Graduating from high school is a really big deal. It is a big chapter of your life that is about to close. Moving on to continue your education, traveling, or moving out of your parent’s home is a new phase that will bring about a bunch of changes. But before any of those happens, one must prepare himself or herself before the big day comes. Here is some useful information to help guide you before graduating high school and if you want to continue your studies.
- Prepare for the ACT – The ACT is the most commonly taken college readiness exam which is taken by more than 1.6 million students each year. This is a standardized test designed to determine your critical thinking skills and to assess your ability to apply knowledge and logic in problem solving.
- Gather plenty of resources to help your ACT preparations – There are so many resources out there from prep books to online resources, from study groups to private tutors, which will assist in your preparations for the ACT.
- Practice whenever you can – Practicing for the different areas of the ACT will give you a better idea of how you can expect to perform and it will hone your knowledge and test taking skills as you go along. It may be challenging or exhausting but once you get the hang of it and it becomes your routine, you will reap the benefits in the end.
- Understand how the ACT works and how scores are calculated – The ACT has four sections – English, Math, Reading, and Science. You will receive a score for each subset, then a composite score that includes all subjects. The ACT scores are different from other standardized tests. The average of all the four sections becomes your final ACT score. Your ACT scores will be available for online viewing usually two to three weeks after the test.
- Find your target school – In the college application process, it is recommended that you do some research and make a list of schools you are interested in. You may also want to know the range of ACT scores that each school accepts. Knowing this will give you a target ACT score that is at least average for the school you intend on applying to.
- Improve your ACT English Score – Knowing how to apply a few sets of rules in English will definitely take you a long way. Some rules include the ways to correctly punctuate a sentence (using commas, semicolons, colons, and so on), another set of rules governs the subject-verb agreement, and the rules for correct verb tense. You should also study transitions between paragraphs is a good way to improve your English scores as some of the English questions you will encounter in the test are not so much about rules as they are about organization.
- Improve your ACT Math Score – Since the ACT Math section is the most-topic based section of the test, it will be wise to know specific formulas and techniques. Some problems may require you to use one or more general strategies to eliminate wrong answers; on some problems you can use sketches and even your calculator to help you solve them. Constant practice and trying a few sample problems will refresh your memory of what you already learned. Test prep books and/or tutors can tell you exactly what types of math problems and topics you should expect on the ACT Math section, and what techniques you’ll need to know to solve those problems.
- Improve your ACT Reading Score – Improving your scores for this section of the ACT test takes much longer than it does the scores for the other sections. One reason for this is that in a sense, reading questions deal more with meaning than question on the other sections do. It is difficult to apply a set of rules or formulas to answer the questions in this section like the way you would do for the English or Math questions. Give yourself plenty of time to practice and develop your reading skills.
- Improve your ACT Science Score – In this part of the ACT test, your reasoning would be tested. Specific knowledge of science including biology, chemistry and physics would be helpful. However, your ability to recognize patterns in the data presented in graphs, tables, and maps is the most important to have. Graph interpretation is a very important skill for the Science section of the ACT test.
- Know the Skills Needed for the ACT – The ACT is utilized as a college admission exam to measure how well prepared you are to enter college; however, the ACT actually tests your skills that will be relevant for college education. Your foundation knowledge, study skills, and test taking skills are the three most important skills you need to work on for your success in the ACT test and college education.
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