How to Practice for the ACT

The good news is that you can definitely raise your ACT score. There is a simple three step method that if you follow, you will raise your score. There are also lots of courses, books, and tutors that can help you though each of these steps.

The three steps you have to take are:

1. Get Your Score
2. Learn Test Strategy
3. Take Practice Tests

To get the best score increase you can, you need to complete each of these steps. Each one will raise your score a little bit, but when you do all three, you'll get much better results that if you leave one out.

Before you can work on raising your ACT score, the first thing you need to do is know what it is. It is very important that you do this FIRST. Don't even look at any book or course info before you take this test.

Don't worry if the score isn't what you want. With practice, your score will improve.

So where do you find a practice test, and how do you get your score?

It's important that you take this first test just like you will take it on test day. If you're using a book, you can skip to the section with the full tests and take one of those. If you do that, make sure you stick to the timing rules and don't let yourself cheat.

If you don't have any practice tests laying around, there is a free ACT practice test you can take online. You have to sign up for the free trial to get to the test, but don't have to enter any payment info. You can find that test here:

Free ACT Practice Test

Once you have taken the practice test and have your score (and your score for each of the sections), you are ready for the next step.

This is the only part of the three steps that you really can't do yourself. There are people who have spent years and even lifetimes developing the best strategies possible for making the test easier. Do yourself a favor and let them help you do this.

This DOESN'T mean that you have to (or even should) spend a lot of money. You can spend $20 on a book or $6000+ (yea, you read that right) on a course of private tutoring. Either one can be just as effective as long as you pick the right one (a little more on that later).

When it comes to learning strategy, you have two basic choices:

ACT Course

Of the two, this is the most effective way to learn strategy. Unfortunately, it is also going to be the most expensive. If you can afford $1000+, you can find a lot of good courses out there.

There are also a lot of online courses now that are as effective, and even more effective in some cases, than a traditional classroom. These courses can range anywhere from $99 to $700. A good example of a low-cost course that uses ACT strategy is the PreazyPrep ACT Practice Course. (Note: there are plenty of other online courses, but this is the only one I can vouch for since I've been through all of it).

The important thing to look for when evaluating a course is whether or not they incorporate ACT strategy. You can find this by looking at their marketing materials. If they don't advertise ACT strategy, they probably don't have it. Just to be sure, look at the outline of their curriculum. If you can't find basic ACT strategy in their curriculum, you should probably pass.

ACT Book

For most companies, ACT books are a summary of their ACT courses, so they'll have the same strategies in them. The downside of using a book is that no matter how motivated you are, it's harder to pay attention to a book than a course. This means that for the vast majority of people, they can improve their score with a book, but it won't be nearly as much as the improvement they get with a course.

To evaluate a book, look at the table of contents and the summary on the back of the book. If they list ACT strategies in their table of contents, then it is probably a worthwhile book, if they don't, then you should pass.

There are a few books included at the bottom of this page. Some have strategy and one is strictly for practice. I have not included the book published by ACT, Inc., since people most often buy this book looking for strategy, but it doesn't have any. It can be a good resource for practice, but the company that makes the ACT isn't going to give away strategy to beat the test they make.

There is no magic bullet to raise your ACT score. Once you have your score and you've learned the strategy, it's just: practice, practice, practice.

The best way to practice is to take full-length ACT practice tests. This does two things. First, you get used to taking a full ACT. This test can take four hours on test day, and that type of stamina to takes practice. Full length tests will ensure that you don't lose points on test day because you get tired.

The second benefit is more obvious: you get practice with ACT questions and practice using the strategy you learned. Only by practicing strategy will you be able to implement it on test day. There's one more thing, though, that's VERY important.

Review the Tests

It's impossible to overstate how important this is. Once you take a full-length test, you have to review the questions you missed or were unsure of. Doing this is what raises you score. The ACT is way too boring to spend four hours on and not get anything out of it.

All good courses or book will have explanations for every question that they have. Take advantage of this and raise your ACT score.