Reading & Science ACT Strategies We don’t have the time to take away from our daily instruction to focus directly on the ACT in some of these areas Extra time during extended periods or downtime (after tests) could be utilized

Reading & Science ACT Strategies Reading & Science NEVER LEAVE AN ANSWER BLANK Time Management Passages/Scenarios Tips to give students What you can do in your classroom

Reading ACT Strategies Time Management Time is not on the student’s side They must complete 40 questions in 35 minutes. There are 4 passages with 10 questions each That means a student has 8 min and 45 seconds to read a passage and answer the 10 questions that go with that passage

Reading ACT Strategies Passages Prose Fiction Social Science (Non-Fiction) Humanities (Non-Fiction) Natural Science (Non-Fiction)

Reading ACT Strategies Prose Fiction You should not read the ACT Prose Fiction passage as you would a novel that you casually pick up on a Saturday afternoon. Treat the Prose Fiction passage as you would an English homework assignment. In addition to understanding the story behind the passage, students should also strive to understand the passage’s use of style and tone

Reading ACT Strategies Social Science In this section, students will read a sample Social Science passage and learn about all the possible question types associated with Social Science: 1)Specific Detail 2)Inference 3)Main Idea and Argument 4)Cause-Effect 5)Point of View 6)Comparison 7)Vocabulary

Reading ACT Strategies Humanities The Humanities passage will generally deal with a topic of cultural interest. You can think of it as a “softer” version of the Social Science passage, which tends to have more of an analytical and political angle. Still, the general approach to answering Social Science questions should apply to Humanities questions

Reading ACT Strategies Natural Science The Natural Science passage is heavy on scientific facts, argument, cause-effect logic, and details

Reading ACT Strategies Tips to give students Use their time wisely There will always be these 4 types of passages Have the students focus on their strongest subject first and have them place those in order ahead of time If students are running out of time use the passage you are least likely to be successful with as the last passage and guess

Reading ACT Strategies What you can do in the classroom Try to find document analysis passages with questions, that deal with your subject Give students a specific time to complete the passage and questions (you can start with longer times and work toward shortening the time to ACT standards) Grade for accuracy This can help build reading comprehension and time management skills, hold the students accountable to improving their skills on content knowledge, and prepares them for the ACT

Reading ACT Practice Choose 1 of the 4 passages You will have 8 minutes and 45 seconds to read and complete the 10 questions When the buzzer sounds all writing utensils down

Reading ACT Practice Discussion Time

Science ACT Strategies Time Management Again, time is not on the student’s side Students must complete 40 questions in 35 minutes There are 6 or 7 scenarios and the # of questions depends on the # of scenarios Students should first check to see if their ACT has 6 or 7 scenarios to manage their time wisely

Science ACT Strategies Time Management If there are 6 scenarios, students will have 5 min and 50 seconds to complete each section. If there are 7 scenarios, students will have 5 minutes to complete each section. Only 1, maybe 2, questions will be on actual content knowledge and the rest will come from information from the scenarios and/or graphs, tables, charts and hypotheses.

Science ACT Strategies Scenarios (Science Disciplines) Life Science Earth and Space Science Physics Chemistry

Science ACT Strategies Scenarios There is no way to tell ahead of the test what types of scenarios the students will have prior to the test, but it will be based on the 4 science disciplines listed on the previous slide

Science ACT Strategies Tips to give Students Again, check for the # of scenarios to manage time Quickly skim the scenarios to see which science discipline is easiest for the student Have students complete the scenarios in order based on how comfortable they are at interpret charts, graphs, tables, or conflicting hypotheses

Science ACT Strategies Tips to give Students Skimming science passages and interpreting charts, tables, and graphs are the easiest Having students analyze different hypotheses takes the most time because they must read the entire scenario to answer the questions This should be done last. Again, don’t leave any questions unanswered

Science ACT Strategies What can you do in your classroom Teach students how to interpret charts, graphs, and tables (no matter what subject you are teaching) If you have a bar or line graph, teach them the x axis is always the independent variable and the y axis is the dependent variable. Teach them how to analyze tables and pie graphs

Science ACT Strategies What can you do in your classroom Have students read different points of view on a particular topic based on your course Include a certain number of questions and give students a certain amount of time to complete the scenario Grade for accuracy Again, this will build students’ comprehension and time management skills, hold the students accountable to improving their content knowledge, and prepare them for the ACT

Science ACT Practice Choose 1 of the 6 scenarios. You will have 5 minutes and 50 seconds to read and complete the questions. When the buzzer sounds all writing utensils down.

Science ACT Practice Discussion Time