SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Are you already scoring well on the SAT and getting a 1400 or above (2100 in the 2400 scale)?  This puts you in a special class, and your strategy for improving your SAT score will be very different from the average students'.  Having made the improvement myself, I'll show you how you can aim for a perfect SAT score too.

If you're doing well on the ACT but you still want to improve, it can be difficult to find the right prep strategies. High scorers who hope to become elite scorers will benefit from different study strategies than low scorers.

In this article, I'll go through what it means to be a high scorer on the ACT, why high scorers can benefit from their own set of preparation strategies, and which strategies will give you the best chance of improving already impressive test results.

If you only have a short time left to study for the ACT, using official practice tests can help you raise your scores quickly. In this article, I'll take you through a 20-hour ACT prep plan that uses official practice tests to hone your skills on the test. This approach will show you exactly what you can expect on test day and help you to identify and address the most pressing weaknesses in your test-taking strategy. Below, I've broken down the most effective way to get the swiftly get the greatest benefit from practicing with official ACTs, as well as explained the benefits and drawbacks of this type of prep program.

Are you a high achieving student who’s used to getting good grades in school? Were you expecting a similarly high standardized test score and were disappointed when you got your scores back?

I have two pieces of good news: 1. You are not alone; this problem is a lot more common than you probably think. 2. There are ways to improve your test taking skills and raise your score. This guide will go over the most common reasons smart students get low scores on standardized tests and give step-by-step guidelines for solving the problem.

To completely prepare for the ACT, you must spend time taking official ACT tests in the same conditions that you’ll face on the day of the real thing.

But what if you’re stuck on a concept that you just can’t seem to quite wrap your head around? Or what if you gone through many of the available practice tests already, but still would like to keep working on your skills? The great news is that there are many other ways to effectively study the concepts being tested on the ACT!

In this article, I’ll talk about what alternative practice ACT resources are good for, and how to use them best when preparing for the test. Then, I’ll also go through the ACT section by section and lay out all the available alternative resources. By the end of this post, you'll have a huge stock of extra practice material to help you prep for the ACT.

If you're currently scoring low on the ACT, you should make sure that you tailor your prep methods to your current needs and ability. Low ACT scorers and high scorers should prepare differently for the test and use different methods to get the best possible results.

In this article, I'll go over why students with low ACT scores should prepare differently and which strategies will be the most helpful for you.

ACT practice tests can be a great tool in preparing yourself for the real exam. In order for these tests to be worth your time, however, you’ll need to learn to evaluate your mistakes effectively. In this article, I’ll show you the most productive ways to reflect on ACT practice tests so that you can use them to your best advantage.

The same way that musicians practice their concerts before going in front of a live audience and athletes have scrimmages before a game, it’s important to practice taking the ACT before you sit down for the real exam.

There are many free ACT practice tests available that you can take in your own home, however; it can be difficult to simulate real test-taking conditions. The closer the conditions of your practice test are to the real ACT, the more useful and accurate your results will be.

Read this guide to learn ways that students and parents can create realistic test conditions in order to achieve the most accurate results from ACT practice tests.

Lots of students strive for that perfect 36 ACT composite score. You might think you need a completely perfect test, but that's not the case. You have some leeway in how many questions you can miss and still get a 36.

In this article, I'll explain my research into official ACT grading scales, and I'll tell you how many questions you can get wrong and still get that 36.

The ACT is a time crunch, and most students have trouble finishing the whole test in the allotted time. So how many questions can you skip for a good score?

In this article, I'll let you know how many questions you can skip or answer incorrectly and to get a composite score of 26.

Not on our watch.

To do well on the SAT/ACT, you need to commit to a certain amount of study hours. The higher the score you want, or the more points you need to improve, the more hours you need to put in. (Read more about how long exactly you need to study for the SAT or ACT here.)

If total hours is your main goal for studying, then procrastination is what you need to defeat to be successful. So we’ll talk a bit about why procrastination happens, and then give actionable advice for fighting it.

Read in to conquer procrastination once and for all!

How much can an ACT score drop by? How likely is it your ACT score will decrease if you retake the test? Or are you wondering why your ACT score went down on a recent retake?

Find out how likely an ACT decrease is, how big that ACT score decrease could be, and how to make sure your score goes up, not down! Read on if you have a retake in store.

The ACT has a straightforward test format, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy test. You’re going to need to know how it’s structured and what kinds of questions to expect on each section in order to do well. In this article, I’ve listed 20 essential ACT tips, broken down by section, that will help you conquer the most difficult aspects of the test.

Want to prep for the ACT on you own? Chances are you’ve ordered a prep book to help you study.

One of the most popular prep books around is The Real ACT Prep Guide. But how can you make sure you get your money’s worth out of the book – and make sure you actually study well enough to improve your ACT composite? Read our guide to using The Real ACT Prep Guide to find out.

If you don’t have much time left before the ACT, you may be wondering how you can maximize your scores with a short term study plan. If you’re looking for a big score improvement and you only have a few days before the test, you might not be able to reach your goal this time, but you can get a good head start towards it (and you’ll be better prepared to study harder before your next test session).

But if you only need to improve by one or two points, really intense studying for a few hours could get you where you want to be, if you have some clear weaknesses you didn't know about!

In this article I'll show how to create a last minute ACT study program and give last minute ACT tips to boost your score.