The ACT Official Guide
ACT Official Guide Summary
The Official ACT Prep Guide is published by John Wiley & Sons and sold through the ACT website and bookstores; check act.org for the current retail price plus any shipping. The book includes an overview of the test, a review of the skills it measures, detailed coverage of each ACT section, and several full-length practice tests with answers and explanations. It should be considered an essential study resource and an authoritative reference on the exam. New editions come out regularly, so make sure you buy the latest one — older printings are cheaper but reflect an outdated version of the test. The Official Guide is sold on its own and is sometimes bundled with extra practice material and online access; ACT lists the current package options and pricing. It is available in both print and eBook formats.
Official Guide Coverage of ACT Sections
The Official Guide provides detailed coverage of the content, question types, and study strategies for every ACT section — the required English, Math, and Reading tests along with the optional Science and Writing add-ons. The chapter on the Math test, for example, reviews its main content areas (Preparing for Higher Math, Integrating Essential Skills, and a Modeling component), breaks down the kinds of questions you'll face, and walks through a set of strategies for working the section. Another chapter helps you pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses in each section and flags the test-taking mistakes students make most often.
Official Guide ACT Practice Tests
The Official Guide includes several full-length practice tests. The first is meant to serve as a diagnostic — a read on your starting skill level — and comes with instructions for scoring it and analyzing your results. The remaining tests are designed to be taken after a stretch of study, with answer explanations provided for the multiple-choice sections. Each practice test includes answer sheets identical to the ones used on real exam days, along with a conversion chart for translating raw scores (the number of questions you answer correctly) into scaled scores on the 1-36 range.
Miscellaneous Official Guide Content
Beyond test summaries, content review, and practice tests, the Official Guide includes chapters on interpreting your scores and rankings, choosing a test date and registering, and handling test day well. It also reports score data — percentile rankings and averages — for recent testing years across the multiple-choice sections and the Writing test. Extras include a code for additional online practice questions and guidance on putting together strong college applications.
About the Official Guide Publisher
John Wiley & Sons is a publishing firm that was founded in 1807 in New York City and is now headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The firm is known for publishing educational materials at a variety of levels and for the Wiley Online Library, a database of journals, books, and reference works.
Official Guide Authors and Contributors
ACT is credited as the author of the Official Guide, with no individual writers or contributors named. The book bills itself as the only official prep guide from the makers of the exam, but it doesn't say who actually wrote the text.
Making Best Use of the Official Guide
The Official Guide should be thought of as a valuable reference work and resource for practice exercises, but it is not intended to function as a replacement for professional instruction. The Official Guide is best regarded as a course textbook, which is obviously not a substitute for the course itself. The most dramatic ACT skill and score improvements will be achieved through the guidance of an experienced teacher using the Official Guide as an important part of the formal learning process.