SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

No one likes to make mistakes. However, you cannot ignore the questions you miss, or you will not improve. In this article, I will help you figure out the mistakes you are making on ACT Science questions, and I will give you some ACT Science tips and ACT Science strategies to fix your mistakes.

On Saturday, June 6th, I sat alongside high school students to take the SAT at George Washington Prep High School in South Los Angeles. I knew what to expect. I’d taken the test back in 2009 in South Florida when I was beginning my own college application process.

I could never have imagined how different my experience would be this time. My SAT Testing center, located in a poor area of Los Angeles, had HUGE flaws that resulted in extremely unfair testing conditions for the students. When I shared these experiences with my co-workers, they were flabbergasted. But others shared experiences that were just as deplorable.

I wish I were joking. I wish this were satire.

But this isn't Saturday Night Live, and there were serious problems that ruined the experience for the other test-takers, many of whom were taking it for the first time and using vouchers. This is undoubtedly happening across the country and crippling the scores and futures of thousands of students. 

Unfortunately, as in my experience, these problems may be especially prevalent in lower income areas where students aren't as well prepared for how the test SHOULD go, and incompetent proctors may be overlooked.

Read this and make sure this doesn't happen to you.

No one likes to be a tattletale. Okay, most people don’t like to be a tattletale. However, when your future dream college is at stake, which it is when you take the SAT/ACT as it accounts for 30-50% of your college application, you NEED to be a tattletale when there are testing issues.

In every section on the ACT, there are some questions that are more difficult than the others. Science is no different. However, unlike the math section, where the questions progress from easy to hard in a linear fashion, each of the 7 passages tends to have 1-2 hard questions that can appear at any point in the passage (though they tend to be the last questions of the passage).

These problems may seem challenging at first glance, but they're really just slightly more challenging than the others if you use the right ACT Science strategies and tips that we'll be covering in this guide. 

Reading graphs is like reading in a foreign language. It comes easy to some and is very difficult for others. If you struggle to understand graph, tables, and other visuals for ACT Science questions, this article containing tips, strategies, and practice questions is perfect for you.

If you're a “fluent” pro, this article will be a good review to make sure your skills are on point. Even if you are a pro, the ACT Science section often tests the basic skill of reading visuals in new and challenging ways, so this article will make sure you have strategies for both easy and hard questions.

The ACT Science section is basically the white and gold dress of the ACT. It's blue and black or white and gold. It's either really hard or really easy, depending on the viewer. In this article, I'm going to help you find a strategy that makes the ACT Science really easy always.

As I mentioned in a previous article, the ACT Science section is more reading than science. Therefore, to do well on the ACT Science, you need to have a good reading strategy. Counterintuitive, I know.

While using one strategy for the whole ACT Science section would be ideal, there is no single technique that works to read all of the ACT Science Passages. Your approach to reading the ACT Science Passages should vary based on the type of passage. If you're unfamiliar with the 3 types of ACT Science Passages, I recommend reading our other article first.

In this article, I'll outline all of the ACT Science reading techniques that I've personally tried and taught to students. I'll rank the techniques from best to worst. I offer all of the strategies (instead of just one) because my favorite strategy may not work for you.

Why is the ACT Science section so scary? When I took it the first time, it was fast paced, had a lot of difficult science terms, and seemed challenging. I think many students have a similar experience because the ACT Science section is unlike any other test you've taken, and is so different from the PSAT and SAT.

But there's a critical secret to ACT Science - you actually don't need to know much about science to do well. Instead, you need to be able to practice critical reasoning well - this is the fundamental basis for ACT Science!

In this article, I'll try to make the ACT Science section less mysterious. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you'll understand that any student can get a 36 on the ACT Science section - no matter what grades you got in your science classes.