Taking The ACT
Everybody knows what the ACT is. It's simply one of the most important tests in high school. The ACT test contains four multiple choice tests: the reading, mathematics, English, and science tests. Along with an optional writing exam. Each of these individual tests have time limits with varying degrees of length with the shortest time being 35 minutes. All of the required multiple choice questions are given a score out of 36 with 20 being an average score and an average of each score is given back as a composite score. After all of that colleges will use these scores to judge whether or not you will be accepted.
You may have noticed that I didn't list a particular 21st century skill in the title of this page. That's because the ACT required me to use Critical thinking, Information Literacy, and Self-Directional Skills. Saying that these were a requirement is a bit of an understatement because each and every one of these skills was invaluable while I was taking the ACT and I definitely wouldn't have even finished most, if not all of the tests without these skills.
Out of all the things that I had to apply and improve while taking this test I'd say that I'm most proud of how much better I was able to budget my time when compared to taking the practice SAT. I know this is kind of comparing apples to oranges here, but hear me out. When I took the practice SAT last year I was absolutely terrible at managing my time. I found that I was checking my work constantly on the practice SAT which is one of the worst things to do on a test like this. But this year with the ACT I managed to get past that and answer most, if not all of the questions on each of the tests and even though I still need to work on time management a bit more I'm pretty proud of the improvement.
Despite my improvement, managing my time was still the biggest hurdle about this test. I'd imagine that I could've brought up most of my scores up by around 3 points if I had managed my time better for two reasons. The first reason is that being forced to guess on the last few problems essentially means that I'll be getting 75% of the answers on those questions wrong. And the second reason that mismanaging time caused me to kind of freak out. Every time I noticed I was behind schedule it would really trip me up and cause me to either spend more time on questions than I needed to or I probably outright got some questions wrong from nerves alone.
When I take this test the next time Ill be sure to spend as much time on practice tests as possible until I can manage time while taking the test perfectly. In addition to that, I will have completed my pre-calculus class and I will have learned everything that will be on the test.
Taking the ACT test can be easily related to each and every test that I've taken in the past, especially the ones with a time constraint. This is simply because the ACT is simply testing your ability to take tests. Things like time management and being able to solve a problem as quickly and efficiently as possible is the true focus of the ACT and each and every quiz, mid term, and final exam helped me to prepare for this test.
Because the ACT is testing my ability to thrive in college it would stand to reason that the stuff that I need to study, such as time management, will be invaluable in college. Each and every test is designed to tell colleges and myself what I'm good at and what I need to improve upon to do well in college. From speed reading to reading graphs to simple algebra, this test is designed to gauge my abilities and that knowledge will be extremely important to me in the future.
You may have noticed that I didn't list a particular 21st century skill in the title of this page. That's because the ACT required me to use Critical thinking, Information Literacy, and Self-Directional Skills. Saying that these were a requirement is a bit of an understatement because each and every one of these skills was invaluable while I was taking the ACT and I definitely wouldn't have even finished most, if not all of the tests without these skills.
Out of all the things that I had to apply and improve while taking this test I'd say that I'm most proud of how much better I was able to budget my time when compared to taking the practice SAT. I know this is kind of comparing apples to oranges here, but hear me out. When I took the practice SAT last year I was absolutely terrible at managing my time. I found that I was checking my work constantly on the practice SAT which is one of the worst things to do on a test like this. But this year with the ACT I managed to get past that and answer most, if not all of the questions on each of the tests and even though I still need to work on time management a bit more I'm pretty proud of the improvement.
Despite my improvement, managing my time was still the biggest hurdle about this test. I'd imagine that I could've brought up most of my scores up by around 3 points if I had managed my time better for two reasons. The first reason is that being forced to guess on the last few problems essentially means that I'll be getting 75% of the answers on those questions wrong. And the second reason that mismanaging time caused me to kind of freak out. Every time I noticed I was behind schedule it would really trip me up and cause me to either spend more time on questions than I needed to or I probably outright got some questions wrong from nerves alone.
When I take this test the next time Ill be sure to spend as much time on practice tests as possible until I can manage time while taking the test perfectly. In addition to that, I will have completed my pre-calculus class and I will have learned everything that will be on the test.
Taking the ACT test can be easily related to each and every test that I've taken in the past, especially the ones with a time constraint. This is simply because the ACT is simply testing your ability to take tests. Things like time management and being able to solve a problem as quickly and efficiently as possible is the true focus of the ACT and each and every quiz, mid term, and final exam helped me to prepare for this test.
Because the ACT is testing my ability to thrive in college it would stand to reason that the stuff that I need to study, such as time management, will be invaluable in college. Each and every test is designed to tell colleges and myself what I'm good at and what I need to improve upon to do well in college. From speed reading to reading graphs to simple algebra, this test is designed to gauge my abilities and that knowledge will be extremely important to me in the future.