Saturday, July 31, 2010

My Second ACT Experience

What I learned from my 1st ACT Experience Was.......

  1. Never Sit at a right-handed desk if you are a lefty. Therefore, get there early. When I took my first ACT, I got there late and had to take a right-handed desk.
  2. Next, Come test day, nothing else matters. Concentrate on the tangibles. Your test, and that you have to come calm, relaxed, and centered. If you get distracted, it will cost you a couple wrong. There is little room for mistakes, the time allowed is very strict. If you do the Math, 45 minutes  is allowed for 75 questions on each section, you have to do about two question per minute in order to score to your potential by having time to think clearly on the last bunch of questions on each section.
  3. I also learned that to get better, you have to study and refine the way you  approach the sections. This means to think about your weaknesses in every Section and to improve them. Things don't just come to you, you have to study to realize what you were missing in your logic. This was particularly true for the permutation in the math section, even though I scored a 23 on  the Math section in my  1st ACT. In The science section I studied the graphs and approached the section in a whole new way.
So This is section by section my experience of my 2nd ACT :

Pretest/Section: Upon arriving early this time, I went to a left-handed desk located at the end of the aisle instead of in the middle. This was a relief and a good amen to my day. I started the 1st section, reading, approaching it in a way I studied off the "Princeton Review." This was to Skim the section, looking particularly for the main idea and concepts of the passage. Next, to answer all of the questions referring back to the passage if necessary. I also got a tip to really concentrate on the mood and how the character feel about the events because this context is often used in the questions. At end, I was feeling good except for one passage that I couldn't seem to find a few specific answers in so I just used the rule our method [cross out the ones you know were wrong, and then chose the most logical answer according to the concept.


Section 2: Math
Now this was even easier the second-time around for me. I had studied permutations and combination's and also had reviewed trigonometry [sine, cosine, tangent]. My Tips for Math is that if you know how to do it, it's that simple. You don't have to use reasoning and seep thinking , just all your knowledge that you already have learned. There's no pondering the multiple choice, the answer is the only answer. I flipped a few trig problems around maybe, but other than that, nailed  it!


Section 3: Grammar: This gave me more problems than I expected, on my previous ACT , but I brushed up on my parallelism [identifying similar traits and attributes in accordance to a series of words, otherwise called parallel structure].  The it's and its, "woman's" and "women's"is also something you need to know for this section. "Woman's" is for one females possession and "women's" is for more than one females possession. "It's" is for when you can replace the word with "it is" or "it has." "Its" is for when you can replace the word with "his" or "her."
Example: It's been a nice day.

Section Four: Science
Now, having studied up on my graphs and improved my analytic  skills, I approached this section with you could say confidence. This  soon dissipated once I hit a rocky series of questions that I wasn't sure how to get the answer for. It showed three graphs with test subjects on the bottom and water and acidity as the controls. In Short, I couldn't find what graph to refer for for the questions and if I was making the right conclusions. I did better than my first attempt, but obviously just going straight to the questions then referring back to the graphs wasn't working for me. There was a disconnect in my logic that gave me the indifference of not knowing which graph held the answer in some cases. In conclusion with the science, I fell a little short.


Writing: Topic: Should Teachers have the privilege to set their own rules in a classroom. This was a topic that I felt strongly about and wrote an extraordinary thesis paper! I thought! I even exceeded all of the paper in the test booklet so I finished on the back cover. The thing is, I wrote too much. My ideas weren't concise enough and I didn't give a strong enough voice. My writing skills had always been above average and now I was being down-trotted on something that I felt was above average. Anyways, I gave an explanation on how teachers should be allowed to make their own classroom rules, as long as in coherence with the school districts jurisdiction because students would feel less anxiety and more relaxed in a classroom with extra privileges, such as: water,  games, fun material, talking periods, choice of where you want to sit, and when to have tests.Now, I explained a very good paper and ended up getting a 8 out of 12, subliminal to my first 11 out of 12.

                  Results For My Second ACT:


Score:25
Math: 26
Reading: 25
Science: 21
Grammar: 25
Writing: 8 Out Of 12

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