ACT Science Prep: Small Tips & Tricks for Defeating the ACT Science Section
You’ve probably heard someone say that there are tips and tricks that can help you raise your ACT score. While it may sound mysterious and secretive, it’s really not. There’s no simple trick to help you get a 36 on any section of the ACT, but there are some small things you can incorporate into your overall testing strategy that could give you time to attempt more questions and help you answer more questions correctly.
The ACT science section can be intimidating and frustrating. This is true for a couple of reasons. For one, this section always shows up LAST. You've just spent three hours going through English, math, and reading, and your brain is probably exhausted already, and now you expect it to successfully interpret complex scientific data?
Secondly, the science section is not really what you’d expect from a “science” section based on high school science course curriculum. The ACT science section is basically data interpretation and analysis – there is hardly any outside information that is required to do well on this section, which makes it both harder and easier to prepare for. Like the reading section, everything you need is there on the pages in front of you somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it, understanding it, and applying it.
For this reason, students who do not know what to expect from the science section may be startled when they try to work through the studies, and students who have little experience with data interpretation may become frustrated. But don’t fear – the ACT science section is one that anyone can master with increased practice and familiarity of the types of science studies that show up and the types of questions asked. ACT science prep focuses on increasing familiarity with the format and wording of the studies, frequent practice of the types of questions asked, and, as always, identifying tips, tricks, and strategies that work for an individual student to help with combatting the intense time constraint of the ACT science section.
Before you start to think about what tips and tricks you should make sure to remember on test day, make sure you have a solid big-picture strategy in place that’s going to help you do your best on test day. Once you’ve identified what big-picture ACT science strategies work well to help you attempt as many questions as possible and answer them correctly as consistently as possible, it’s time to consider what other tips and tricks could help you boost your ACT science score even higher. We encourage students to use trial-and-error to determine which of the tips and tricks below (if any) work well for you as you work through the ACT science section.
Tips and tricks that can help anyone increase their ACT science score:
1. Don’t start by reading the study description
If you’ve been paying attention, you know I’ve repeated this many times: you DO NOT have to be a subject matter expert to do well on the studies that show up in the ACT science section. In fact, I’d be shocked if you were a subject matter expert on any of the topics presented. Unless you are, in fact, an expert at whatever the subject of a given study is, you SHOULD NOT read the study description that shows up at the beginning of the study.
Even though you don’t have to be an expert, the studies are usually going to be pretty complex, full of long, confusing words, lots of numbers and statistics, and other stuff that you aren’t going to remember very easily. That’s the key: even if you read the study description, how much of it are you actually going to retain? Probably not much. Probably not nearly enough to make it worth you taking the precious time to read it. If this were not a timed exam, of course you’d want to read the description of the study and take the time to understand it. Alas, this IS a timed exam, and you don’t have time to try and understand the complexities of the study outright. We’ve already discussed how you don’t have to know much about the topic, so your time is best spent diving into the questions right from the beginning.
Diving right into the questions can actually be pretty straightforward. After all, most questions in the science section will direct you to where you need to look to find the answer to the question. Questions will start by saying something like “According to Table 1,” and that’s how you know you should turn your attention to Table 1 to locate the answer. There may be questions that require you to read the study description, of course, but wait to read the description until you get to those questions. If you start by reading the study description, you’ll have completely forgotten what you read by the time you get to the questions that require you to use that information, so you will have to read the description again anyway. Therefore, save yourself some precious time early on and don’t read the study description until you have to.
2. Focus on where questions ask you to look – pay close attention to labels on charts, tables, and graphs – everything will be labeled!
Okay so I basically just covered most of this in Tip #1, but this one is important: pay attention to where the question tells you to look. Several questions will start with “According to Study 1,” or “Based on the data provided in Table 2.” Pay attention to this, and make sure you’re looking for the answer in the place that the ACT tells you to. They will NOT tell you to look at Table 2 if the answer to the question is found in Table 1. Remember that. This is not one of the ways that they try to trick you. Pay close attention to the various study labels and follow their lead.
Furthermore, pay attention to the labels WITHIN the different charts and graphs as well. Many studies can have graphs or charts that are complex as the one below. At first glance, this graph may be overwhelming and incredibly confusing. There are many different things to consider with this graph: there’s a key at the top, an x-axis value across the bottom, two y-axis values (one across each side) and a little note at the bottom about the units. Chances are, if you sit and look at this study for some time, it will become pretty clear what the graph means and how you can interpret it. But, there’s that magic word again: TIME. You don’t have TIME to understand this graph inside and out. You need to move quickly and make sure you’re answering questions. That’s where the ACT will help you out – the questions will guide you through your interpretation of the graph.
For example, the fourth question for this graph asks “Based on Figure 1, the average solar radiation intensity over the past 250,000 years was closest to which of the following?” First, notice how the question directs you straight to FIGURE 1 (note the label under the graph – everything is labeled accordingly). Secondly, you are looking for where Figure 1 provides information about “solar radiation intensity.” If you look at the graph’s labels once more, you’ll discover that information is found on the y-axis on the right-hand side of the graph. This is where you need to go to work through your answer. Thirdly, notice how the question specifies the correct answer as being “closest” to one of the answers. This is another indicator that can help you interpret the graph – this little word should keep you from looking for a specific data point and instead trigger you to look for broader patterns in the data.
While not all ACT science questions will walk you through exactly where you need to be looking to find the answer, many questions will. Questions that do not guide you through the study graphs, charts, and tables may require you to dissect the information in the study description – this is when you take the time to go and read that. If you don’t find the answer there, you may need to think about the question more broadly and apply the information to circumstances outside of the study or use some of your outside science knowledge to assist you in making an educated conclusion – this type of question commonly shows up as the last question in a study. If you struggle to complete the science section in the allotted 35 minutes, consider skipping questions that do not tell you where to look to find the answer. For most students, focusing on the questions that guide you through the study will be a better use of your time than attempting to complete the broader, more difficult questions that will generally take much longer. Remember that your goal does not have to be to complete the science section, but rather to complete as many questions as possible in the given 35 minutes.
3. Mental math
You aren’t allowed to use your calculator on the ACT science section, but there will still be some math that shows up in the questions. Since you can’t have a calculator, you can assume that any math you are required to do will be pretty simple math. The ACT isn’t allowed to require you to do difficult mental math in order to answer questions correctly. Remember this, so you don’t overthink these questions.
Not all studies will have math associated with them, but when math does show up, don’t freak out! Think through the questions logically, and if you have to, go ahead and write out your math by hand. Here is an example of a question that shows up in an ACT science section that requires some mental math:
Figure 1 is the graph that you need to reference in order to answer question #6. While the question does not direct you to Figure 1, there is only one other data set that goes with this study – Table 1 – and it does not reference CBr4 at all, so you know you have to go to the only place where you have information about CBr4, which is Figure 1 (below).
There are a few things that you need to figure out before you get to the math aspect of this question. First, you need to figure out what the molecular mass (amu) is for CBr4 – to do this, you will need to refer to the x-axis of the graph in Figure 1. Following the x-axis up to CBr4, you can conclude that the amu value for CBr4 is somewhere between 330-340 amu. Now, you’ll take what you know from the question – C by itself is 12 amu. If you remove 12 amu from the total amu value for CBr4, you’ll be left with roughly 320-325 amu that needs to be distributed between 4 Br elements. Now, you’ve finally arrived at the math! You can easily divide 320 by 4 and arrive at 80. That would lead you to answer option H: 80 amu.
Now, there will be other mental math problems that require you to do less work on the front end, but this is a good example that requires more of you than simple math. You may not realize at first when math is required, but if you catch yourself trying to do difficult complications in your head or on your paper, take a second look at the question because you may be doing something wrong. The key takeaway: be ready to do some math, but if you’re doing really difficult math, you’re doing something wrong.
4. Process of Elimination
The ACT science section (just like all the other sections) is multiple choice. Use this to your advantage. This is a huge tip that you can use to your aide across any section of the ACT. You’re allowed to write all over your test booklet, so actually CROSS OUT wrong answers as you eliminate them. This will help you focus on the remaining answer options and give you a better means of making an educated guess if that’s what it comes down to.
Similarly, several questions in the science section will be two-part questions. Here is an example:
In this sample question, notice that two of the answer options say that 4:00 p.m. is the higher concentration, and the other two say that 5:30 p.m. was the higher concentration. You’ll want to attack this question as if it were two separate questions. Start by working through the data to determine if the O3 concentration was highest at 4:00 p.m. or at 5:30 p.m. Once you’ve figured that out, CROSS OUT the two answers that are wrong. This already gives you a 50% chance of guessing the right answer. Next, turn your attention to the two remaining answers that both fit with the time you found to be correct. Dissect the different answer explanations and try to determine which is the better fit.
5. Skip anything that’s difficult or that’s taking you too long
This is another Golden Rule for the ACT as a whole: Use your time wisely. You NEVER want to spend too much time on any single question in any of the sections. I know it can be really infuriating to be faced with a question that you know you remember learning in school, but you just can’t seem to remember the right equation or the right rule. You sit there and rack your brain, determined that you’re going to remember and get the question right. This is like a death sentence: before you know if, you’ve spent 6 minutes on one problem, and you still haven’t remembered what you’re trying to remember… That’s 6 precious minutes that could have been spent tackling 6 (or more!) other problems.
Remember that every single question is worth the same amount of points: pick and choose your battles wisely so that you can work through as many questions as possible. NEVER hesitate to skip something that you think is going to be difficult or that you think will take you a long time to complete. The best case scenario will be that you have time left over at the end of the test to return to the questions you skipped and attempt them at that time. If not, you’ve been smart to use your time on questions that you found to be easier and more straightforward than those that would have slowed you down more.
6. Use common knowledge
You get the picture by now, right: you DO NOT have to be a subject matter expert on any of the topics that show up in the ACT science section in order to get a good score. In fact, you don’t have to have much science background information at all to do well on this section. There are some things you should be familiar with, which mainly includes the scientific method and overall research terms, like independent variables and control groups. Other than this, there isn’t anything you’re really required to know.
However, some of the things you do know may become helpful if you recognize when you can apply them. What do I mean? The studies in the ACT science section are from real studies and real data. Therefore, the concepts exist in real life. There will be times in the science section that you can use your real-life knowledge to assist you in working through a question. I refer to it this way because students often assume the scientific data is almost otherworldly – it’s complicated and bizarre and can’t possibly be referring to the real world. BUT that’s not true at all. All of the scientific concepts that show up in the ACT science studies are from real life, and it’s possible that applying the information to a real-life situation that you’re more familiar with may help guide you to the correct answer more easily than simply staring at the information on the page.
I’ll give you an example – there is a complex study about the effects on pressure of changing the temperature in a container that asks you to determine what is going to happen if the temperature is lowered. You’re provided with a couple tables and a lot of numbers, but you can’t seem to figure out if the pressure in the container will go up or down if the temperature gets colder. Now, since the tables and data are somewhat confusing and don’t seem to be helping, I can apply this to a real-life situation that I understand and information that I know to be true. I live in Minnesota, where it gets very cold in the winter. Most people that live in colder climates know that tires need to have more air added to them in the winter. Why is this the case? Because when the temperature drops, the pressure drops as well! Similarly, think about what happens to a basketball that’s left out in the cold – it deflates! The ACT isn’t going to give you phony data, so these same basic principals can be applied to the study. You don’t even have to work through the confusing data to know that the pressure in the container will drop when the temperature drops.
Another example may include a question that asks about plant growth. What is the most likely reason that the plant grew twice as fast? Without even reading the answer options to this question, you can probably rattle off a few things that could possibly make a plant grow faster: increase the amount of sunlight it receives, water it more. You get the idea. Keep real-life scenarios and concepts in mind as you work through the questions in the science section. You never know when applying a concept to your real-life knowledge may be helpful in eliminating or identifying correct answers.
There you have it: ACT science tips and tricks to help you reach your goal score.
The ACT science section can be pretty intimidating, especially if you don’t know what to expect. Most students are not used to analyzing data sets and experiments, but with practice and increased familiarity, this is a section that anyone can do well on. If you haven’t done so already, determine a big-picture science strategy that will work well for you on test day. By adding these tips and tricks on top of your big-picture strategy, you’ll be ready to reach your full ACT science potential come test day.
Good luck, and happy studying!
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