This is Part 3 of the What to Expect on Test Day blog series. You can read Part 1 on how you should prepare the day before test day here and Part 2 on what you can expect upon arriving at the testing center here.

In last week’s blog, we discussed what you can expect when you arrive to your ACT testing center and what the pre-test process is. Today, let’s discuss what to expect during the test and directly afterwards. Once the exam begins, your experience should be almost identical to those of your practice tests. You’ll get a five-minute break after the second section and another short break before the essay, if you’ve selected ACT with writing. During the exam, there are three easy-to-follow keys that I think every student should implement in order to avoid some sort of catastrophic result on any of the four sections:

  1. Be aware of timing. Unless you are 100% sure that you will finish a section on time, you need to be cognizant of your progress throughout the section. Test centers are supposed to have clocks in the room, but in case there aren’t any, I would suggest bringing your own watch. In the blog post How to finish ACT sections on time, I discussed how to select what questions you’ll choose to answer if you realize that you are not going to finish a section on time. In order to do this properly, you need to know how much time is left. That said, don’t be overly concerned with time; I would suggest glancing at the clock for the first time when you are about halfway through a section.
  2. At the five minutes to go mark, make an honest decision about whether you are likely to finish the section in time. If you’re not going to, make sure that you plan to randomly bubble in answer choices to any questions you don’t answer. The easiest way to receive a score that is much lower than you should get is to forget to randomly bubble in.
  3. If you decide to skip a section or question, make sure you make the necessary adjustments on the answer sheet. We’ve discussed how you can complete the questions in almost any order you choose. For example, if you complete the first two Reading sections and decide you want to move to the fourth, I would make a tiny mark next to the “31” on my answer key so that when I answer the first question of the fourth passage, I start at #31 and not #21, which would be the “natural” next answer to bubble in on the answer sheet.

Given that you manage those three points, the next most important question to answer is “what should I do if there’s material that is different from what I’ve prepared for?” It’s worth noting first that it is unlikely that the exam you receive will be significantly different than the practice tests you’ve taken. The material that the ACT tests is relatively consistent from test to test and year to year. However, the ACT does like to test out new question types and content areas, so there will likely be at least a few questions that seem unfamiliar. Remember that this will be the case for the majority of students. If you’ve prepared diligently, you are probably among the top 5% of students in the room in terms of your ability to adapt to the questions. If you think the material is new or difficult, chances are that the rest of the students do as well, and ultimately, more difficult exams tend to be paired with more forgiving scoring scales.

Second, if faced with new material, rely on your most basic and over-arching strategies. A good example of this is on the ACT Reading section, which started introducing “dual passages” a couple of years ago (i.e. two shorter passages instead of one longer passage, along with questions that require you to compare the passages). Many students were surprised by these. Students who allowed themselves to react with “Woah, I’ve never seen this!  What should I do?!” were much less likely to do well than students who responded with “Okay, the format is new, but this is still a Reading section. If I find evidence, avoid extreme answer choices, etc., I’ll be fine.” The underlying principles on all exams are the same.

Lastly, in some cases there are testing irregularities that can be concerning. These can include cheating, incorrect amounts of time given on sections, or faulty exam material. If something like this occurs, try to bring up the issue with your proctor first. If you can’t resolve things properly, the ACT allows you to report irregularities on its web site using this link.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this three-part blog series, the most important factor influencing your score is how you familiarize yourself with the material and practice your techniques through homework and practice tests. Once you’ve done that, implementing the last-minute strategies that we’ve discussed in these blogs will ensure that you do as well as possible on your actual test day. Good luck!

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the What to Expect on Test Day blog series.