After you take the ACT, you might think it's time to sit back and relax. In truth, the anticipation stays high until you get your results.
You get to decide what steps to take after, but what happens when you get a low score? A quick solution is to retake the test!
Although you can try a few times, you want to be strategic when retaking the ACT, especially because of time and money. Here are a few tips to keep you from making too many attempts.
Work on Effective Test-Prep
Retaking the ACT gives you the opportunity to determine your lapses during test-prep and approach. You want to look intotesting strategiescustomized to your strengths and weaknesses.
A good place to start is with the time you take to study specific topics. For example, if you master reading comprehension but struggle with a timed essay, you want to practice writing with a test timer.
You want to identify areas of improvement and adjust your strategy to get a better idea of where you should focus your growth.
Have Study Plan
Lots of people recommend building a long-term ACT study plan. This way, you can start early while keeping yourself on track, even when you lose focus sometimes.
When building your study plan, it helps to get the basics of the test down. It includes the potential questions and their structures and the concepts each section covers.
Moreover, many recommend doing practice tests every once in a while to test your progress. To further simulate the experience, you can do them with a test timer set to the time provided for each section by the ACT!
Make Up for Other Admission Factors
Some people tend to exert their time and energy on the ACT alone, but it's important to remember that college admissions take in other factorsas well. You can still get into the college of your choice through your grades, extracurriculars, or letters of recommendation.
Although your ACT scores play a big role in sparking interest, it's not the sole factor that gets you accepted. So, don't push yourself too hard from trying to boost your composite score.
Generally, you want to reach a score good enough to allow you to apply for several colleges. But if it doesn't work out after a few times, you want to aim for acceptance through a different method instead.
Be Strategic with Score Reports
How you handle your score reports can affect your chances of getting accepted into colleges. It's because the ACT requires you to send individual score reports from each test instead of a summary.
You can have a few of these sent to schools of your choice for free, but anything beyond the free limit will cost you $13 per test date per report. That amounts to at least $50 to send all your reports to a single school, and more when you retest.
Because of this, it's important to be strategic with when and how you send your score reports. This way, you can save money and put it towards chances that boost your success.
Save Time and Money When Retaking the ACT
Retaking the ACT is a good solution for students who want to increase their score or are aiming for higher. The key is how you approach your next test and understand its impact on your results. This way, you can ensure your success while saving time and money!
