Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 3 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 4 Figuring Out How Long All This Studying Will Take 5 Part 1: Coming to Terms with Reality: An Overview of the ACT 7 Chapter 1: Getting Your ACT Together: ACT 101 9 What to Take to the ACT 10 What Not to Take to the ACT 11 What to Do If You Have Special Circumstances 11 Guessing for Points to Maximize Your Score 12 Your Number's Up: Scoring on the ACT 12 What the ACT Expects You to Know 13 Repeating the Test for a Better Score 14 Chapter 2: Succeeding on the ACT 17 Surviving the ACT with Four Stress-Busters 17 Inhaling deeply 17 Stretching a little 18 Thinking positive thoughts 18 Practicing POE 18 Avoiding a Few Dumb Mistakes That Can Mess Up Your ACT 18 Losing concentration 19 Panicking over time 19 Messing up on the answer grid 19 Rubbernecking 19 Cheating 20 Worrying about previous sections 20 Worrying about the hard problems 20 Forgetting to double-check 20 Chapter 3: Surviving the College Admissions Process 21 What's the Main Thing Colleges Look For? 21 How Do Higher ACT Scores Increase My Scholarship Chances? 22 Do Schools Care Whether I Repeat the ACT? 22 What Classes Should I Take in High School? 22 How Helpful Are Sports and Charity? 23 What Should I Say on the College Essay? 23 What Will They Ask Me in the Interview and What Should I Say? 23 How Do I Decide Which School is Best for Me? 24 What's the Biggest Mistake Most Students Make in College Planning? 24 How Do I Make My Final Decision? 25 Part 2: Serving Your "Sentence": The English Test 27 Chapter 4: Mastering the English Test 29 Figuring Out What the English Questions Want You to Know 29 Seeing is Believing: The Test's Format 30 The passages 30 The question types 30 Their Pain, Your Gain: Looking Out for Traps That Others Fall into 32 Chapter 5: Getting a Grip on Grammar and Usage 35 Reviewing the Parts of Speech 36 Getting in the action with verbs 36 Identifying the culprit with nouns 37 Avoiding repeating yourself with pronouns 37 Defining nouns with adjectives 37 Clarifying the questions with adverbs 38 Joining together with conjunctions and prepositions 38 Piecing Together the Parts of a Sentence 38 Subjects and predicates 38 Phrases and clauses 39 Keeping Track of Punctuation Rules for Every Occasion 39 Periods and question marks 39 Semicolons 40 Colons 40 Commas 40 Dashes 42 Apostrophes 43 Chapter 6: Spotting Usage Errors and Ripping through Rhetorical Questions 45 Spotting Questions That Test Standard English Conventions 45 Properly placing punctuation marks 45 Picking up on pronoun errors 48 Forming possessives 49 Evaluating verbs 50 Calling out sentence fragments 51 Identifying problems with parallelism 51 Recognizing misplaced modifiers 51 Checking for Proper Production of Writing 52 Eliminating superfluous words 53 Completing the mission 54 Determining the function of a deletion 54 Pondering an addition 54 Creating smooth transitions 55 Organizing and positioning elements 56 Seeing the big picture 56 Sticking to appropriate vocabulary and standard expressions 57 Chapter 7: It's Not What You Say but How You Say It: English Practice Questions 59 Part 3: Don't Count Yourself Out: The Math Test 65 Chapter 8: Number Nuts and Bolts 67 The Wonderful World of Numbers 67 Keeping it real: Types of numbers 68 Lining things up along the number line 69 Understanding absolute value 69 Getting familiar with prime numbers and factorization 69 Minor Surgery: Basic Math Operations 70 Adding and subtracting 70 Multiplying and dividing 70 Working with odds/evens and positives/negatives 71 Focusing on Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages 71 Converting fractions, decimals, and percentages 72 Working with fractions 72 Pondering percentages 74 Eyeing Ratios and Proportions 75 Ratios 75 Proportions 76 Covering Your Bases: Exponents 77 Smooth Operator: Order of Operations 78 Dealing with Average, Median, Mode, and More 78 Doing better than average on averages 78 Weighing in on weighted averages 79 Mastering medians 80 Managing modes 80 Getting ready for range 80 Abracadabra: Elementary Algebra 80 Variables 101 81 Solving simple equations 81 Adding and subtracting expressions 82 Multiplying and dividing expressions 83 Curses! FOILed again 83 Extracting by factoring 84 Solving a system of equations 86 Chapter 9: Getting into Shapes: Geometry and Trig Review 89 Toeing the Line 89 Analyzing Angles 90 Triangle Trauma 92 Classifying triangles 92 Sizing up triangles 93 Zeroing in on similar triangles 94 Figuring out area and perimeter 95 Going Greek: The Pythagorean theorem 95 Taking the shortcut: Pythagorean triples and other common side ratios 96 Thanks 4 Nothing: A Quick Look at Quadrilaterals 98 Missing Parrots and Other Polly-Gones (Or Should We Say "Polygons"?) 100 Measuring up polygons 101 Solving for volume 101 Running Around in Circles 102 Trying Your Hand at Trigonometry 107 Introducing trigonometric functions 108 Circumventing the unit circle 110 Measuring in radians 111 Graphing trig functions on a coordinate plane 112 Applying the Law of Sines and Law of Cosines 114 Chapter 10: Algebra and Other Sleeping Aids 117 Suffering Inequalities 117 Using Your Imagination: Complex Numbers 118 Too Hip to Be Square: Roots and Radicals 119 Adding and subtracting radicals 120 Multiplying and dividing radicals 120 Working from the inside out 121 Thinking Exponentially: Logarithms 121 Log rules 122 Natural logarithms 122 Barely Functioning with Functions 122 Taking a Flight on the Coordinate Plane 123 Defining the coordinate plane 123 Knowing which formulas you need to guide your flight 124 Graphing more functions 126 Evaluating graphs of functions 130 Picking Your Way through Percent Increase, Probability, Permutations, and Combinations 132 Managing the ups and downs 132 Practicing probability 133 Calculating outcomes and orderings 135 Setting Up Sequences 138 Managing Matrices 138 Chapter 11: Numb and Number: Acing the Mathematics Test 141 What You See is What You Get: The Format and Breakdown of the Math Test 141 Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: What Isn't on the Math Test 142 Getting into the Grind: The Approach 143 Translating English into Math 144 Time Flies When You're Having Fun: Timing Tips 145 Skim for your favorite questions 145 Backsolve when the answers are actual values 146 Plug in values for variables 147 Kindly refrain from showing off everything you know 148 Put aside two minutes to fill in the remaining ovals 148 Do's, Don'ts, and Darns: What to Do and Not Do on the Math Test 148 Do get the lead out 148 Don't start working until you've read the entire problem 149 Do reread the problem with your answer inserted 149 Don't strike out over a difficult question early on 149 Chapter 12: More Fun than a Root Canal: Mathematics Practice Questions 151 Part 4: Time to Read the Riot ACT: The Reading Test 159 Chapter 13: This, Too, Shall Pass(age): Sailing through the Reading Test 161 Facing 40 Questions: The Reading Test 161 Timing 162 Scoring 162 Getting Prepared: Reading Strategies 162 Preview the passages 162 Decide on an approach 163 Skim the passage effectively 163 Identifying Reading Question Types 164 Big picture questions 165 Direct statement questions 165 Inference questions 166 Figuring Out Reading Question Formats 166 Vocabulary in context 167 Most nearly means 167 Exception questions 167 Approaching Comparative Passages 168 Tips and Traps 168 Chapter 14: Where Are SparkNotes When You Need Them? Reading Practice Questions 171 Part 5: Studying Brain Defects in Laboratory Rats: The Science Test 177 Chapter 15: From Frankenstein to Einstein: Excelling on the Science Test 179 Too Graphic for Words: The Science Test's Format 179 Passage format 180 Question quirks 180 Just the Facts: Data Analysis 182 Approaching data interpretation with as little pain as possible 183 Reading tables, graphs, and diagrams 185 Examining Experimental Procedures 186 Identifying the study's purpose 186 Following the experimental design and making valid conclusions 186 Warring Factions: Conflicting Viewpoints 188 Devising your plan of attack 188 Working through the conflict to find the right answer: Question styles 189 Chapter 16: Faking Atomic Ache Won't Get You out of This: Science Practice Questions 191 Passage 191 Initial Analysis 193 Questions 193 Part 6: Writing Rightly: The Optional Writing Test 199 Chapter 17: Excelling on Your Essay: The Writing Test Review 201 What to Expect From the ACT Writing Test 201 Making the Grade: How the ACT Folks Score Your Essay 202 Examining the Prompt and Creating a Thesis 202 Putting Up Your Dukes: Defending Your Perspective 204 Throwing a Good First Punch: The Hook 204 The Proof is in the Pudding: Defending Yourself 205 Using specific examples 205 Mixing things up with a variety of examples 206 Forming logical arguments 206 Hamburger Writing: Organizing Your Essay 208 The top bun: Introduction 208 The three meats: Example paragraphs 208 The lettuce, tomato, and special sauce: Transitions 209 The bottom bun: Conclusion 210 Wielding the Red Pen: Editing and Proofing 210 Using the touch method to look for spelling mistakes and ghost words 210 Calling all action verbs: Be descriptive 210 Avoiding problems with punk-tu-a-tion: Punctuate properly 211 Handwriting check: Write legibly 211 Writing Don'ts 211 Writing before you think 211 Panicking about time 211 Referring to the perspectives by number 212 Sticking to the status quo 212 Using words you don't know 212 Being overly critical of yourself 212 Writing like you speak 213 Repeating yourself over and over again 213 Failing to edit your essay 213 Reviewing Some Example Essays and Their Scores 213 1 - 1 is the loneliest number: How not to be a 1 214 2 - 2 little 2 late: Steering clear of coming in second 214 3 - Still finding yourself on the wrong side of the tracks 214 4 - Reaching 4 a better score 215 5 - Shining brightly: A 5-star winner 216 6 - Unlocking the code to a perfect score 217 Chapter 18: Practicing Promptly with Practice Prompts: Essay Practice Questions 219 Writing Prompt 1 219 Writing Prompt 2 221 Part 7: Putting It All Together with Three Full-Length Practice ACTs 223 Chapter 19: Practice Exam 1 225 Answer Sheet 226 Chapter 20: Practice Exam 1: Answers and Explanations 273 English Test 273 Mathematics Test 283 Reading Test 296 Science Test 303 Writing Test 308 Sample response 309 Score One for Your Side: The Scoring Guide 309 Answer Key for Practice Exam 1 311 Chapter 21: Practice Exam 2 313 Answer Sheet 314 Chapter 22: Practice Exam 2: Answers and Explanations 355 English Test 355 Mathematics Test 366 Reading Test 379 Science Test 386 Writing Test 395 Sample response 395 Answer Key for Practice Exam 2397 Chapter 23: Practice Exam 3 399 Answer Sheet400 Chapter 24: Practice Exam 3: Answers and Explanations 445 English Test 445 Mathematics Test 455 Reading Test 473 Science Test 481 Writing Test 488 Sample response 488 Answer Key for Practice Exam 3 489 Part 8: The Part of Tens 491 Chapter 25: Ten Wrong Rumors about the ACT 493 You Can't Study for the ACT 493 Different States Have Different ACTs 493 The ACT Has a Passing Score 494 The ACT Tests IQ 494 You Can't Use a Calculator on the ACT 494 You Should Never Guess on the ACT 494 The ACT is Easier Than the SAT 495 Selective Colleges Prefer the SAT to the ACT 495 You Have to Write an Essay 495 You Shouldn't Take Both the SAT and the ACT 495 Chapter 26: Attention, Parents! Ten Ways You Can Help Your Student Succeed on the ACT 497 Give Him Awesome Test-Prep Materials 497 Encourage Her to Study 497 Supply Him with a Good Study Environment 498 Take Practice Tests with Her 498 Model Good Grammar for Him 498 Help Her Memorize Math Formulas 498 Encourage Him to Read 498 Explore Colleges with Her 498 Get Him to the Test Site on Time 499 Help Her Keep a Proper Perspective 499 Index 501