ACT Test Prep: Importance of Core Courses
There are many things that students can do to help them prepare to do their best on the ACT. One of these things is actually taking many core course classes throughout high schools. A solid foundation of understanding in things like language arts, math, and science will help students tremendously on the ACT. Here, we’re taking a look at just why core courses throughout high school can help set students up for success on ACT test day.
The ACT is a standardized exam that many students will take and include with their college applications. Students are tested in four areas: English, math, reading, and science. There is also an optional writing section on the ACT.
The ACT is pretty particular when it comes to what types of questions are asked in each of these sections. For example, throughout the English section, students are tested heavily on their understanding of English grammar, and the math section emphasizes understanding in algebra and geometry.
That being said, while many aspects that are covered in high school core courses will not be tested on the ACT, the more core courses that high schoolers have taken by the time they take the ACT, the more prepared they will be. This is true because students will grow their foundational understanding of things like English grammar, basic math skills, and comprehending data throughout many different courses. These area all key skills that are tested on the ACT and that are, quite frankly, not super easy for students to learn super quickly if they haven’t had prior experience with the concepts.
There is a reason that core courses are built into the standard curriculum throughout high school. Most high schools are structured in a way that students will take something like “9th Grade English” or “11th Grade Language Arts” during specified years to make sure that their core course foundation is being built at an appropriate pace. Similarly, most schools will require students to pass algebra I before they can go on to geometry, and then they must pass geometry before they can go on to algebra II.
The ACT understands the importance of these core courses and building them during high school, and this is why they are incorporated so heavily on the ACT. While the structure of the ACT may look nothing like what students do in their social studies classes, they will surely find that their knowledge of language arts, math, social studies, and science will help them understand many questions on the ACT and also help them to problem solve and decipher how to approach the questions.
Because a strong foundation in these core course areas is so beneficial on the ACT, we don’t recommend that students begin ACT test prep until they’ve finished at least 9th grade. Even then, it may be a bit soon. For most students, the end of their sophomore year is a good time to start thinking about the ACT. They have likely completed two years worth of high school core courses in all four core areas and will therefore have enough understanding of these areas to work through many ACT questions.
Even still, continuing to take core courses through junior and senior years is equally important, even if a student is finished taking the ACT. Why are core courses still important even after the ACT? Because core course knowledge will be used EVERYWHERE. Students will use this knowledge base that they create during high school and go on to use it during college and even later in their careers. There’s a reason that the ACT tests students on the areas that it does: these areas are strong indicators of how successful students will be at the college academic level.
A student’s performance on the ACT is actually statistically the best indicator of how the student will perform academically during college. For this reason, the ACT includes what they call a “College Readiness Benchmark” on student score reports. This is basically the level that the ACT has found that students need to get to in order to expect to be prepared for college-level academics and thus be successful during college.
Here are the section scores that the ACT calls the “College Readiness Benchmark.” If students can reach these scores in each section, they should be able to complete college-level classes and coursework without too much trouble.
College Readiness Benchmark Scores (per ACT)
English: 18
Math: 22
Reading: 22
Science: 23
This benchmark provides a good average for ACT score of students that go on to complete some form of secondary education. The average composite ACT score in 2018 throughout the United States was a 21, which pretty much falls right into this benchmark level as identified by the ACT.
That being said, this benchmark is not appropriate for students wishing to attend colleges and universities that are more competitive and/or that have a more rigorous academic reputation. Not all students are striving to just be “college ready.” The students who desire to receive admission from and excel in prestigious colleges and universities will likely need significantly higher scores than these benchmarks to obtain admission, so make sure to calculate what your ACT goal score should be and aim for that goal, rather than relying on this college-level benchmark. In contrast, this benchmark should serve as a guide in case a student’s scores are lower than this in a specific area. For a student who struggles to receive a 23 on the science section, they should spend extra time on science core courses and studying these areas for more than just the ACT.
So, how exactly are core course concepts weaved into the ACT? Lets take a look at how students can expect to see information and concepts that they’ve learned throughout high school on the ACT.
English Language Arts
Most students will take an English or Language Arts course every year of high school. Generally, these courses will include some work in areas of grammar and sentence structures, as well as other areas of literary analysis and essay writing.
Believe it or not, ALL of these three areas will show up on the ACT.
ACT English
The ACT test always begins with a 45-minute English section in which students work through 75 questions. As far as number of questions, this is by far the longest section of the exam, with math coming in second at 60 questions. The English section is composed of mainly grammar questions that test students on their understanding of things like independent and dependent clauses and comma usage.
Other areas tested include understanding of rhetorical skills. This includes things like determining what will be the best order of phrases to make a story flow. This also includes things like deciding if certain information should be added to an essay or if it should be removed. The key here is effective writing. Students are tested on whether they are able to take pieces of an essay and make them better based on the questions and options given.
ACT Reading
The third section on the ACT is always a Reading section. During this section, students have just 35 minutes to work through four short stories, each accompanied by ten questions. These questions will ask students about information from the story, with some questions being very specific and other questions being very broad. Specific questions may ask about small details from the story or specific vocabulary words and their meanings. Broad questions can ask about the main idea of the entire passage or a certain portion of the passage, or broad questions may require students to make inferences based on what they’ve read and the connections they can make.
This reading section can be quite overwhelming for many students. There is not a lot of time to work through the stories slowly and concisely, so students have to move quickly. On top of that, the questions can be quite difficult and pretty deep. Students who have taken courses that require them to analyze literary texts will at least understand how to approach the questions. The literary-based passages in the ACT reading section will sometimes require students to read between the lines and extract information that isn’t right there in the text. This can be incredibly confusing for students who have not taken English classes where they read books and discuss their meanings.
ACT Writing
There is also an optional writing section on the ACT. During this section, students will write an argumentative essay based on a subject given to them. They will take a stance and argue their point using strong evidence and a well-organized and well-written essay. That being said, this is another area where a strong foundation of language arts skills will be useful. Students likely will write many essays during their high school English and language arts courses, so an understanding of how to craft a strong essay will be incredibly helpful during this optional writing section of the ACT.
Math
A common sequence of math courses throughout high school will look something like this: algebra I, geometry, algebra II, functions & statistics, pre-calculus, calculus, AP calculus.
Most students will not go through all of these courses, but most students WILL complete through a functions and statistics course (or something with a similar name). The ACT knows this, so there will never be questions related to calculus anywhere on the ACT, but the ACT is riddled with other mathematical concepts that students are expected to have an understanding of by the time they are juniors in high school.
ACT Math
The ACT math section consists of 60 questions that are presented in an order of easiest to hardest. Early questions will test students on their foundational basic math skills, such as adding and subtracting fractions, story problems related to percentages and money, basic probability, and more. Questions then cover areas of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, probability and statistics, all the way up to concepts like logarithms and imaginary numbers, which can show up at the end of this section.
The majority of this section covers math classes related to algebra, geometry, and functions and statistics (as well as basic math that students have been learning since early elementary school). For this reason, students who have a strong understanding of these areas will generally do pretty well on the math section. Students aiming for very high scores in the 30’s will need to have a broader understanding of some more difficult areas, like those mentioned above, in order to reach their goals, but largely an understanding of algebra, geometry, and statistics is all that is needed to reach at least a college readiness benchmark. Students who have not completed through at least algebra II with a decent understanding of the concepts will likely struggle with this ACT math section.
ACT Science
There will also be some math that shows up during the 35-minute science section. While this section is primarily about a student’s ability to read and understand data presented in scientific studies and charts and graphs, some basic math skills are weaved into the questions.
Students are not permitted to use a calculator on the ACT science section, so any math that shows up during this section will be math that students are expected to know how to complete either mentally or long-hand with pencil and paper.
Examples of math that students could see on the ACT science section include things like basic addition and subtraction, basic algebra, converting units, and fractions.
Science
Science courses throughout high school can cover myriad subjects. Most students will take courses of some form that cover areas of biology, animal science, physics, chemistry, and genetics. During these courses, students will do a lot of work memorizing facts and completing studies, but, during this process, they will also be building an understanding of scientific studies and how they work. Students will collect data, complete studies, and memorize facts related to these studies.
ACT Science
The ACT science section actually requires very little outside scientific knowledge in order for students to do well. This is in stark contrast to the math section, which requires that students have taken classes like algebra and geometry. Without these classes, students will find it difficult to get through the ACT math section. However, this isn’t the case with the ACT science section. Not really at least.
The science section is composed of six separate scientific studies. Each begins with a study description and then is accompanied by some data, whether it be in text form or demonstrated as a chart, graph, or table. Students are then tested on their ability to analyze the data presented and answer questions about it.
That being said, a foundational understanding of biology will not help students get easy points on the ACT science section. BUT having taken many science classes WILL still be incredibly helpful. Just because students don’t have to be subject experts when it comes to the different ACT science studies, they will have an easier time if they have been exposed to how scientific studies are completed and have had experience working with scientific data through science courses at school.
ACT Reading
Believe it or not, scientific knowledge could come in handy during the ACT reading section, as well. Once again, students definitely do not need to be subject experts in any scientific areas in order to do well on the ACT reading section — that would be crazy. BUT scientific knowledge and understanding could definitely be helpful in working through at least one of the four ACT reading stories.
The ACT reading section always consists of four stories, and the order of the types of stories never changes: Literary Prose/Prose Fiction, Social Science, Humanities, Natural Science. For the fourth story, Natural Science, it will tend to read like a science textbook. Sometimes the topic will be animals or plants. Other times it can be related to chemistry or astronomy. Regardless of the topic, if students are at least familiar with some of the terms and concepts talked about, this is going to aid their reading comprehension significantly. Imagine reading a chemistry textbook but never having studied the elements in any class. The text is going to be significantly harder to understand.
Social Studies
While the ACT does not have a designated social studies section, there are social studies attributes that can be found throughout the exam, particularly within the English and reading sections.
ACT Reading
The ACT reading section is made up of four stories that students will have to read and analyze. Topics vary from literature to scientific. While students will not need to display any specific historical information when working through this section, once again it can be beneficial to have historical background information. A specific place that this could be helpful is within story #2 on the reading section, which is always Social Science. Oftentimes this study will be about United States presidents or certain eras of history. Students may recognize information about eras from their social studies courses at school.
ACT English
Similar to the reading section, the ACT English section is composed of stories that students will work through. While students do not need to have a knowledge of the topics they’re reading about, it can make reading comprehension and working through the passages significantly easier if they do.
There are always five stories that students will work through on the English section, and there will almost always be a story related to a historical event or time. This could be about a war or revolution or a group of people and their protests. Whatever the topic, students who recognize the information from their social studies courses will find the story easier to work through.
Hopefully we’ve succeeded in convincing you of the importance of high school core courses prior to taking the ACT. Students are likely required to take a certain number of these core courses each year, and we recommend that students take at least two years worth of core courses in each area before taking the ACT.
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