The day before and the morning of
Nothing on this page will teach you a new skill. All of it protects the ones you already have.
The day before
- Stop studying by the early evening. New material the night before rarely lands, and being rested reliably helps. This is a genuine trade and sleep wins it.
- Light review only: your formula card and your missed-question list. Twenty minutes, not two hours.
- Pack the bag tonight, not in the morning.
- Know the route and how long it takes. Set two alarms.
What goes in the bag
- Your printed admission ticket and acceptable photo ID. Both, every time.
- Several sharpened No. 2 pencils and a good eraser. Not mechanical pencils, not pens — those are not allowed. Bring more pencils than you think you need.
- A permitted calculator, with fresh batteries. It is allowed on Mathematics only. Check your model against ACT's current calculator policy yourself — some graphing models are banned outright and others need something removed or disabled first, and it is your responsibility, not the proctor's.
- A watch is optional, and if you bring one it must not have an alarm, internet, recording or calculator functions. A smart watch or fitness band is not allowed. If an alarm sounds during testing you can be dismissed.
- Snacks and water for the break, which comes after Math.
- A layer you can take off. Test rooms are unpredictable.
What stays at home or in the car: notes, books, highlighters, coloured pens, correction fluid, your own scratch paper, reading material, and any electronic device other than a permitted calculator and — if you are testing on a device — that device. Phones must be off and out of sight from check-in until you leave. If a device is accessed or activated, you are dismissed.
Policies change. Confirm the current what-to-bring and calculator rules on ACT's own website before your test date.
The morning
- Eat something with protein in it. The multiple-choice sections run about two hours and twenty minutes without Science, about three hours with it, and that is before the essay.
- Arrive early enough that being slightly late is not possible.
- Do a five-minute warm-up on the way — two or three easy questions — so the first real question is not the first thinking you have done all day.
During the test
- Know your rate. English is about 42 seconds a question; Math and Reading are a little over a minute; Science is a minute.
- Answer the ones you find easy first. Mark the rest, guess, and come back if there is time. That is ACT's own advice, and nothing rewards you for going in order.
- Fill in every bubble. There is no penalty for a wrong answer — your score is simply how many you got right. With one minute left, bubble everything that is empty.
- Use the booklet. There is no scratch paper, so cross out eliminated choices, draw the figure, and label the axes right there on the page.
- The order is fixed: English, Math, break, Reading, then Science, then Writing. Use the break to stand up, drink something and eat.
If your head goes blank
Put the pencil down, sit back and take three slow breaths. Then start the next question — not the one that broke you. Every question is worth exactly one point, so the hard one you are staring at is worth precisely as much as the easy one three lines below it. Losing five easy questions to defend one hard one is the most expensive mistake available on this test.
And remember that your section score is not your number of correct answers. Each section's raw score is converted to the 1–36 scale for the particular form you sat, and every form converts a little differently — which is exactly why nobody can tell you in advance how many misses cost a point.