Steven W. Dulan - McGraw-Hills ACT, 2014 Edition

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Steve Dulan has been involved with the ACT since 1982 when he received a score of 32 on his own test as a high school junior at Iron Mountain High School. That score qualified him for the State of Michigan Competitive Scholarship in 1983. In 1989, after serving as a U.S. Army Infantry Sergeant, and during his time as an undergraduate at Michigan State University, Steve became an ACT instructor. He has been helping students to prepare for success on the ACT and other standardized exams ever since. Steve attended the Thomas M. Cooley Law School on a full Honors Scholarship after achieving a 99th percentile score on his Law School Admission Test (LSAT). In fact, Steve scored in the 99th percentile on every standardized test he has ever taken. While attending law school, Steve continued to teach standardized test prep classes (including ACT, SAT, PSAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT) an average of thirty hours each week, and tutored some of his fellow law students in a variety of subjects and in essay exam writing techniques. Professor Dulan has also served as an instructor at the college and law school levels.

Thousands of students have benefited from his instruction, coaching, and admissions consulting and have gone on to their colleges of choice. Steves students have gained admission to some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, and received many scholarships of their own. A few of them even beat his ACT score! Since 1997, Steve has served as the President of Advantage Education (www.AdvantageEd.com), a company dedicated to providing effective and affordable test prep education in a variety of settings, including classes and seminars at high schools and colleges around the country, summer College Prep Camps at The University of Michigan, and one-on-one via the Internet worldwide through its trademarked Personal Distance Learning system. The techniques included in this book are the result of Steves experiences with students at all ability and motivation levels over the years.

The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of the faculty and staff of Advantage Education. You are not only the smartest, but also the best.

Advantage Education Project Manager/Senior Editor Amy Dulan.

Contributing authors Aishah Ali, Pamela Chamberlain, Jennifer Gensterblum, Matt Mathison, Blair Morley, Ryan Particka, BethAnne Pontius, Andrew Sanford, Sasha Savinov, Kim So, Kyle Sweeney, and Amanda Thatcher.

All of you put in extra effort to make this book a success.

Following a 10-minute break, the optional 30-minute Writing Test will be administered.

Each year, more than 1 million students take the ACT in order to gain entrance into the colleges of their choice. The ACT is a standardized test designed to measure your critical thinking skills and to assess your ability to apply knowledge and logic when solving problems. Your ACT score will be evaluated along with your high school Grade Point Average, involvement in school and extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, and college application essay. While the ACT is just one factor that is examined during the admissions process, it is essential that you maximize your ACT score so that you can remain competitive among the many other applicants hoping to gain admission.

The authors of the ACT insist that the ACT is an achievement test, meaning that it is designed to measure your readiness for college instruction. There is ongoing debate about how well the ACT accomplishes that mission. What is not debated is that the ACT is not a direct measure of abilities. It is not an IQ test. The ACT is certainly not a measure of your worth as a human being. It is not even a perfect measure of how well you will do in college. Theoretically, each of us has a specific potential to learn and acquire skills. The ACT doesnt measure your natural, inborn ability. If it did, we wouldnt be as successful as we are at raising students scores on ACT exams.