Dr. Richard E. Bavaria, Ph.D. and senior vice president for education outreach for Sylvan Learning, offers tips to help students prepare for these important tests:
- Unlike the SAT, the ACT has no scoring penalty for incorrect answers, so never leave an ACT question blank.
- On the SAT, by eliminating at least two incorrect answers for every question you're unsure about, you will mathematically beat the odds of the test and raise your score.
- Since the test's instructions will not change, don't waste time reading the instructions on the day of the test. You should already know them.
- Never spend too much time on any single question—it's just not worth it. It's better to lose one point on a difficult question than to lose 10 points because you ran out of time on the last part of a section.
- If you are unsure of a question, circle it and come back to it if time permits.
- Don't get bogged down on the difficult questions before you have racked up as many points as possible on the easy and medium questions.
