ACT Test Prep - Science

This is the first clip of an 8 video course aimed to help high school students understand the science portion of the ACT test. The Science section is usually the most misunderstood part of the ACT test and hopefully this video series will help students tremendously. The booklet for this video is on our website –

the booklet for this exercise is at our website –

http://www.allpencilsdown.com/preparing-61C.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef7rXEwHDFk

Transcript:

hello this is George Michelle I’m also known as the super magnet man but one of

the things that I’ve been doing for the last seven years that I have been

teaching a set of classes and I’ve been doing a lot of one-on-one tutoring with

students in high school from the 10th 11th and 12th grade on the acct acct

science AC team at being an electrical engineer this comes natural to us

so one of the things that I want to do is I like to volunteer some of this and

let you have an opportunity to learn a little about science today and will give

you an overview of how we do the science and way I do my classes and then if you

have an opportunity to go by your guidance counselor’s office and pick up

this test booklet over the next two or three days I’m going to be putting

together a review of each of the passages in the side section here to

sort of walk through it give you an idea of what it’s like actually taking the

test and how you go about answering the questions and conquering the science

test

and when it gets down to it the science test from all the students that I’ve

talked with and all the ones that I’ve worked with over the last six or seven

years it seems like the acct is the science part is the most misunderstood

and the reason is because many people have taken site they had biology

chemistry and physics and so forth in school and i like how to do i make a’s

in those classes why don’t have such much so much trouble with the acct

science and there’s a good reason for that is because in school

you’re testing based on knowledge you cover chapters one and two

did you take a test on you take captive three and four have a test on it so you

know what to study for your teachers usually give you a study guide you study

everything on the study guide and then you take the test well the acct has no

idea what you’ve taken

they don’t know if you’ve had AP physics AP chemistry of what the whole basis for

the science test is all about not great sites the best I can tell they’re really

doesn’t require any of the advanced courses it takes some familiarity with

chemistry some physical principles and some of the other matter

but not very much in detail on it it really is very very heavily steeped in

the scientific process school curriculum for you have been through and you’ve had

labs and all these different subjects you have a labs every week or two and

you get the right to report you think about the lab we set the proper the

purpose of the lab of you determine how you’re going to do lab you gather your

data you analyze it and you draw conclusions from it that kind of a

curriculum prepares you very well for the acct science sort of walk through

that process and help you understand it

mostly

the biggest problem people have on this test is this little thing at the top of

my list here 35 minutes

many people that I work with tell me if they had a lot more time they can do

extremely well on this test where you’re going to find that you don’t really need

that much time

what the acct has done is tried to force you in a situation where you don’t over

analyze many people are trying to think of this as an AP exam and they really

study hard and they really try and ferret out the slightest little

differences between each of the answers they going to do it all on the acct

there’s one right answer and three

they’re bogus and we’re going to learn how to read that and how to quickly

develop some of the bullet is thinking is it a is it be if it is it seemed ABC

go to do is it not dated it had to bc and you’re going to develop this quick

thinking process it boils down to time management that’s how we conquer the 35

minutes as with time management practices your time management comes

under two areas one is reading speed

this is physical how fast can you read can you read fast enough to get through

this step one of the things you’ll notice is during the science part I talk

rather fast i do it intentionally

if you’re able to read along at the speed that i am talking you should be

able to finish the test on time

many of us have our reading speed is limited by how fast we can echo words

and our head

so one of the things you want to practice is talking faster and sort of

read out loud to yourself one of the things you’ll find very difficult to do

is to read out loud and concentrate at the same time and and should change your

map think of something else

try and read out loud and think of something else is very difficult to do

so when you’re reading out loud to yourself while you’re practicing your

developing of speed skills are going to need when you actually sit down on that

saturday and take the test

so this is reading speed we’ll talk a little bit more about that as we go

through some other videos on it

decision making this is the biggest problem everybody that I work with

one-on-one and when i’m working with him in classes their biggest problem is they

can’t make up their mind

why should I move any faster I think I need to really research this i really

need to study it wrong

the test is not designed for you to take all day to make up your mind that’s why

you go back to the 35 minutes

the other part is you have a lack of confidence you’re not sure your answer

is right and it’s critical

you’ve got to get this part right and you really want to make sure you get it

right so you really are concerned about that we’re going to go through some

strategies that help

you identify that mainly there’s only one right answer that sounds kind of you

know someone a little bit naive for me to say that since well for me it is just

one right answer but I want you to get that and you’re going to learn how to

look at those choices and say it’s not this it’s not this has got to be this

and you’re going to get very fast at making up your mind and have high

confidence

what you selected is correct you’re going to get to the point that if it’s

not a it’s not being it’s not saying it has to be do you don’t even need to read

it because it is not those three it’s got to be one of them

and it’s only four choices one of the things we’re going to do is talk a

little bit more about this time management at this point i want you to

be use this guide for practicing you have one passage that has seven

questions on the acct test and that question you should be able to do in six

minutes

the other passage the other ones you have to pass just with six questions you

have to do this in five minutes

the ones with four passages you have four passages that have five questions

and you should be able to do this in four minutes

now you’re going to practice against the stopwatch if you’re going to get better

at this and you’re going to get fast your own practice against the stopwatch

passage by passage bypassed you going through this if you get to where you can

do each of the passages and this time . you can finish in 32 minutes

now most of the time you don’t want to do this but what this extra three

minutes allows you to do is if you run into one of these that gives you a

little bit more trouble you don’t mind taking an extra minute

but how do you know how to pace yourself if you have a practice practice practice

against a stopwatch

so that your mental clock is going I know when six minutes is up i need to be

moving on i know in five minutes if I need to be moving out now for many

people this one passage right here

turns out to be the the one that’s always about different opinion of

scientists or its different theories comparing two different theories

if this gives you trouble and you’ll know this by practicing if you do it and

every time you miss three or four of these a good idea is to skip that one

don’t waste a moment you cannot come back to it and make up for the time that

you lost

skip it answer the other six passages come back to that one

look at your watch see how much time is left if you feel like you’ve got enough

time

dive in and then make sure you answer it if you’ve got to get your way out

at least you’re getting out on the one you typically don’t do the best own

that’s what you want to know if you do skip it always make sure you make some

kind of a memory to yourself and make sure you get back

track with your bubbling if it’s the third passage and you have to start with

number 18 then make sure you jump over to 23 to start bubbling you don’t want

to double the wrong answers and have to spend a couple of minutes at the end of

racing and rear bubbling all your answers

so this is a little bit of the overview and this is what we’re going to do if

you don’t buy your guidance counselor’s office

you should be able to get a copy of this test book this is the acct practice book

this is a former real test given and I think 2004-2005 we’re going to walk

through these passages one by one and the next I’ve got sent you to the time

when it’s on YouTube video

I’m not able to cover it at this point but there’s going to be a second video

where I will cover this first passage and we’re going to walk through one

passage of time i’ll read it

I want you to have one have a copy of this in hand that you read along with me

as we read through it and you’re going to get an idea as to how we go about

answering these questions

now the last thing i want to let you know is everybody always ask me should I

read the entire passage or should i just go straight to the answers and try to

look at the answers in all honesty I’ve worked with about three or four people

over the last seven years who have been able to go to the answers and look up

the results in the passage and find it and finish on time

all of those people were scouring for over 33 on the science alone before they

started working with me

so there wasn’t a lot i was going to tell them about how to improve on the

test they’re already at the top of the scale

everybody else that I’ve worked with does extremely well if they read the

passage first

it is critical that you understand the passage if you spent two and a half

minutes reading and understanding the passage

you can answer the questions in a minute and a half that’s not the hard part

the hard part is making sure you understand the passage as you read

through it you want to visualize what this experiment is imagine yourself in a

lab doing this experiment or out in the field doing this experiment and yes some

of these things may be interesting to you and some may not but guess what

for the purpose of this test to do your best on it all you have to do is tell

yourself that you like it

you’re the only one who controls what you like and don’t like

and for a short 35 minutes on a saturday morning

surely you can make yourself like this to get the scores that you need most of

the people that we have to go through our test on the science on our our

classes that we teach and go through the one on

one training can see science course up five six seven points we’ve had some man

in 10 . jumps inside because they realize they just didn’t understand what

the science is all about and once they understand it like wow this is not hard

you don’t try and figure out how you’re going to answer three passages in 10

minutes at the end of the test i don’t have a way of managing your crisis like

this when I have a plan that if you follow this and you practice against

these time strategies and use a stopwatch

you will not need to finish three passages in 10 minutes you’ll be right

on time and comfortably get through

now one last little thing when you’re practicing on this do not get in a big

in such a hurry that you’re finishing a four-minute passage in three minutes and

one on because what you may notice as you start making simple little mistakes

you don’t get bonus points to finish early so the four minutes is a good GAD

take four minutes if you finish early scan back over get comfortable with how

long four minutes is now look forward to seeing you in the next video clip we’ll

be going over passage one in this test booklet

thanks for watching

ACT Test Prep - Science