Timing is everything!

For most people, the biggest barrier to a higher ACT score is the time constraint. Many of my students can answer most of the questions, but they only get about half-way through the practice test before time runs out. For the next practice test, they rush and miss a lot of questions. This is especially true for the Reading and Science sections. This problem calls for a two-pronged attack.

The first task, obviously, is to practice your pacing.  Practice reading faster. Skim diagrams. Stop agonizing over each problem; do your best as quickly as possible and move on.

Sometimes, however, you need to concede that you are not going to finish. The best thing to do is to have a strategy for which questions you will answer and which you will skip. Some students are surprised to learn that they can skip their least favorite science passage, take a little extra time with the remaining questions, and be quite happy with their scores.  Skipping an entire Reading passage is more costly since there are only four, but for some students that is still the right choice.

Of course, deciding on your personal strategy is very time-consuming. You have to work through several practice tests to try out different timings. Which passage should you skip? If you have time at the end, should you try to make headway in your skipped passage, or should you double-check your answers in the passages you completed?  All of these are individual choices.  You will need to begin working at least a month before the test.  If the test is only a week or two away, you may need to speed up the process by finding a professional tutor.

Study Material Review: Barron's ACT 36

My idea of an ideal ACT 36 book is one that accomplishes two things:

1. Discusses how to answer the most difficult ACT questions and gives plenty of practice for each type.
2.  Shows the student how to save time on the easier portions of the test so that there will be enough time to work on the most difficult questions.

Barron's ACT 36 does neither of these things.  In particular, there are not nearly enough practice problems. 

It's not too early to work on your critical reading skills for the fall tests

If you plan to take the SAT or the ACT in the fall of 2013 (or even later) it is not too early to work on your critical reading skills. I know that parents and teachers are telling students to read as much as possible and they're right. But don't read just anything. Read books and periodicals that are written at a higher reading level.

Here is a quick way to approximate the reading level of a book or article based on the SMOG index:

First mark off 30 sentences. I generally like to choose 10 sentences at the beginning of the reading, 10 in the middle and 10 near the end.  Within those 30 sentences, count all of the words with 3 or more syllables.  Take the square-root of that number and add 3. The result is the approximate grade level of the reading material.

The SAT and ACT were designed to measure whether or not you could read at the college level, so you can expect the reading levels for the various passages to be 11th grade or higher.  By contrast, popular series like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games are written at a middle school level.

Use this method to find reading material at a good reading level for practice. THEN read as much as possible!

Some rectangles are squares!

I am pitching a fit. So far I have raised my voice, stomped my feet, and thrown a pencil. A more sensitive child might be alarmed, but the strapping six-foot athlete beside me looks more bemused than upset.  [Note: This fit was entirely for effect. A more sensitive child would never have seen it.] And what has brought on this display of temper?  Yet another high school geometry student has mis-defined a rectangle as having “two long sides and two short sides.”

I have spent countless hours trying to beat that notion out of the heads of my high school students and replace it with the correct definition: A rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right ANGLES. It’s all about the angles. The lengths of the sides are immaterial. In fact the sides could all be of equal length. That’s right. Just as a cardinal is a particular type of bird, a square is a particular type of rectangle.

Recently I have decided that it might be better to focus my attention on the other end of the problem: picture books.  Ideally, students would never learn the incorrect definition in the first place, and it seems that if picture books got it right, that would be a step in the right direction.

My experience so far with picture book publishers is that as long as the book is popular, they don’t care if it contains errors. Therefore we need to hit this on two fronts: First, make sure that the publishers get enough complaint letters that they begin to wonder whether or not a correct book would be more popular, and second reduce the popularity of incorrect books by giving them bad reviews. 

Below, you will find three books that should be permanently out of print along with contact information for the publisher.  The book name itself is a link to the Amazon page for that book in case you wish to write a negative review. In addition, pass this information on to other parents, make letter-writing an assignment for your geometry class, and alert the media! Leave a comment if you get a response. Let’s see if we can get this straightened out once and for all.

Twizzlers Math: From Simple Shapes to Geometry - published by Scholastic - to send them an email

Quote to reference, page 15:  "A rectangle is a shape that has four right angles and four sides. Opposite sides are parallel and have the same length.  The perpendicular sides are a different length."

Circus Shapes - published by Harper Collins - to send them an email

Quote to reference, pages 24, 25:  "The bears form a rectangle. - two sides short and two sides long." 

When a Line Bends...A Shape Begins - published by Houghton Mifflin - to send them an email

Quote to reference:  "A rectangle is like a square with something rearranged. Two sides are long and two are short. The four sides now are changed."  In addition, this book goes on to say that if you rotate a square 45 degrees it becomes a "diamond."

Check your calculator for the "logbase" function.

Does your TI-84 calculator have the "logbase" function? Take a moment to check. Turn your calculator on and press the "math" key. Hit "^" once or twice to scroll up the list.  If you have the "logbase" function it will be item A or B in the list. If you choose it, you will see "log" on your screen with a space to type in the base of the logarithm and another space to type in the number you wish to take the logarithm of.

If you with to take log to the base 3 of 81, you could press "math", choose the "logbase" function, type in "3", press ">" to tab over and then type "81" to get the correct answer "4."

Whether or not your calculator has this function seems to depend more on how new it is than on which model you have. It's a convenient function to have if you are taking the ACT or the SAT II Math 2 subject test, so take a moment to get out your calculator and look.

On the SAT, if you get a fraction as your answer, do you need to reduce it?

For the grid-in questions there is no need to reduce your fraction unless it won't fit.  For the multiple choice questions, answer the question. Before you reduce any fraction, check for your answer in the answer choices. If you don't see your answer, reduce the fraction and check again.

You do realize that your TI-83 or TI-84 calculator will reduce the fraction for you, right?  Type in the fraction as a division problem. For example, "12/36". When you press enter, you will get the decimal equivalent of the fraction.  Hit the "math" key. On the screen you will see a numbered list of choices with "1. >fraction" already highlighted.  Press "enter" to choose it, then "enter" again to change your previous answer to a fraction. The fraction will be given in its reduced form.

Use a $5 word in your essay.

Have you ever heard the saying "Don't use a $5 word when a 50¢ word will do?" This does not apply to your entrance exam essay. One of the things the scorers look for is your use of vocabulary. This is not to say that every word needs to be the most sophisticated word you can find. You don't want your essay to sound like you wrote it with a thesaurus in your lap.  Besides, 40 or 50 minutes isn't enough time to write an essay in which each word is the best possible word for that space.  However, during the last minute or so when you have - hopefully - finished writing, read over your essay. If you haven't used any college-level words, then pick one word and replace it with a better one. Let the scorers know that you are comfortable with college-level vocabulary.

Study material review: Barron's ACT flashcards

Save your money.  Pass up Barron's ACT flashcards.

It looks impressive from the outside.  There are 400 cards in a sturdy box "to help you achieve a higher score."  Your first clue that this may not be worth the $17 is the statement, "A great study aid when used in tandem with Barron's ACT test pep guide,..." It reminds me of reading the cereal box and seeing, "healthy as part of a complete breakfast" and then a photo showing an enormous breakfast that would be even healthier if you left out the cereal.

The problem is that they didn't make very good decisions regarding what to put on the cards. Typically one would want to have flashcards of definitions or formulas. There are plenty of candidates for ACT study. However, the vast majority of these cards are either "strategies" or multiple choice questions with the correct answer on the other side.

For example, the math section comprises about 1/3 of the deck. First, it's hard to imagine what one would put on over 100 flashcards (the deck I've made for my students has about 40). Still, the ACT expects you to know quite a number of algebra and geometry formulas. Unfortunately, there are no "formulas" cards. There are a few formulas included in the "strategies" cards, but the formula is given on the front of the card along with a specific problem that uses the formula. It is the answer to the problem that appears on the reverse of the card.

In short, the only really nice thing about this flashcard deck is the box it came in.

Save time on the easy parts

Save time on the easy parts

Sometimes the key to a higher math score is to practice the problems you already know. If you can save time on the easy problems, you will have more time to spend on the challenging ones. One good place to save time is solving special triangles. It isn't enough to be able solve them; you want to be able to solve them quickly. There can be multiple special triangles on a given test. By recognizing them and solving them quickly, you can save enough time to solve one of the more difficult questions at the end. At some levels one more right answer can improve your score.