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ACT Master Class
Ethan Rodgers-Gates
Created on June 19, 2024
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Transcript
ACT Master Class
Brought to you by RG Prep
Start
Allow me to introduce myself
Welcome!
- Your next step
- Q&A
10:40 - 11:00 AM: Closing
- Strategies
- Implementation
- Strategies
- Implementation
10:15 - 10:40 AM: Science Section
- Strategies
- Implementation
- A brief overview
- My 10 Tips to Scoring a 35+
- Welcome students
- Agenda
Today's Agenda
9:00 - 9:05 AM: Intro
9:05 - 9:25AM: Unlocking the ACT
9:25 - 9:50AM: English Section
9:50 - 10:15 AM: Math Section
Part 1:
Unlocking the ACT
Uncover all the hidden aspects to the most important test in your high school career
Unlocking The ACT: A Brief Overview
53s/Question
40 Questions in 35 Minutes
Science
53s/Question
1min/Question
Reading
40 Questions in 35 Minutes
60 Questions in 60 Minutes
36s/Question
75 Questions in 45 Minutes
English
Math
Total time: 2 Hours 55 Minutes
4 Sections
Perfect scorers in 2023 (That's about 0.19%)
2,600
Unlocking The ACT: A Brief Overview
Scoring: 1 - 36- Composite score is all sections added then averaged
- Each section is weighted equally
1.4M
Students took the ACT in 2023
To achieve an ACT score that will help you in admissions, you are in the right place.
Unlocking The ACT: A Brief Overview
55%
You are headed in the right direction
of students increased their ACT scores by at least 2 points after engaging in some form of prep
Unlocking The ACT: A Brief Overview
A good ACT score can...
- Increase the number and caliber of college acceptances
- Land you impressive amounts of scholarship money
- Place you into honors programs
- Reaffirm your confidence
- Help you ultimately achieve your goals
Anyone can reach a perfect 36. You don't have to be a genius. You just need quality reps. And a lot of them.
Now... My Top 10 Secrets to Scoring a 35+ on the ACT
Unlocking The ACT: A Brief Overview
- Two meanings
- The amount of practice questions you do → degree to which your score will increase
- Immediate feedback is key
- Correcting errors
- Noticing patterns in mistakes
- Adopting a learner-mentality
- This limitation and others have several implications that provide us with opportunities to "beat" the test
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#1: The ACT is repeatable
- Quality ACT practice tests are important because of repetitiveness
- Don't train the wrong muscles
- Need more official ACTs for your practice?
- ACT 2025-2026 Red Book
- Online (be careful)
- Ask me!
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#2: Practice with real ACTs
- The secret to scoring that near-perfect or perfect ACT score comes down to two factors:
- Speed and accuracy
- The key is to train both skills - but in different ways
- The question to ask: Am I bottlenecked (limited) by my speed or by my knowledge of content?
- How to determine this
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#3: Determine your bottleneck
- Regularly complete timed practice sets
- 10 -15 questions
- Goal: Gradually reduce your time per question
- Skip and return
- Use section-specific shortcuts
- Set benchmarks
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#4: Improving your speed
- Practice slowly without time limits
- Goal: Focus on understanding without pressure
- Review, review, review
- Watching game tape back
- Use my missed question review template (will send after Master Class)
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#5: Improving your accuracy
- Stick with it!
- Block off time to make your ACT prep a priority
- Do something every day
- Even if just a 10 question worksheet
- Track your progress - what gets measured gets managed
- Time per question
- Score increases (by section and composite)
- Number of errors made (and type)
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#6: Make a study plan
- Investigate your weak and strong sections of the ACT
- How to identify
- Take full-length ACT under realistic conditions
- Score reports
- How to divide and conquer your weaknesses
- Go from highest to lowest proportion
- Every question is weighted equally
- Focus on accuracy, then speed
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#7: Understand your strengths and weaknesses
- Spend time mastering the high-impact areas of the ACT
- Back to repeatability
- The ACT tests the same type of questions frequently
- Apply it by section
- English: commas, mastering your approach, sentence structure
- Math: algebra, geometry, plugging in ACs
- Reading: passage mapping, line references first, speed
- Science: graphs, pick out what matters, passage mapping
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#8: The 80 / 20 rule
- Reminder: the ACT is standardized
- That means it's specific about the right answer choices, as well as the wrong answer choices (must follow a standard)
- English:
- Focus on "NO CHANGE" and the most concise answer choices (least wordy)
- Unless otherwise specified (more on question types)
- With commas, less is more
- Math:
- Backsolve from middle answer (if time)
- Otherwise guess A/F or E/K consistently
- Last 10: "which of the following" - guess E/K
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#9: How to guess by section
- Reading:
- Avoid extreme language ("always", "never", "only", etc.)
- Trust direct evidence
- Skip little detail questions
- Science:
- Guess answers that align with trends
- Ignore big words
- Look for contradictions (answer choices that go against each other)
- DON'T WASTE TIME ON CONFLICTING VIEWPOINTS - leave for end
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#9: How to guess by section
- Memorize the ACT Math Formulas to Know (will send everyone along with the review template)
- Study and memorize key grammar rules
- Outside of those two, don't waste your time memorizing specifics that don't appear frequently
- You can get very far by simply doing lots of practice questions and consistently reviewing that practice
Unlocking The ACT: Top 10 Secrets to Scoring 35+
#10: Memorize key rules/formulas
Part 2:
The English Section
From comma placement, to word choice, to grammar rules that you don't know and don't need to know
English Strategies
- 75 Qs in 45 min
- The ACT English section tests your ability to edit punctuation, sentence structure, and grammar in 5 passages.
Ex: Concise
Ex: Consistent
The English Section: Strategies
Strategy #1: Remember the 4 C's
- Complete
- Consistent
- Clear
- Concise
The English Section: Strategies
Strategy #2: Trust Your Ear!
- A lot of the errors and clunkiness that the English section requires you to edit can be fixed by what sounds right to you intuitively
- Sound it out in your head or write it out on paper
- Don't overthink it - most English questions are not designed to be difficult because there is just a lot to answer with not much time
- Reminder
The English Section: Strategies
Strategy #3: Let the Answers Guide You
- Clues and guide
- Comparing and contrasting
- Speed
- Answering vs. picking the right answer
These strategies are useless if we do not consciously practice them. Let's practice!
Part 3:
The Math Section
How to answer 60 math questions in just one hour - and get them right.
Math Strategies
- 60 Qs in 60 min
- The ACT Math section gets "harder" as you progress
- Time management is everything
- Skip often
Ex: Plug
Ex: Backsolve
The Math Section: Strategies
Strategy #1: Backsolve and Plug
- Backsolving
- Binary search
- Plugging
- Numbers properties
- Theoretical > practical
- Remember: simple, appropriate, and sufficient
The Math Section: Strategies
Strategy #2: You Better Know Triangles
- The numbers
- 1/3 of entire math section
- Helpful content
- 3 angles add to 180º
- Sum of two sides
- Difference of two sides
- Angle-side relationships
- Special rights
The Math Section: Strategies
Strategy #3: Translate Words Into Math
- We suck at word problems, and test-makers know this
- Try to slow you down- don't let them!
- Key tactic: know the translations
- Take it one phrase/word at a time
- Let's discuss getting overwhelmed
- Bonus strategy: use your calculator:)
Cool right? Now don't let them go to waste!
Part 4:
The Science Section
Last but not least, the infamous not-actually-testing-you-for-science section
Science Strategies
- 40 Qs in 35 min
- What this section is
- What this section is not
- The beautiful thing is - 99% of the time the information will be right in front of you!
The Science Section: Strategies
Strategy #1: Double-Check Labels
- How the test-makers get you on this section
- Keep track with a simple tool everyone should have
- Don't overlook this extremely simple but effective strategy!
- This is where you will miss questions
The Science Section: Strategies
Strategy (Rule) #2: Don't Read the Passage!
- Questions > passage
- Unnatural at first
- The goal is to recognize info and data rather than to understand the passage
- Separate signal from noise
- There is a reason this section is last!
- Establish basic relationships between info
The Science Section: Strategies
Strategy #3: Conflicting Viewpoints Method
- Conflicting viewpoints passage
- Exception to previous strategy
- The tried and true method:
- Save time
- Read!
- Notes and summaries
- Answer through process of elim
- Bonus: some of these "parties" are just stupid
Click to try out how fast and accurate you can be!
Part 5:
Closing