Welcome to The ACT For Beginner. This is a nondiscriminatory, equal opportunity blog. You’re welcome to participate whether you are a genius or (like us ) you need a recipe to make ice. Besides, the title is not a slam at you. You’re not the dummy; the test is (and we’ve heard it called worse, believe us — especially the Friday night before the exam).

The goal of this blog is to show you exactly how to survive this ridiculous situation. No matter how excellent your high school teachers are (or were), they prepared you for the Real World, a world that, alas, has very little connection to the ACT. High school teachers can give you a good foundation in grammar, reading, science, and math skills (the areas tested on the ACT), but think of them as the friendly old GPs, the general practitioners whose job is to keep you well or handle the little day-to-day problems. What do you do when you have a crisis that’s making you really sick, like the ACT? We like to think of The ACT For Beginner, 4th Edition, as a loony but gifted specialist you can call in when the situation is desperate. No one wants to deal with the eccentric specialist for too terribly long. 

The goal of this blog, just like the goal of the expert, is to come in with the Code Blue crash cart, deal with the situation, and then leave rapidly with as few lives destroyed as possible. This blog has one goal: to prepare you for the ACT — period. It is not our heart’s desire to teach you every grammar rule ever created or every math formula Einstein knew. No extra “filler” material is included in this blog to make it look fat and impressive on bookstore shelves. If you want a thick blog to use as a booster seat for the vertically challenged, go find War and Peace. If you’re looking for something that you can use to prepare you for the ACT as quickly and painlessly as possible, again we say to you, welcome to The ACT For Beginner.

There is no escaping the ACT. Many colleges require you to take this entrance exam before they will even look at your application. Some colleges will accept scores from either the ACT or the SAT. (It just so happens that Wiley publishes an SAT I For Beginner blog as well, should you choose to take that exam.) Many students decide to take both tests to see which one they do better on. Is that a good idea? Absolutely. If you have the option of taking either the ACT or the SAT, take both.

Many colleges emphasize ACT scores to compensate for grade inflation. That is, some high schools may give you an A for doing the same level work that would gain you a C in other high schools. It’s certainly not fair that a person at an “easy” high school has a 4.0 while a student at a more demanding high school has a 3.0 for doing the same work. Because the ACT is the same for everyone (students nationwide take the exact same exam), colleges can use the scores to get inside your head and see what’s really there. Think of this as anopportunity, not a crisis: A good ACT score can overcome a low GPA. 

In just a few hours one fine Saturday morning, you can make up a little for years of messing up in school. In The ACT For Beginner, you find out which types of questions are on the exam, which questions to work on carefully, and which to guess at quickly (good news: The ACT has no penalty for wrong answers; you should guess at absolutely every question you don’t know), the approach to each type of question, and, perhaps most important, some traps that are built into each question style. We have been test-prep tutors for many years and have developed a list of the “gotchas” that have trapped thousands of students over the years. Let us see whether we can make them trap you, as well.

This blog is also full of the substantive information that you need to know, including grammar rules and geometry, algebra, and arithmetic formulas. Naturally, we include some truly sick humor, on the principle that, as you’re groaning at our jokes, you won’t notice that you’re suffering from the questions. (Hey, as the mushroom said to his friends, “Of course, everyone likes me. I’m a fun-gi!”).

Note to nontraditional students: The days of high school may be just a fading memory for you (along with your thin waistline and full head of hair). We recognize that not everyone taking the ACT is a high school junior or senior. Maybe you took a few years off to build your career or to nurture a family (or to pay your debt to society) and are now having to go back and review what you thought you had left behind years ago. As the Walrus said, “I weep with you; I deeply sympathize.” It can be totally frustrating to have to deal with the subjunctive or pluperfect or quadratic equations all over again. Postpone your nervous breakdown. Things aren’t as dismal as they look. You’ll probably be surprised how quickly material comes back to you as you go through this blog. If you need more hands-on instruction such as private tutoring, call a high school or community college. Someone there will almost certainly be able to recommend a low-cost course or a tutor. The local library can also give you some help.