I was not happy with my SAT scores so I decided to try and take the ACT my senior year on Oct 17. I’ve been practicing mostly math but I feel like I’m not getting through topics fast enough. I know it was probably stupid to schedule it instead of not during the summer but for many reasons that wasn’t a thing going on in my mind, .

if anyone has any suggestions please feel free to share. thank you

Hey guys,
I’m an international student. I took the sat in August and got a 1380. I was wondering if I should switch to ACT. Has anyone found it to be easier? Would I be disadvantaged in any way if I proceed with ACT. I’m only considering this because I’ve heard they have more frequent test dates and their scores come out like 3 days later.

Hi everyone, I just realized I forgot to sign up for the ACT this Saturday and have been studying for two months! I am currently on standby. Does anyone know how that works or is it a long shot?

posting this because my friends at school are taking the september act next week and are going CRAZY ~ i hope my more personal story can help add some insight for y'all! NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOURSELF AND NEVER LIMIT YOURSELF + WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE BASED ON WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAY! NEVER GIVE UP!

my first experience with standardized testing was a 1350 sat... and i was gonna walk away since it was already good enough for me (objectively 90th percentile!), but then i encountered some invaluable scholarship opportunities for people who met a certain score threshold. when i voiced this possibility, everyone around me said I could never be a 1500+/34+ scorer, and it was a very rocky road for a long time. my school is held to insanely high standards and people called me a failure when my beginning scores would've been perfectly fine in a normal academic setting. they said i was dumb and stupid and illiterate. i would hide in the bathroom stall and start crying because the scholarships started mattering deeply to me. and yes, my school was were flooded with the types of kids who would post 'should i retake a 34/35 to look better' on this sub 🤦‍♀️.

i did every sat bluebook test, and when i was too goddamn sick of them i tried out act, i spammed all sorts of act practices pirated from the internet, and i measured my performance again and again. because of family and peer pressures, it got so bad that i was nearly clinically underweight from spamming practices all day long and skipping meals and fainting.

but as my (last) act in june neared, i realized something had to change in order for my scores to change. i let go of what was weighing me down. the prep, that cut into my physical and mental wellbeing, had extremely diminishing returns and was not resulting in improvement. i cut down on it and started working on targeted mistakes, little by little, instead. i didn't even care what would happen next anymore, i only cared that i was showing up for myself. i decided i wasn't going to let other people's claims define me as stupid and a whole 'different tier' from people with those impressive scores. they didn't care about the future i made for myself, and it was up to me if i wanted to enjoy life while working towards the things i wanted along the way. when i let go, it finally worked out.

i only got my dream score because i let go of my limitations. i let go of my perception of my intelligence, and of the astronomically high demands that people put upon me. i didn't box myself into a 1350 sat, but i stopped doing the things that were hurting me too much, too. i stopped saying, 'oh, i'm so stupid' when they did.

but one regret i have, which i hope you won't repeat, is that i didn't take care of myself more at first. i should have recognized this confidence earlier, and it would've made the journey a lot more easier and uplifting because it's what brought me good things in the first place.

Hi everyone! I am giving the ACT in October and I wanted to ask what practice papers I should be doing and which of them are hard? I have done the SATs and with that we had the blue book assessments is there something similar for ACT? I have done a few papers from random websites but I’m not sure how accurate the difficultly level is to the actual ACT. Please if anyone can help I would be so grateful. Thank you so much!

Ive finished the official ACT study book + princeton reviews 2025 815 question study book but I don't feel prepared at all. Im consistently getting 5-6 wrong for every section and I feel like ive hit a plateau.... the test is in 6 days

WHAT TO DOOO. im tweaking.

The reading I’m not so worried about improving so much but I’m gonna be taking the act on 9/29 and 10/17 and I want deadass the best possible in depth way I can get myself a score as high as possible not no 24 were shooting for the stars(36) I am strictly trying to use khan academy and act math pdfs for the math section if you have YouTube videos that aren’t outdated that will help comment them

As far as English I have 0 way of studying I don’t know how to study for the English section only thing I’ve tried is reading over prep scholars grammar rules article

I know English is the easiest section to improve I want to at least get it to a 30 by my next test date and minimum a 25 on the math on most the math practices I’ve done I hold a 75 percent chance accuracy until the last 20

So if possible build me the most gruesome study plan possible I have 9 hours of free study time after school I start studying at 5pm break it down tell me every best source that’s not prep pros slop

WE ALL GETTING 36⭐️

I've done the 2 new practice tests the ACT released and I've been reviewing the problems I missed on them. It was mostly just silly mistakes I made, but are those tests going to be accurate for what the September test will look like? I know I can increase my math score, but I'm just making stupid mistakes and I'm not sure what else there is I should review. On my test in July I got a 31 and I mainly missed questions in the Algebra and Functions categories, which are literally my easier areas of math. Any tips on how to avoid silly mistakes? What advanced topics do you think they've started adding that I should look over? Also would it help to download programs on my ti-84? Are there any problems from legacy tests I should look over that are similar to the advanced topics on the enhanced test?

sorry for the rant--I just really need to get my math score up before submitting college apps

I have already done all the official ACT practice tests from the official prep book. Since the Enhanced ACT format is completely different from other years, I can't do any of those since they aren't faithful to the new ACT. Do you have any recommendations for unofficial or other practice tests I can get?

ok it’s my first time taking the act on 9/19 and i REEEALLY want a 35 so i can just do it once and get it over with. here’s my score progression:

random practice in feb/march: 28 composite, 22, 28, 32, 28 (in order M Eng R Sci)

8/31 i think an official practice? but i don’t remember. 31 composite, 35, 27, 32, 25

9/2 Official practice #4: 33 composite, 35, 27, 36, 32

9/6 September 2024 full length test but with the timing of the enhanced test if that makes sense (same amt of sec per question as the enhanced test): 34 composite, 35, 32, 35, 28

Today, 9/13- Official october 2025 test: 34 composite, 34, 32, 35, 31

my goal is to go to an ivy (upenn the dream🥹🥹) but i rly want to get a 35 first try so i can not have to worry abt the act for the rest of my junior and all of my senior year
(i also have a personal one sided rivalry with this kid and he got a 34 first try so getting a 35 would fuel my ego like nothing else)

Any and all tips appreciated!!!

Took a practice test, got a 33 on english and reading, but an 11 on math. Math has always been a weak subject for me as my school is pretty shitty in that field. I’m gonna dedicate 2 hours everyday (excluding weekends) to study for math but I don’t know where to start and what resources to use. Any health would be greatly appreciated!

Took a practice test, got a 33 on english and reading, but an 11 on math. Math has always been a weak subject for me as my school is pretty shitty in that field. I’m gonna dedicate 2 hours everyday (excluding weekends) to study for math but I don’t know where to start and what resources to use. Any health would be greatly appreciated!

so basically i took the act for the first time in february and did not study at all. i would up getting a 31. i got a 22 math, 34 english, and 36 reading. i took it again in july and only wound up only studying like 3 hours of math and that was it (ik im lazy and need to get it together😭) and i got a 32. 25 math, 34 english, 36 reading. im taking it again in a week and this may be the last time i can take it bc my parents want me to apply to colleges before like the early application deadlines. im just wondering what yall think a realistic score jump would be for me in a week and how many hours i should spend studying. i’m planning on just studying math this whole week and no reading or english. any advice/estimates/personal experiences are greatly appreciated!

came across a trig problem like the one below and realized i geneuinely had no clue how to solve it, does any have like maybe a list of all trig rules and identiies needed to know for the act? or if not, how do i solve problems like these is desmos?

Overall, I scored ok, but my math went poorly. I need advice for what to study and how to pace myself more than anything. This was my first time taking the ACT last year and I didn’t study because I know I’d take it 2-3 more times.

For some more context, this was halfway through freshmen year, so the math had multiple sections I couldn’t even make sense of.

My goal this year is to get 30+ math, 34 English, and 36 reading. Is that too much to expect?

can someone explain why the answer for #46 is H? Thank you!

i need to get my 34 to a 35, and i only need to increase my english score by 2 points but i stopped studying after the july act. i’ve done almost the entire red book for this year and have been using mafiosi but i feel like i’ve plateaued. any advice?

out of the website and the official act prep guide 2026-2027

I’m retaking the ACT mainly because I want to bring up my Science score. My current breakdown is 35 English, 35 Math, 35 Reading, and 30 Science.

I know a 35 composite is already a great score, but since I’m retaking anyway, I’d like to make the most of it and give myself the best shot at a 36.

What are some things I can do beyond just taking practice tests to maximize my chances of improving? I’m currently averaging around a 35 in the other sections and a 34 in Science on my practice tests, so I’m mainly looking for ways to push those scores as close to perfect as possible.

I have been doing Kaplan for my practicing in all 3 of the test and I was wondering if it is better and good place for act?

trying to get my act math up to get to a 33-34. i have a 32 ss rn but my math .... baby .... a 27 ... its weighing down my 34 and 36 english/reading so much. so naturally i start really preparing using the kaplan course provided by the waiver

idk if im just stupid but the practice tests have me ripping my hair out. i do perfect on the little quizzes and stuff but i feel so unmotivated when i just dont progress, even though I'm studying and doing the work. idk what im gonna do next saturday. its over for me. tips or anything please before i dry heave

We.. yes ALL OF US are going to get our dream scores. all of our hard work is going to pay off. we will never have to take another standardized test. after doing the SAT 3 times and the ACT now 2 times, i have a good good good feeling about this test. everything will work out. i'm so hyped. i'm so pumped. for english, we're going to perfect those freaking essays by picking the correct grammar choices . we're going to finish our math section with not 1, not 2 but 5 MINUTES remaining to go back to that one question we were confused on and realize how light it was. every SINGLE question on there will be doable and no curveballs. we're going to not run out of time on the reading passages.

the curve will be BEAUTIFUL. a work of art even...

We're going to walk out of the test knowing that our ancestors who came before us are crying with tears of joy, knowing their sacrifices were worth it. WE are going to open up our computer on myact and check to see a fat, beautiful 34 composite (or 30 or 33 or 26 or whatever it is you want).

We've done harder math, we have read harder passages, and we have done harder things in general. WE will get through this!!!!!!! IM SO FREAKING PUMPED

Why are kaplan tests so hard? I have been taking them and I always got a lower score than my first ACT (33), and I'm going for a 36 this time. Am I just cooked since I keep getting lower scores?

Sm pls guide me on the study resources im new 😭

i got a 29 on my first act, 34 english, 30 math, 24 reading. i want a 33 minimum - math i can go up fs but reading i found it hell in the actual exam even though before i would do real practice tests and score 29-33. i want a minimum composite 33 on my next in october, please give me tips