to the next question! Get those questions that you don't know out of the way and save your time and energy for the ones you can solve.

With the ACT, it's all about managing your attitude. The more positive you remain, the better your score will be!