Reply to Need Advice on Child Not Doing Well in ACT Prep

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[quote=Anonymous]You say that she struggles with the ACT and everyone here has already given advice.

But I carefully read OP's post and it does not show how much effort DD has put into the ACT test.  You can improve your scores significantly by spending lots of time and effort on studying for the ACT 9 (or any test).  Both of my children (who are now in college) spent a lot of time on the exams.  DH and I sent them to ACT camp for 1 week during spring break and 6 weeks during the summer of their rising junior year.  At these camps, they spent about 60 hours each week studying and taking practice test after practice test.  Once they returned to school, we has a tutor spend 4 hours with them every Saturday and they had to study for another 4 hours during every weekend.

Spring Break Camp    60 hours
Summer Camp         360 hours (60 hours a week for 6 weeks)
Fall Tutoring             80 hours    (4 hours a week for 20 weeks) 
Fall Studying            80 hours    (4 hours a week for 20 weeks)
Winter Break           80 hours    (40 hours over 2 weeks)

Total                     660 hours

Both of my kids hated the experience and Mom and Dad were not favorites after this.  My kids called us all sorts of names.

Both of the kids were in the top 20% of there class but were not academic superstars by any measure.  The first practice test had them in the 50th percentile.  After the above, each was in the top 10% (2nd child was in the top 5% as she saw her sister benefit from all this practice).

Most of our friends thought that we were being extreme in the approach and that we should not let tests define who our child is etc.  Both DH and I take the view that this is not seeing the world as it is but instead of seeing the world as you would like it to be.  The tests are given in order to help rank kids from many different school with different grading policies into a single set of numbers.  Again on a very conceptual basis, I think that this is not all that fair and that some children have test taking anxiety and other issues.  Reality is that the colleges are ranked on the very numbers that they rank the students on.  Schools need to ensure that they are picking the strongest students or risk being left behind in the college rankings.

Older DD got into a school that she would certainly not have gotten into with the original 50% grade.  Additionally, she was able to get into the program that she wanted and is now a pharmacist.

Same story with the second daughter.  She will graduate this fall and is a nurse anesthetist.

You need to make sure that your child spends no less than 500 hours preparing for this test.  Test anxiety will go way down when they are taking the test for the 20th time.

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