Christopher Black - McGraw-Hill Education ACT 2016 (ebook): Strategies + 6 Practice Tests + 12 Videos + Test Planner App

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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.

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. He 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.

Starting in fall 2015, the ACT will be changing, in part to align with Common Core. The folks at ACT emphasize that these changes are not revolutionary. They are evolutionary, meaning that they are minor, subtle changes that wont be noticed by most students.

The changes will occur in five areas:

1. There will be questions on the Reading Test that are based on a set of paired passages.

2. There will be more Statistics and Probability Questions on the Math Test.

3. There will be more subscores reported that will not affect the overall Composite Score.

4. The ACT Writing Test will include more information and subscores than the current version.

5. In some locations, the ACT will be given as a computer-based, digital test for the state-wide and district-wide testing dates.

The Reading Test changes will be very slight. The ACT has always included questions that ask students to compare two viewpoints on a given subject. The new passages will be more clearly laid out in that they will be labeled as separate subpassages. We are confident that our time-tested strategies will help students to do their best on these passages just as they always have on the single passages.

The Math Test will have a slightly different mix of question types with the addition of a few more questions on statistics and probability. The ACT has always had a small number of probability questions. So, again, we do not see the need for any changes to our strategies. The ACT announcements have emphasized that their data indicates that scores on the old test and the new test will be comparable.

The overall ACT Composite Score will remain on the same scale of 1 to 36. ACT expects the scoring curve to remain the same and that only about one tenth of 1 percent (.001) of students will score 36, just as has always been the case. As always, your Writing Test score will not affect your Composite Score (multiple-choice score). There will be more subscores reported, including a STEM subscore, to allow admissions offices to make finer distinctions and judgments about each students readiness for specific programs.