Help=Slow ACT Taker

[Beth S]

I need some advice on how to encourage our child to speed up his ACT test taking skills.

 

He is very deliberate in his reading, schoolwork, etc. It is difficult for him to "skim".

 

He does very well on his regular homeschool exams, but he works through ALL of his schoolwork at a slow pace until he understands it. He gets better scores on his exams than his higher-performing older siblings, but with 50% more time invested.

 

I'm guessing The Hive has some previous experience with this. Can anyone share some tips? He does daily ACT practice test prep . . . and we have seen some improvement over the weeks . . . but need more help.

 

"How to motivate student . . ." thread was helpful this morning:

http://forums.welltr...udy-for-satact/

 

But he is fairly motivated and cooperative--a good son!

[Barbara H]

It is a good thing to be a careful and thoughtful person and it is frustrating that the tests don't reward this kind of learner.

 

What is he using for ACT prep? If he has not already done so, it is important that he learns to not get stuck on a problem that will take more time - he can mark it and come back to it if he has time. Timed practice tests tend to be the most effective way to work on problems with pacing. Practice one section at a time. It is important the he understands where he needs to be at the 10 minute mark, at the 15 minute mark, etc. etc.

 

For many students time is less of an issue on the SAT.

[Nscribe]

It is a good thing to be a careful and thoughtful person and it is frustrating that the tests don't reward this kind of learner.

 

 

 

Wouldn't it be interesting if the tests were time stamped to indicate the time it took but not limited to a set time? You make a great point.

[Mom22ns]

:lurk5:

 

I'm just going to hang out and listen. You have perfectly described my ds. He is a very hard worker, diligent, thoughtful and SLOW. He always turns in high quality work but spends far more time making it that way than his sister does. It is one of the reasons we homeschool and it has worked out beautifully, but I do worry about how much it affects his standardized test scores.

[Nscribe]

He is very deliberate in his reading, schoolwork, etc. It is difficult for him to "skim".

 

 

Dd is a perfectionist by nature and we have had to work a great deal on not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Being deliberative and contemplative are great attributes. You indicated that he is improving his time with practice. Maybe he just needs more time practicing to deliberate and contemplate until he reaches a comfort level that allows him to comfortably take risks.

[jhschool]

You described DC to a T (I love your "a good son!" :) )

I worry about standardized testing too.

:lurk5: Hopefully someone has some advice.

[Musicmom]

Dd also had timing issues with the ACT, especially on the Reading and Science sections. Both of these sections essentially test reading skills, and are designed (esp the science) so that many students will get bogged down and run out of time on them. Dd was at the time a slow reader, very meticulous, and had a hard time skimming (she's a senior now and learning how to skim, though it's still hard.) In addition to sheer timing practice with real tests, what helped Dd were some tips from the following two prep books:

 

1) Barron's ACT 36: one of the most helpful tips we found in this book is that you do not have to do the Science (or the Reading) sections in order. As long as you keep track of where you are/what you've done and be careful with your answer sheet, you can skip around and do the easiest/fastest sections first, leaving you more time to read and analyze the harder ones. There are 7 sections of Science: two data analysis with lots of graphs and not a lot of text, two experiment comparison-type passages with a balanced amount of text and tables, and one LONG mostly text passage (that you really have to read through and that is typically harder.) If you do them in this order (rather than the order in which they appear on the test--which varies), you can save time because the ones with less text are quicker to get through, leaving more time for the long passage. Dd found this technique helpful, especially on her first try at the real ACT.

 

Theoretically you could do the same thing with the reading section, if you find that certain passages (i.e. certain subject matter) are easier or go more quickly for you personally than others. I think dd found it worked best for her to just do those in order, though.

 

2) Dissecting the ACT 2.0 by Rajiv and Shilpa Raju: Helpful tips from this book included keeping in mind that your goal is to answer the questions correctly, not to understand the passages in depth, so it's more important to read the questions carefully than it is to read the passages carefully.

 

On the science section, for the passages with lots of data and not much text, the book recommends you go right to the questions without reading the text and answer as much as you can, only reading portions of the text if you have to. For the Science passages that have lots of text (and the Reading), it recommends reading through as quickly as possible without worrying about details, then going to the questions and referring back to the passage--carefully--as you answer them. Dd used these approaches in the Science section (where her timing issues were the worst) and it did help.

 

Another strategy the book suggested for the Reading test if you find you always run out of time: focus in detail on 3 of the passages, getting those questions right, and then guess on the 4th. Dd found, though, that with practice she was able to get through all 4 passages in time.

 

Anyway, I recommend both these books for some out-of-the-box ideas on approaching the ACT. The "Dissecting" book especially has good suggestions for working against the time limits. It also has good strategies for both the Math and English sections--I just can't remember those offhand as dd didn't struggle as much with time issues on those.

 

 

[Tullia]

My son faced this difficulty especially with math. He benefited from weekly real-time practice tests and test prep material that focused on test-taking strategies such as those suggested by Musicmom. I usually had him mark his place on practice tests and then timed how long it took to finish ALL the questions. He was pretty consistent with the number of problems he could do in the allotted time so he set a goal of finishing one more problem each week than he'd done the previous week. For the science portion, he figured out that he was spending too much time on co-coordinating the tables and text. I think he also found something on the internet that helped him with reading short passages quickly. He usually finished all the language questions with no problem, but on practice tests he consistently needed 3-4 extra minutes to finish the science section and 5-7 extra minutes to finish the math section.

[Beth S]

Thank you so much for the encouragement and resources. It gives us hope. :)