ACT PREParation guide

Basic Needs

• Test starts at 8 AM so go to sleep on time the night prior to the ACT Test
• Wake up, and eat a nice, healthy, balanced breafast
• Bring a snack for the break in between Math and Reading

What To bring

• All test takers are responsible for bringing their own calculator
• The calculator you bring should be one that you feel comfortable with
• Make sure you dress to accommodate for the temperature in the room

Time

• Not every class has a clock/countdown for you to keep track of time
• Suggest bringing a watch to manage your time

Avoiding Whiplash

• For English, complete each passage and then bubble in your answers
• For Math, complete one whole page before bubbling in answers
• For Reading, complete each passage and then bubble in 
• For Science complete each activity (5-7 questions) and then bubble in

Leave nothing blank

• The Act Test does not penalize for wrong answers
• Make sure you have the whole test completed

English test

"No change" answer choice

• The "NO CHANGE" answer choice will be correct about 16 times 
• If you see no errors in your reading, mark this answer choice

What makes answer choices different

• Some questions may include may include answer choices that look similar
• Make sure to distinguish between each answer choice

Rules of the Semicolon

• Make sure to memorize the rules of using semicolons.
• They are used to separate closely related independent clauses
• Also separates independent clauses linked with transitional phrases 
• Semicolons can be replaced with periods to form to independent sentences

colons

• The colon is a very rarely seen on the ACT test
• It has two primary uses
• To begin a business letter or to introduce a list or example

Fragment Checks

• The ACT test makes spotting sentence fragments very tricky
• The fragments that you will most likely see on the ACT will be long unfinis

Commas

• This is the punctuation mark you will be seeing the most on the ACT
• They are used most often to set off a parenthetical phrase
• Parenthetical Phrases add information to a sentence
• The sentence can still make sense without these parenthetical phrases

dashes

• Dashes, just like commas, can set off parenthetical phrases
• They also signify appositive or to indicate a break or pause in thought
• They can also take the place of parentheses
• Most likely, the ACT will test you on the rule in which commas and dashes c

Distinguishing between contractions and possessives

• Several different questions on the ACT will involve apostrophes
• These questions will test you by offering contractions and possessive as op
• Make sure to study apostrophe use and know how to tell contractions from po

Omit and delete

• These answer choices are disproportionately correct 
• Make sure to keep an eye out for useless information
• This information will most likely not fit the tone of the passage
• Take a look at context clues to help

Verb agreement

• There are primarily two ways in which verb agreement will be assessed
• One: Verb Tense. Take a look at the context of the story 
• And find out whether the story is in present, past, or future tense.
• Select the answer which follows the tense of the passage
• Second: Subject Verb Agreement. Some questions will separate the verb from 

Avoiding redundancy

• Keep an eye out for unnecessarily wordy sentences 
• A lot of times, these sentences will be redundant 

Pronouns

• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
• Questions that involve this will want to simply know
• if the pronoun agrees with the noun it stands for.
• Keep and eye out for gender, and number.
• Those two factors affect what the pronoun will be.

Who vs whom vs Which vs that

• The word "who" is usually part of the subject
• It generally starts sentences off
• "Whom" is typically part of the direct/indirect object
• "That" and "Which" do not typically refer to all nouns
• They refer to objects, not people

pronoun-antecedent clarity

• Questions related to pronouns will often test you on this agreement
• They will ask you to whom the pronoun is referring to

Parallelism

• Parallelism is the consistency within a sentence
• This consistency gives a sentence rhythm 
• Ex. She had three goals in life: to skydive, to bungee jump, and to scuba d
• Notice how each verb agrees with one another.
• The wrong choice is: "to go skydiving, to bungee jump, and to scuba dive" 

Rhetorical skills

• The is generally considered the most difficult of questions
• One must know how to: Determine the effect of adding/removing a sentence
• Select the sentence that best introduces a paragraph 
• Select the sentence that best achieves a desired effect
• Determine whether or not the passage has achieved a stated purpose

Mathematics test

Content covered

• Algebra- 33 Questions
• Geometry- 23 Questions
• Trigonometry- 4 Questions

MAnaging time on the math test

• The first 20 questions of the Math test are generally the easiest
• And the last 20 questions are generally the hardest
• Keep this in mind and remember that if you want to finish the test,
• you must manage your time wisely. 
• Do not spend too much time on the first problems.

Take advantage of answer choices

• If a question involves an equation in which you can plug answer into
• And you feel that plugging in answers will be faster than solving
• Do it that way and plug you choices into the question

Traditional method

• David=x, Shawn=3x, Heidi=3x. Total is 210.
• Setup an equation
• x+3x+3x=210, now solve
• 7x=210
• x=30

Angles

• It is important to have an understanding of angle properties
• Many different concepts are assessed on the Math Test
• Here are the most important: Triangle Sum Theory, 360 degrees in a circle
• Supplementary Angles, Complementary Angles, Vertical Angles, 
• and Corresponding angles.

Perimeter

• Many of the questions related to perimeter will include real-life situation
• It will be your job to know what information is relevant 

Slope and probability

• Make sure you are able to determine slope given two points
• Make sure you know how to find the slope from the equation of the line
• Probability is also assessed on the Math test. These questions are generall

more content covered

• Make sure to have a good understanding on the following:
• Exponent Rules
• Scientific Notation
• Distance and Mid-point Formulas
• Pythagorean Theorem 

Science

Ignore the introduction

• Skip the Science introduction
• It is unnecessary information that will most likely confuse you 
• It is also a big waste of valuable test taking time

Don't study

• The same thing goes for science as it does for reading
• Attempting to study the passage to understand its contents is unnecessary
• The information that will be in the experiments and graphs are usually comp
• It is a waste of time if you try to understand this information