Science Test Strategies
better understanding of the science portion of the ACT
Things to consider
- You have 35 minutes to complete 7 passages (40 questions)
- Passage Based
- Background knowledge is not necessary
- Open Book test
Abilities to have
- look up data and trends
- synthesize information
- make predictions
3 Passages
Experiments (research summaries)
- usually come with figures that describe the experiments
- 3 passages with 6 questions each with a total of 18 questions
- 1 passage with 7 questions
- much more reading
- compare and contrast different viewpoints
- 3 passages with 5 questions each. 15 questions total.
- Always come with figures
- Tests ability to understand reading material
Now, Later, Never
Pick and choose which questions are easiest for you to do first and save the more difficult questions for last.
Letter of the Day
Never leave any blank bubbles on the ACT test. Pick one set of letters as your "guessing letter" and stick to it. Wrong answers don't count against you. The correct answers are the only ones that are looked at.
Process of elimination (POE)
Use this strategy to eliminate the answers that are clearly wrong. By narrowing your answer options down, you create a greater chance of choosing the correct answer.
Don't waste time trying to find the answer in the figure or the passage. Using POE will be much more resourceful.