ACT strategy, section by section
Four sections, four different jobs. Treating them the same is the most common way to lose points.
One rule applies everywhere before the section-specific ones: answer every question. Your score is the number you got right and nothing is subtracted for a wrong answer, so there is never a reason to leave one blank. If you are out of time, fill the remaining bubbles.
English — 50 questions, 35 minutes
The fastest section, at roughly 42 seconds a question, and the most learnable. Most items underline part of a sentence and offer four ways to write it.
- Read the whole sentence, not the underline. The error is often in agreement with a word outside the underlined part.
- Shortest correct answer usually wins. When two choices are both grammatical and one is shorter without losing meaning, the shorter one is the answer — see Word Choice & Concision.
- For punctuation, cover the mark and read each side alone. Two complete sentences, or not? That single test decides most of them. Punctuation & Boundaries drills the procedure.
- Whole-passage questions come at the end of a passage. "Does this essay accomplish X?" needs the whole thing in your head, so do not answer it from memory of the first paragraph. Topic Development & Purpose covers these.
- Transitions: decide the relationship between the two sentences before looking at the choices. Organization, Transitions & Cohesion.
Mathematics — 45 questions, 50 minutes
The only section where a calculator is permitted. That is a smaller advantage than it sounds: every problem can be done without one, and many are faster by hand.
- Nothing is printed for you. No formula sheet. Area, volume, slope, the quadratic formula, SOHCAHTOA, the special right triangles — you bring them. Keep a one-page card and re-read it until you stop needing it.
- Four choices means substitution is cheap. If the algebra is ugly, try the answers, or pick a concrete number for the variable and test.
- Draw it. Geometry questions that give no figure are usually easy once there is one on the page — and you can write in the booklet.
- Do the ones you find easy first and come back. Nothing on the ACT rewards you for taking questions in order.
- Weakest-first module order: Integrating Essential Skills, Algebra, Functions, Geometry & Trigonometry, Statistics & Probability, Number & Quantity.
Reading — 36 questions, 40 minutes
Some parts give you one long passage; others give two shorter ones with questions that cross between them. Each passage carries a heading naming the author and source, and it is worth three seconds of your time.
- Everything is in the passage. Questions do not test outside facts, formal logic, or vocabulary in isolation. If you cannot point at a line, it is not the answer.
- Answer the paired-passage questions about each passage first, then the ones that compare — otherwise you hold two arguments in your head at once for no reason.
- Watch for a graph or table. One passage may come with one, and its questions want you to combine the figure with the text.
- See Key Ideas & Details, Craft & Structure and Integration of Knowledge & Ideas, and the guide on reading passages fast.
Science — 40 questions, 40 minutes, and optional
It does not count toward your Composite. If you are taking it anyway — and there are good reasons to — treat it as a reading test with axes.
- No calculator. None is needed; the arithmetic is comparison, not computation.
- Go to the questions early. Most Science questions send you to a specific figure. Reading all the prose first is usually wasted time.
- Read the axis labels and units before the data. Most misses are a misread axis, not a misunderstood experiment.
- Three kinds of passage: charts and tables to read, summaries of related experiments to compare, and two or more scientists disagreeing. The last kind is the one to slow down for — that one you do read properly, because the questions are about whose position implies what. Evaluating Scientific Arguments & Models covers it.
- You do not need advanced science classes. Introductory background is assumed; the rest is on the page. Start with Interpretation of Data.