Dmmetler Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I printed out a practice ACT online, since I had trouble finding EXPLORE tests and because I wanted to give DD some practice with the format, the timed test, and the answer sheet because I could easily see a panic attack happening if she hit a question where she didn't know where to start, ran out of time, her doing the entire test in the test book and then running out of time to grid the answer sheet, and so on. I'm not worried too much about the content-and the whole purpose is to see how she does on an out of level test-but I want to make sure that they're actually testing the content and that it reflects her abilities in math/verbal, not in filling bubbles. Well, she did the verbal parts today-and, based on the practice test, would qualify for the verbal half of talent search up to high school. She also finished the ACT sections in the 30 minutes expected for each EXPLORE section (because my plan had been to stop her at that point so she got an idea for the length. If she scored equally well on the Math, she'd qualify for our state's college Lottery scholarship. I expect Math and Science on the ACT to be more practice on "what to do when you don't know where to start", since she hasn't had any math beyond basic algebra (and I think she needs practice in not panicking when she gets a question that is covering topics she doesn't know yet, because I've seen that paralyze her on LoF problems when she just plain doesn't know how to set them up). Anyway, I'm much, much less worried about her freaking out on the EXPLORE at this point! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyP Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 That's awesome. You know, it is really cool to see how far your dd has come. It seems like she is really starting to overcome many things that were hurdles for her in the past. Congrats to both of you. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 I didn't believe the statements made when she was tested years ago that a lot of what she was dealing with was developmental and typical of young GT kids, and that she'd learn to manage it on her own as she got older, but I really am starting to see just so much that she's capable of-and as she's handling the emotional and sensory stuff better, the difference is dramatic. It's definitely a work in progress-and I don't feel like I can take credit for any of it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 The EXPLORE math tests pre-algebra and below. I know the ACT includes higher math so definitely warn her that this practice test is going to be quite a bit harder than the actual EXPLORE exam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 She just scored higher on the math section than she did on the verbal-only by a point, but still.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aly9712 Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 That's AWESOME. I may have my dd try one just to see how she does. She you get yours from here? Aly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 I used the one in http://media.act.org/documents/preparing.pdf since it let me print the entire test and an answer sheet, instead of just a few questions, since my primary goal was to try out the format and see how she did (and to give her something harder than the EXPLORE so she could practice managing frustration and accepting that she's not going to necessarily know every single answer or be able to solve every problem). I haven't given her the science test yet-we'll see how that goes :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted January 11, 2013 Author Share Posted January 11, 2013 Science was consistent with the others-all her scores were within a couple of points of the same number. Which wasn't what I'd expected-I'd expected reading/English to be a lot higher than Science and Math, because she maxed out the DORA last year, while Science and Math obviously have skills she hasn't had yet. But she seems to be pretty good at using what she knows to figure it out. In Math, she pretty much got all of Algebra right and a good part of geometry, with most of the questions missed being ones she marked as being ones she didn't know what to do on. In Science, there were some questions on each passage that she was confident on, and some she wasn't, with two passages where she was MUCH more confident-basically anything involving interpreting graphs and charts of data. This was an interesting experiment, and it seems to have had the desired effect for both DD and I-DD is now pretty confident that she can handle an 8th grade test and has had some practice seeing that you can miss questions and just plain not know where to start, and still score pretty well overall. I'm a lot more confident now that the bubble sheet and timer won't throw her and that hopefully she'll be able to better budget her time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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