ACT Test Prep: Last-Minute Tips & Tricks to Raise Your Score

ACT test prep takes time, so the ACT is not easy to cram for last-minute. But if you only have a little time to prepare, here is a list of key tips and tricks that could help raise your score.

Last-minute ACT test prep:

14 Things to Remember on Test Day

The ACT as a whole:

1. SLOW DOWN - It seems counterintuitive to tell students to slow down on a test that has intense time constraints on every section, but slowing down is actually a proven way for most students to actually INCREASE their test scores. Most students who slow down during the exam, and take time to be thoughtful about their answers, actually do see an increase in score. If you think about it, this does make some sense. By slowing down, you’re allowing yourself to work more carefully and more thoughtfully through fewer questions, as compared to rushing through many more questions. Even if you don’t have time to even attempt all of the questions in a particular section, if you can work in-depth through at least half of the questions you’ll still set yourself up for a solid foundation of a score.
2. PROCESS OF ELIMINATION - The four sections of the ACT that make up the composite score — English, math, reading, and science — are all multiple choice. For this reason, identifying WRONG answers will actually increase your probability of selecting the correct answer. We encourage students to actually cross out wrong answers in the test booklet across all sections. You can write all over your test booklet if you want, and by actually crossing out wrong answers you are effectively narrowing your answer choices and giving your brain fewer answer options to focus on. If you don’t do this, your eyes can still wander to and consider those wrong answers that you already ruled out inside your head. Even if you are unable to eliminate all of the incorrect answer choices and you have to guess on a question, hopefully you are at least making an educated guess with a higher probability of answering correctly because you have eliminated at least some of the wrong answers!
3. SKIP ANYTHING DIFFICULT OR CONFUSING - Most students will not have enough time to attempt all questions in all sections of the test. This is NOT a bad thing. Students get really fixated on making sure they have time to do everything, and this goes back to Tip #1 - you aren’t doing yourself a favor by moving so quickly that you aren’t able to actually think through and work out the questions. Do not feel like you have to attempt every single question. Instead, spend your time working through the questions that are easier for you and that you understand better versus the questions and areas that you have a harder time with. Never hesitate to skip any parts of any section of the ACT. Time is precious on the ACT, so if something is difficult, skip over it and go spend your time elsewhere.
   

The English Section:

1. KIS - We call this the “Keep It Simple” principle. This principle is important and shows up routinely because the ACT dislikes wordiness and redundancy. This is a type of question that shows up throughout the English section quite a bit. The ACT prefers to use direct, concise language, so you should be on the lookout for answer options that are short, precise, and do not repeat information already provided throughout the story. Additionally, you should pay close attention to answer options that are much shorter than their counterparts or that say “Delete the underlined portion.” Oftentimes, the one-word answers and getting rid of parts of the story will be the correct answer because it makes the story more concise and less wordy. On the same note, make sure to pay attention to the context of the story as you go through the English section — it can be SO easy to just jump from one underline to the next, but make sure you actually read the entire story. Many KIS questions will rely on your recognition of information that has already been stated; the ACT does not like to uselessly repeat information, so also be on the lookout for repeated tidbits and phrases and eliminate those when possible.
2. KEYWORDS - There are two types of questions that show up on the English section of the ACT: grammar questions and rhetorical skills questions. Rhetorical skills questions are those that ask about the context and meaning of the story rather than the grammatical makeup of it. For questions that ask about grammar—let’s say comma placement, for example— there is a clear right or wrong answer based on the rules of English grammar. You know that you have to put a comma between two independent clauses that are separated by a FANBOYS conjunction, when separating items in a list, and when adding an appositive to a phrase. Those are clear-cut rules that the ACT can’t mess with. BUT, with questions that ask about the context and the meaning of the story (rhetorical skills questions), the right answer can seem so much more ambiguous and harder to pinpoint. However, this is not true — the ACT can not give more than one answer option that could be argued as being the right answer. EVER. So, while all of the answer options might look appealing, use your eagle-eye to identify the minute differences between them. The ACT will weave keywords through the stories and the questions that point to the right answer. Try to identify these keywords throughout the English section, and it will be easy to eliminate answers that do not match the keywords of the questions.

The Math Section:

1. DOUBLE CHECK ANSWERS - We have all taken multiple choice math tests at school. We work through the problem, see that our answer is one of the multiple choice options, get excited and select that answer and move onto the next question. Warning: This is VERY bad practice for the ACT math section. The ACT is supposed to be difficult, so the writers are very diligent about every single answer option for every single question. What does this mean? Well, it means that, generally, every wrong answer option on the math section is an answer that you will get if you do part of the problem wrong. For example, if you accidentally add three instead of subtract three, you can bet that your answer option will be one of the choices. What’s the takeaway from this? DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING. Every question on the math section of the ACT is worth roughly half a point on the 36 scoring scale, so it’s really really important to make sure that no silly mistakes are happening, especially in the early part of the test where the easier questions show up.
2. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX - When students take math exams at school, the teacher always includes the directions SHOW YOUR WORK. The teacher wants to see the step-by-step work for how you get to your answer to make sure that you understand the concepts and equations you’re learning during class. The ACT math section couldn’t be farther from this — you DO NOT need to show any work. It can definitely be a good idea to work through the problems in the space given in the exam booklet, but it is certainly not required. More than this, THERE IS NO SINGLE RIGHT WAY TO GET TO THE ANSWER. While on the math test at school you may be penalized for getting the right answer but doing the work wrong, on the ACT you simply get the points for answering the questions right. Therefore, if you just can’t seem to remember the exact equation for a certain question or you can’t remember how you were taught to work through a certain type of problem, THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. Ask yourself if there is another way that you could get to the right answer.
3. LEVERAGE ANSWER OPTIONS - Similar to point #2, students should keep in mind that they can always try to WORK THROUGH THE QUESTION BACKWARDS. What does this mean? It means START WITH THE ANSWERS. The beautiful thing about multiple choice questions is that you know one of the right answers is staring right at you, so for many questions it is possible to test the different answer options and see if they work with the question. For example, for any questions that ask you to identify the value of a variable—let’s say x, for example—it is oftentimes possible to take your answer options and plug them in as x in the equation in question to test and see if the answer works. This is not always the fastest way to work through a problem, but it can be very strategic if you get stuck on a question and can’t figure out how to approach it or don’t remember a specific equation. On the flip side, this method can actually sometimes be FASTER than working through the problem with the regular formulas and process, so this can also be a good trick to have ready if you get to a problem that you think will take too long to work through normally.
   

The Reading Section:

1. CHANGE QUESTION ORDER - The types of questions that show up in the reading section vary from super specific questions that refer to certain lines and paragraphs of the story to super broad questions that ask about the story as a whole. It is always a good idea to rearrange the order of the questions so that you begin with the ones that are more specific — you will have a higher probability of getting these right early on than you will the broad questions. Therefore, you should then finish with the broader questions last. The ACT knows that you will have a higher probability of answering the broader questions correctly at the end of the entire set of questions, so they actually use this against you and will often give you the broad questions earlier in the question set. For example, a type of question that frequently shows up as the first question for a story asks about the “Main Idea” of the story. While you may have a decent understanding of what the main idea of the story is, you should still save this question for last since you will continue to learn about the story as you work through the other questions.
2. DON’T WORRY ABOUT READING EVERYTHING - The reading section is the one section of the exam where practically no outside information is required since all of the answers are somewhere in the text right in front of you. For this reason, the ACT needs to find ways to make this section harder. The big way that they make it harder is by installing an intense time constraint. Most students will not have time to read through all four stories in their entirety and work through all 40 questions in the 35 minutes given. That being said, finding ways to be more productive in the time given is the key to success on the reading section. For many students, this means reading NONE of the story and jumping straight into the questions (beginning with the specific questions first and working your way to the broad ones — refer back to Point 1 above). For other students, it can be helpful to read just the first paragraph and the last paragraph of the story to get the big picture idea before jumping into the questions. There are many many more strategies than these that can be leveraged for the reading section of the exam. These are just a couple commonly used methods that seem to work well for most students.

The Science Section:

1. DON’T READ THE STUDY DESCRIPTION - For the science section, it is smartest to jump right into the questions rather than reading the study description that shows up at the beginning. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, the studies can be pretty complex and really specific, citing exact numbers, dates, ratios, etc., so it is likely that you won’t recall very much of the description even if you do read it, so you’ll end up reading it again later anyway. Don’t waste this precious time at the beginning of the section reading this — read it later if the questions require you to do so. Secondly, the questions mostly refer to the charts, graphs, and tables that make up the science study, and many of the questions will direct you to exactly which chart, graph, or table to look to for the answer. Most questions will not require you to pull any information from the study description, so skip over this and come back to it later if required.
2. SKIP THE LAST QUESTION - Similar to the math section, the questions in each science study are ordered more or less from easy to hard. The earlier questions will ask you to interpret data from the study, but the last question of the study generally requires more thought and sometimes even the use of outside knowledge and information. Do not hesitate to skip the last question of the study and move onto the next study. Remember that the key is to attempt as many questions as possible in the time given, so it is not smart to waste too much time fixated on any one question.
   

The Writing Section:

1. WRITE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN - The writing section is the only part of the ACT that is scored by a human — two humans actually. That being said, it can be possible to sway the human scorers on some level as to the quality of your argument and your writing. Data has shown that longer essays generally correlate with higher scores, so write as much as you can! This isn’t to say that these long essays are bad essays and the scorers are being fooled, so make sure that your supporting ideas and evidence are logical and concrete, and when writer’s cramp kicks in and you want to quit, push through and keep writing!
2. ACKNOWLEDGE ALL PERSPECTIVES - The ACT used to score the writing essay based on the student’s ability to argue one perspective effectively. In more recent years, the ACT’s definition of an effective essay has broadened to include an understanding of and acceptance of other perspectives. This means that it is VERY important that you acknowledge that there are other opinions than your own, so make room for doing this in your essay. Specifically, it is smart to acknowledge the two perspectives other than the one you chose that the ACT provides with the prompt. Doing this will illustrate that you understand and accept differing perspectives than your own.

If you have more time for ACT test prep, you should certainly use it. The ACT is a very particular test, and tips and tricks will only get you so far. Successful test prep includes repetitive practice and tutoring to increase the level of knowledge of the content that shows up on the exam, as well as familiarity with the format and time constraints and how to combat them. The amount of time that you should spent preparing for the ACT will depend on your particular situation and the amount of progress that needs to be made to get from your current score to your goal score. For help calculating how much time you should be spending on ACT test prep to reach your test score goal, see our blog post here: How Much Studying Do I Actually Need To Do for the ACT?

Good luck, and happy studying!

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