ACT Test Prep: Our Proven Process
At The Prepared Student, we pride ourselves on being the best at individualizing our test prep plan to each student’s unique strengths, weaknesses, and goals. We focus our test prep on three areas to ensure that each student is prepared to excel on test day. Here’s a look at our test prep plan and how we help students reach their full potentials for the ACT.
The ACT is a particular exam, and there is usually a lot riding on a student’s ACT score. You can’t simply brush up on a few concepts and do well on the ACT — or at least most students can’t. The four sections of the test — English, math, reading, and science — are all very particular and require different levels of knowledge. On top of that, there are intense time constraints for each section that require most students to move at a speed that isn’t even close to natural. Then you throw in the overall high-stakes atmosphere and the pressure of doing well, and test anxiety is thrown into the mix.
For all the reasons noted above, for most students, ACT success takes careful planning, a lot of practice, and a significant time commitment.
So, there are a lot of test prep options out there. How do you know which one to choose?
Well, there are a lot of good test prep options out there. The best option for you and your student will depend on your specific situation and your specific student. Here are a few things to consider:
Your student’s learning environment - how does your student learn best? If it’s with one-on-one support, you’re probably going to want to sign up for a direct tutor. Other students may learn better if they can be in a group setting. Others still may prefer to learn independently using something like an online course rather than working with an actual person. You can find a lot of test prep programs for any of these options — from very specialized one-on-one tutoring to cookie-cutter courses online.
Your student’s goal ACT score - you definitely want to know what the goal is before you sign up for a specific ACT tutoring program. Consider your student’s ACT goal and how much improvement is required to arrive at that goal. If your student scored a 22 on his last test and hopes to score a 24, you’ll have a better chance of finding progress with several test prep programs compared to if your student is trying to improve from 22 to 32. The higher the jump in score and the higher the goal score is will both require a more thorough, more individualized test prep plan than those looking for smaller jumps and lower scores.
How much time you have - when is your student taking the ACT next? Is it in a couple short weeks or in 3 months? Will this be your student’s last attempt at the ACT before submitting college applications or is he or she only a junior with plenty of time? The intensity of the test prep program needed depends on how much time there is for progress. Students looking to see significant leaps in their ACT score should plan to put a lot of time into test prep, both with a tutor and independently. Students who are only sophomore or juniors and just starting out can probably relax a little, but rising seniors need to have a solid plan to get their ACT score where they need it before sending off their college apps. Check out a few examples of how much time we think students should spend on test prep depending on their goal scores.
Your test prep budget - With so many different test prep options, you can bet that the prices of ACT prep programs can vary dramatically. ACT test prep costs can vary depending on how specialized the curriculum and how well-known the company is. On the lower end of the spectrum are generally the independent online courses that provide practice questions but no access to a human. Then you have the hybrid courses that include online practice AND access to a human via the internet that can assist in answering questions. On the opposite end of the pricing spectrum are the in-person tutoring solutions. Group settings are generally cheaper than individualized one-on-one help, but typically the one-on-one prep will see faster results. Again, it depends on your student and how they learn best and what type of improvement they are aiming for. Professional tutors usually range between $50-$150 per hour.
Once you’ve figured out how your student learns, what his/her goals are for the ACT and even college, how much time you have, and you know what your budget is and how much you’re willing to put into test prep, then you can start to weigh your options. We always recommend one-on-one, in-person tutoring whenever that is a possibility. We find that most students will see significantly faster results when they work directly with a specialized tutor that is an ACT expert who they can ask questions.
At The Prepared Student, we only offer one-on-one individualized ACT test prep. We’ve found that one-on-one support yields the greatest improvements and the fastest results. We work with students throughout the Twin Cities in Minnesota and help them reach their ACT goals.
Our test prep process includes preparing in three areas:
Filling in any gaps in content knowledge
Identifying effective strategies and approaches to assist students’ pace within the tight time constraints
Building overall confidence and combatting any unique psychological barriers that a student faces
Content Knowledge
Building content knowledge just means making sure students understand the concepts tested. This one probably goes without saying, but students definitely need to have an understanding of the information they’re being tested on throughout all sections of the ACT in order to do their best. Imagine if you were given an impromptu exam on the biological parts of a plant. How well do you think you would do? Maybe you learned about the makeup of plants a really long time ago or maybe you never learned about them at all. Either way, you’re probably not going to do awesome on said test. This is kind of what the ACT is like, only it’s a mashup of several different areas instead of just one. For math, students need to be familiar with various algebraic concepts, geometric equations, and more. For most students, these concepts have been learned over the course of a handful of years, and it may have been several semesters since they’ve reviewed the material. In contrast, some students may not have completed geometry before taking the ACT, which makes the questions that much harder. In both cases, in-depth explanations and repetitive practice of question types are key. Students need to either learn the concepts or review them until they are easily recalled.
This is the first step of our test prep process. Through practice, consultation, and assessment, we determine where a student’s strengths and weaknesses lie. We then hone in on those weaknesses and work on building those areas to grow their understanding of the concepts. For many students, weaknesses can become strengths on the ACT.
Pace & Strategies
After a student has begun to fill any missing content knowledge gaps and is able to work through the parts of the ACT with a good level of understanding and a consistency that is on point with his/her goal score, we start to think about the time constraints of the different sections. The ACT can seem pretty cruel with just how intense the time constraints are that they put on students. This becomes the most evident with the reading and science sections of the test. Students have just 35 minutes to work through 40 questions. For reading, they have 35 minutes to work through 4 full stories, each accompanied by 10 questions. For science, they have 35 minutes to work through 6 complex studies, each followed by 5-6 questions. Most students will not have time to work at a natural pace and comfortably complete all questions in these two sections of the exam. Similarly, the math section gives students 60 minutes to complete 60 math problems. The problems get more difficult as you go, and the topics span from statistics and probability to algebra, geometry and coordinate geometry, inequalities, trigonometry, imaginary numbers, and more.
Since the time constraints are so tight, this is a huge area of focus for our test prep plans. Each student is unique, and there are definitely some students for whom strategies are less important because they can work at crazy speeds and their reading comprehension is off the charts, etc. But this is not the norm. Most students will require some type of strategy identification in order to test at their best possible level. We have identified numerous strategies in each of the four sections that have worked for our students. Some strategies work well for some students and some are terrible for others. For this reason, we weigh a specific student’s weaknesses and goals and pinpoint strategies that correlate. This is where we start to refer to ACT test prep like its a game of chess — it takes a lot of strategizing and paying close attention to patterns and analyzing the situation in order to determine what the best move is. We will closely with students to identify their specific strategies for each of the four sections, and, once they have been determined, the student will practice those strategies OFTEN so that they are automatic come test day.
Building Confidence (& Combatting Psychological Barriers)
Students’ brains need to prepared not only to work through questions on test day, but they also need to be ready to fight any mental blocks that may try to sneak up on them. This includes everything from low confidence and test anxiety to lack of motivation and negativity. At The Prepared Student, we analyze each student individually to determine what mental blockages might try to swoop in and alter their ACT scores and we work on avoiding those.
All students are unique, and overall confidence level is a big place where students can vary dramatically. Some students are naturally very confident; others really struggle in this area. Some students may do poorly on the ACT and not really care, while others don’t quite hit their goal and it seems like the end of the world. Some students experience test anxiety leading up to test day and to extreme measures during the test, and others aren’t familiar with this sensation at all. As a whole, low confidence is the psychological barrier that we observe most frequently in students. This is the little voice inside the student’s head that says “Who are you kidding? You’ll never score a 27.” This can be a difficult voice to combat and difficult thoughts to push aside. We have found (and so has ACT research!) that the single biggest factor related to test anxiety and low confidence on the ACT has to do with feeling ill-prepared for the exam. Remember that test you’re going to be given spontaneously on the makeup of a plant? You’re probably going to be stressed out, especially if this is an important exam and that results are helping decide your future… Now imagine that you get to study for this test and review the concepts. Additionally, you know the full format of the test and how long you’ll be given. If you so choose, you definitely have all the tools needed to study for the exam until you are adequately prepared. Chance are that this alone will kill your test anxiety. So what is the point exactly? For most students, test anxiety levels go down as their overall feeling of preparedness for the test goes up. For students who are anxious and lacking confidence, repetitive practice and increased exposure to the test as a whole usually helps the most.
For students lacking motivation, we try to help them gauge the bigger picture and discuss their hopes for college and their future. Oftentimes, analyzing the required ACT score for the school they want to attend will help students understand why they should care about their ACT scores. Additionally, many schools set up merit-based scholarships that are automatically awarded to students who fall into certain academic levels based on ACT score and GPA. Showing students that an increase in ACT score could mean that they get into the school of their choice AND that they could save some money sometimes helps them to see the big picture.
For students that express a lot of negativity, we try to flip the conversation and the language. Have you ever told a lie so many times that even you yourself forget what the truth is? The brain is a powerful thing. It will believe what you tell it to believe. The student who exclaims over and over “I’m a bad test-taker,” “I don’t want to do this,” and “I’m never going to raise my score,” does not see the same results as the student who is positive and works hard and replaces those phrases with “I can do this,” and “I’m going to reach my goal score.” It’s a fascinating thing to think of the power that positive language can have on our mindsets and our productivity, and our tutors are aware of this and use it frequently during sessions.