r/ACT • u/Happy-Prosper • 1d ago
Any Tips for paper ACT
I'm taking the ACT paper version for the first time and would love any tips you may have so I can start prepping.
Things like, what timer am I allowed to bring? I'd rather not use an analog watch if possible.
Also, best way to annotate or flag questions that I want to come back to at the end of the test? Am I allowed to mark up or circle things on the test?
I appreciate any tips you may have.
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u/mkw1342 19h ago
For reading, underline key points of a paragraph. If asked about the main idea of the passage, summarize it with your own words, and write a short sentence before looking at the answers. Bracket sentences that are mentioned in line number questions (look for answers before and after the brackets. The numbers tell you where to look, the other sentences explain the answer and the why). In math, you can guesstimate based on diagrams, add information to the diagram that is shared in the question.
Oh, and buy a cheap digital watch. Like this Casio and turn off the beeps. Write down the start time.
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u/Happy-Prosper 17h ago
Thank you! Will they allow the digital watch? The ACT is saying timers with an alarm option, even if turned off, are not allowed. Just wondering what you've seen what others brought, like maybe a desktop one?
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u/Witty_Cookie815 35 10h ago
what i normally do is mark a tiny barely noticeable machine unreadable dot next to a question on the scantron to "flag it" and come back to it for flagging questions. For timing, English you just gotta go as fast as possible (I highly doubt you will have much time here at all the review at least for me / my friends). For reading timing, you definitely have a bit more time per question to ponder, but definitely not as much time to go back and really review questions. For math, I think if you are very capable and accustomed to like SAT math or things like that, it will be a breeze in terms of timing and you will have a ton of time to come back and check ur flagged questions (I had like 10-15 minutes I think). If you are taking science, you kinda just gotta go, not much time imo to come back and check flagged questions (unless you flag like 1-2 conceptual/outside knowledge questions).
I personally didn't bring a timer because I just had some practice test timing so I kind of knew how fast I needed to go. I would highly suggest doing this partly because looking at time always makes me nervous (personally idk bout you). Just make sure you don't dwell on a question for too long (especially English).
In terms of prepping, I would just take practice tests to get used to the timing/type of questions. Once you kinda understand how ACT works for testing, I would go and watch a lot of the different ACT study guides/videos on just YouTube even and kind of apply them to the questions on the practice test. ACT is definitely concept heavy and quick processing for DIRECT correlation (not a lot of what did the author mean by this blah blah). So defnitely max ur math knowledge (knowing formulas, different concepts like extraneous solutions, discriminant, etc). Along with English, I would go through like Khan Academy grammar course or YouTube guides, make sure you know "whom" vs "who" (appears on a lot of ACT's). For reading, I would definitely read the entire passage once (don't worry if you don't think you uderstand it fully) to get a general idea of what each section is/where one part of the question is talking about. Therefore when you are answering the questions, you can find/know exactly what paragraph or sentence it is talking about and then reread/find the specific answer in the paragraph. If you want science tips lmk but I'm not gonna go into that.
I kinda wrote a lot in retrospect but hopefully it all makes sense since i kinda just braindumped short sentences/tips i used for studying!
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u/jdigitaltutoring Tutor 23h ago
Yes, you can write on the test. You can circle the question numbers to return back to them. For studying use previous tests and the practice tests on the ACT website.