Remember the ACT?

by Julia Buckley

My son recently took the ACT Test.  Remember this?  Back when we took it, there were no prep classes, no special pre-ACT software, no weekly review sessions in advance.  We students of the pre-90s era took the test cold, and lived with the results.  We also had to deal with those dreaded analogies, which looked, in my memory, like this:

Arcane is to Querulous as Snuffaluffagus is to ______________.

There are no longer analogies on the ACT.  I took the test back in 1982, and my score was a not-that-impressive 26 (I scored a 34 in the English section, but my math was abysmal).  But an ACT rep who came to our school recently told us that if you took the ACT prior to 1989, you should now add 2 points to your original score in order to reflect what you would receive on the ACT today.

So, interestingly, my son and I ended up getting the same score, about 30 years apart.

So what level of vocabulary does the ACT test?  Vocabulary.com, a review site for ACT and SAT tests,  offers some pretty challenging words.  Do you know the meaning of

Troglodyte?

Numismatist?

Etiologies?

Orisons?

Jingoisms?

Overweening?

Qualitative?

Try taking the vocabulary test.  I did it, and I did not get 100%.  It wasn't because I didn't know the meanings of words, but often because I disagreed about how they would be used in context.  (I also found an error in the test). :)

The ACT remains a significant factor in determining a student's chances for college admission; however, some colleges are starting to look at the ACT scores as less significant than plain old school grades. Therefore, students who don't bother to work hard in their classes because they're confident they'll score well on standardized tests would be in for a rude awakening.

In the meantime, if you ask me, the best preparation for the ACT is reading a lot of books, and starting in grade school.

How did you do on the test? :)