ACT Test-Taking Strategies

General Issues in ACT Prep and Testing

Top scores come from a combination of factors. Strong verbal and quantitative skills are essential, of course, but on their own they aren't enough to reach the highest scores. The students who post elite results can hold up under the pressure of a high-stakes exam, and they manage their time well. Regular practice testing builds both of these strengths. Working through drills, individual sections, and full-length practice tests at steady intervals teaches you to keep a disciplined pace and avoid pouring too much time into any single question. Educated guessing is sometimes necessary too, and it is a skill you can sharpen; since the ACT carries no penalty for wrong answers, you should never leave a bubble blank. Keep in mind that today's ACT has three required sections — English, Math, and Reading — plus optional Science and Writing add-ons, and the strategies below cover all five. Test-takers who know every section of the exam and the full range of skills it covers walk in feeling genuinely prepared, and that confidence lifts performance even further.

ACT English Strategies

For every ACT section, the first thing to plan is your timing. On the English section, you have 35 minutes for 50 questions, which works out to a little over 40 seconds apiece — and less once you subtract the time spent reading the passages, so aim for roughly 35 seconds on most questions. Read every answer choice carefully, because the four options are often nearly identical. For questions about a single sentence, read each choice to yourself and pick the one that sounds most correct. For questions that ask about the passage as a whole, focus on exactly what is being requested and answer accordingly; misreading the question is one of the surest ways to miss it. Some English questions come in two parts or are linked to one another, and recognizing these quickly helps you rule out irrelevant choices.

ACT Reading Strategies

The ACT Reading section gives you 40 minutes for 36 questions, drawn from Literary Narrative and Informational passages, one of which is a paired set of two shorter texts. That pace averages out to just over a minute per question, so budget a few minutes to read each passage and try to keep your per-question time under a minute, which should leave a small cushion for reviewing tough items at the end. While reading, it helps to think "journalistically" — in terms of the who, what, why, where, and when of each text — because many questions turn on exactly those details. Some students prefer to knock out the easiest questions in a passage first and circle back to the harder ones; others work straight through in order. Either approach is fine, as long as you don't sink too much time into any single question. As always, read every question and answer choice carefully.

ACT Math Strategies

The Math section gives you 50 minutes for 45 questions — a little over a minute each — and every question now has four answer choices rather than the five the ACT used to include. Many problems take well under a minute, which banks time for the harder ones, but keep an eye on your pace; you should be somewhere around question 18 by the 20-minute mark. A calculator is permitted but never required, and every Math problem can be solved without one, so get comfortable with the calculator you plan to bring well before test day and reach for it only when it genuinely saves time. Students who test online work with a built-in Desmos graphing calculator, so practice with that tool if you'll be testing on a computer. Study every illustration and figure closely, read each problem and all of its options before you start solving, and use any spare time to double-check your work.

ACT Science Strategies

Science is now an optional add-on that is reported separately and does not count toward your Composite, so prepare for it only if your target colleges or programs want it or if you're aiming for the STEM score. If you do take it, you'll have 40 minutes for 40 questions spread across six or seven passages of graphs, tables, and experiment summaries; no calculator is allowed here. Aim for well under a minute per question so you have time to study each passage's data and still leave a few minutes at the end to check answers, revisit tricky items, and fill in a guess for anything blank. Some test-takers like to skim the questions before reading a passage so they know which information matters most. You're allowed to take notes, and it pays to do so before, during, and after reading. The section isn't meant to test memorized science content, but a working familiarity with basic experimental procedure and the major scientific disciplines still helps.

ACT Writing Strategies

Writing, like Science, is an optional add-on; it is scored separately on a 2-12 scale and never factors into your Composite, so plan for it only if a school you're applying to asks for it. The task is a single essay in 40 minutes, which makes time management critical. Start by sorting out your thinking on each of the three perspectives you're given and settling on your own position, which doesn't have to match any of the three. Then sketch a quick outline of roughly equal paragraphs. One reliable structure is to weigh each perspective, lay out and support your own view, and close by connecting your view to the others. Spend about 10 minutes planning and you'll have 30 left to write. The scoring rubric has several criteria, but what matters most is how well you actually address the assigned task — not your word count or how many fancy words you can work in.