{"id":2704,"date":"2014-07-27T21:31:49","date_gmt":"2014-07-27T21:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/?p=437"},"modified":"2018-06-25T15:48:55","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T21:48:55","slug":"the-act-science-section-a-dishonest-name-and-the-ultimate-strategy-to-beat-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/the-act-science-section-a-dishonest-name-and-the-ultimate-strategy-to-beat-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The ACT \u201cScience\u201d Section: A Dishonest Name, and the Ultimate Strategy to Beat It"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s one section of the ACT that initially terrifies all my students (and their parents), it\u2019s the ACT \u201cscience\u201d section. On top of all the comprehension, math, and grammar tricks you need to know for this test, you\u2019re expected to know science, <\/em>too!? Fortunately for you, the ACT science section has absolutely nothing<\/em> to do with science \u2014 and once you realize the key approach to beat it, it\u2019s an absolute breeze. This article will show you a basic approach that\u2019ll cut your ACT science time in half and double your accuracy in less than two rounds of practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cScience\u201d is an Inaccurate Name<\/h2>\n

The ACT science section requires zero<\/em> knowledge of physics, chemistry, or biology. I was a horrible science student in school, and I still don\u2019t know a thing about genetic combination, flora vs. fauna, or friction in a vacuum \u2014 yet I can still get a perfect score on the ACT science section. Once you learn the approach in this guide, you\u2019ll be able to, too.<\/p>\n

The ACT \u201cscience\u201d section should actually be called the accurately using graphs, tables, and numbers in a really short period of time<\/strong> section. If you can rapidly grab relevant<\/em> information in the most efficient<\/em> way possible and use it to kill the available answer choices<\/em> without making any silly errors, you\u2019ll get a perfect score. You don\u2019t need to know<\/em> or even sort of understand<\/em> any of this stuff \u2014 you just need to be able to find it<\/em> and use it. <\/em>No actual \u201cscience\u201d knowledge required. Let\u2019s get to it:<\/p>\n

The Step-by-Step Approach to Crushing the ACT Science Section<\/h2>\n

To get a perfect ACT science score, you need to focus on one thing, and one thing only: time. <\/em>Given enough time, anyone can get a perfect score on this section. But you have less than a minute per problem. You need to get just the information you need<\/em> without wasting a single second reading or interpreting irrelevant information. Finding that balance is everything. Here\u2019s how to do it:<\/p>\n

1. Go right to the questions. <\/strong>NEVER read anything<\/em> in the science passages up front. Go right to the questions. You won\u2019t use 99 percent of the information in a given science passage, and because it\u2019s all so abstract, you won\u2019t remember 90 percent of what you read anyway. Go right to the questions and save yourself the time.<\/p>\n

The one exception to this rule<\/em> is the \u201creading\u201d passage in each science section \u00ad\u2014 the passage that contains pure text. Skim that first for the main idea of the \u201cargument.\u201d For all other passages, go right to the questions.<\/p>\n

2. Once you read the questions, read the answer choices. <\/strong>You\u2019ll never have any real idea of what the questions are getting at unless you figure out what types of answer<\/em> they\u2019re looking for. For instance, if a problem asks: \u201cWhat happens to the bog chlorahydryl levels when the temperature rises?\u201d, realize that you aren\u2019t expected to know what the heck bog chlorahydryl is<\/em>, so trying to \u201ccome up with an answer on your own\u201d is suicide. Instead, look at the answers and figure out what type of information they\u2019re asking you for.<\/em><\/p>\n

Remember \u2014 the answer choices are all that matter. The right answer will be in one of the four choices available<\/strong>, so check the form<\/em> of the answer choices and figure out precisely what information you\u2019re supposed to look for.<\/p>\n

For instance, they might be:<\/p>\n

A) The PT5i rises<\/p>\n

B) The PT5i falls<\/p>\n

C) The GBH7 rises<\/p>\n

D) The GBH7 falls<\/p>\n

Now you know to look for temperature, bog chlorahydryl, and PT5i or GBH7. If the answers look like this:<\/p>\n

F) Volcanic activity rises<\/p>\n

G) Volcanic activity lowers<\/p>\n

H) Volcanic activity isn\u2019t affected<\/p>\n

J) Volcanic activity rises, then falls over time<\/p>\n

You need to look for blog chlorahydryl levels, temperature, and volcanic activity. By checking the answer choices, you\u2019ll see exactly which info (and what aspect of it) you\u2019re expected to reference.<\/p>\n

Finally:<\/p>\n

3. After reading the answer choices, look at the passage, find the EXACTLY RELEVANT information as indicated by the answer choices, and eliminate the three wrong answer choices.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Your job isn\u2019t to pick a right answer \u2014 <\/em>it\u2019s simply to kill the three answer choices that don\u2019t match up to the tables, graphs, and figures in front of you.<\/p>\n

The real key here is to live in the answer choices. <\/em>Don\u2019t start thinking \u2014 that\u2019s a horrible idea. Just look at the insanely specific, small amount of information you\u2019re being asked to research by each individual problem and use the indicated info to cross out the three false answers.<\/p>\n

The answer choices will give you all the clues you need to eliminate them. Your job is to get familiar with them, do the research, and then kill everything that proves false.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all there is to it!<\/h2>\n

There are plenty of more intricate tactics and tips for this section, but if you just stick with this basic, three-step approach, you\u2019ll see a renaissance in your overall science performance. You\u2019ll spend less time reading irrelevant info and graphs, less time thinking<\/em> of answers that may or may not even be relevant, and more time getting right<\/em> to the heart of each problem \u2014 the potential answers, and the specific, random information they contain.<\/p>\n

Give this a shot on a practice ACT \u201cscience\u201d section<\/a> and see what you think. After two or three trial runs, you\u2019ll realize that there\u2019s nothing challenging about this section at all \u2014 you\u2019ve just been tricked into thinking that this section had something to do with science. <\/em>In fact, all it has to do with is time<\/em> and efficiency.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was\u00a0written by Anthony James Green, standardized test expert at Test Prep Authority.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s one section of the ACT that initially terrifies all my students (and their parents), it\u2019s the ACT \u201cscience\u201d section. On top of all the comprehension, math, and grammar tricks you need to know for this test, you\u2019re expected to know science, too!? Fortunately for you, the ACT science section has absolutely nothing to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,491,555],"class_list":{"0":"post-2704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colleges","8":"tag-act","9":"tag-test-prep","10":"tag-test-taking-strategy"},"better_featured_image":{"id":5680,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":2048,"height":1425,"file":"s3:\/\/pcom-wp-media\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/10124508\/abstract-art-artistic-1020315.jpg","sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":2704,"source_url":"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/10124508\/abstract-art-artistic-1020315.jpg"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe ACT \u201cScience\u201d Section: A Dishonest Name, and the Ultimate Strategy to Beat It - Peterson's<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/the-act-science-section-a-dishonest-name-and-the-ultimate-strategy-to-beat-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The ACT \u201cScience\u201d Section: A Dishonest Name, and the Ultimate Strategy to Beat It - Peterson's\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If there\u2019s one section of the ACT that initially terrifies all my students (and their parents), it\u2019s the ACT \u201cscience\u201d section. 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