The American College Testing Exam, better known as the ACT, is the most important test a student can take during their high school career. There is a lot of information that is needed to be prepared for the test.
“The test covers English, reading, math and science,” said Ms. Vann Hahn, ACT Prep teacher at the high school.
The test is to show the students’ knowledge in the different subjects so that colleges can see where the student is academically at and to see if the student is ready for college.
There are many things on the ACT that you have learned in high school.
“There are a lot of things that students will have to do to be ready for the exam,” Hahn said. “Obviously, students taking the test should read as much as you can to increase the reading rate because the reading portion is timed. Reading a variety of stories like non-fiction, fiction, and other genres will help, because the reading portion includes three non-fiction and one fiction story in the test. Going over your basic English skills will also help for the English portion of the exam, along with studying a lot of the math and science you have learned all through your high school career.”
Though going over all this information can be extremely stressful there are other ways to be prepared for the exam.
“Students need to be prepared knowledge-wise so that the information on the exam won’t surprise you and end up hurting your score. You also need to be physically prepared for the exam because it’s an extremely long test along with people watching you like a hawk,” Hahn said. “Students taking this exam should always have a good meal before showing up for the test so that they’re ready to focus and are energized. Other than eating a good meal, students should also have a great amount of sleep so they’re wide awake when taking the exam. Students need to physically know what they’re getting into so that they can be prepared for the long exam.”
Studying for the ACT exam is not the only thing that can help out the final score, students can either take an ACT Prep class as an elective for school or students can take the night ACT Prep class. These classes go over the ACT as much as possible to help students achieve better scores.
“I would say [they work] absolutely,” Hahn said. “I know from the students who have taken the ACT Prep class that the class can actually help. I have had many students increase their scores 4 or 5 points from their original score before they started taking the ACT Prep class.”
There can be a bunch of stressful subjects to study to become ready for the exam. There are many important things to study for.
“I would say that people find reading the most challenging, because it’s all Cold Reads. You have no idea of what the topic of the story is when taking this exam, along with that the test is timed. This isn’t something that you can necessarily study for, but you can just read a lot so that your reading can get better and time won’t be your enemy,” Hahn said. “Other than that, the English, science and math portions of the test are all learned through the students’ high school career and you can easily study these subjects.”
The next ACT Test given at the high school is April 12 but registration for that exam has actually passed.
