As the season for standardized and state testing approaches, both students and teachers are dealing with the new-ness of the ACT, with many of them approaching it in different ways.
The ACT is new to MCHS this year, but the prepping process and the way it is brought about remains very similar to the SAT. ACT prep assignments have been added to many classes, and students seem to be benefiting from it. Along with students practicing through mandatory assignments, they have the option to attend Warrior ACT Prep sessions.
“We have offered our internal prep courses for the last 10 years and they have been well attended and good practice for students,” Assistant Superintendent for Learning and Innovation Carl Vallianatos says, “This is also the third year that we have offered the SAT, now ACT, early for Juniors to get exposure. Both of these things together serve as great preparation for students to go in and achieve their best score in April.”
Although testing this year is mostly the same compared to the past, there is one thing that is starkly different – the ACT has a science section. This means that students have to prepare for an additional subject, rather than just english and math like on the SAT.
There were actually some teachers in the science department that were doing science prep for the SAT in their classes,” Derek Poci, science teacher says, “We decided to see if the prep was any good. So we ran a control group: one group that did nothing in terms of preparation, which was mine. We compared data from all the groups: those that prepared a lot, those who moderately prepared, and those that did nothing.”
According to Poci, the results were easily predictable. The students who didn’t prepare in class didn’t do as well on the PreACT compared to those that did prepare in class. From this, it can be seen that the in-class prep is benefitting test-takers.
“The idea behind it is that we identify the areas or types of questions that students tend to struggle with,” Poci says. “Then we [teachers] can focus on those areas and strengthen them, which would increase students’ results overall.”
In addition to doing in class preparation for the test, students are provided the opportunity to attend Warrior Prep Sessions on Tuesdays and weekends. Many students participate in this, some having taken the ACT last Saturday, and some who haven’t.
“Basically, when you get there, they give you ACT materials that you can study on your own time,” Kayla Chulert, junior at MCHS says, “They give you a practice test there, and then you can check your scores and how you do. They also give you access to practice tests on Albert.io.”
“The questions are all really similar to what’s actually on the ACT, so it makes it easy to get an idea of what I’ll need to work on for when the actual test date comes,” Chulert says.
“I feel like that helped, just because I think I was a little too confident from the pre-ACT, and that kind of humbled me,” Kyra Hanneman, junior at MCHS says, “So now that I’ve done the prep sessions and the additional ACT, I feel like I know how to better prepare for the next one.”
Another thing that students are able to focus on through their prep is test taking skills.
“I do think that a common thing we always hear from students is ‘I am not a good test taker,’” Vallianatos says, “I think this stems from a lack of confidence around the preparedness students feel for testing. If we could lead every student on a process to be more prepared, they would feel more confident and probably score higher on ACT tests.”
Overall, the effort MCHS has made to help students do better on these tests has proven effective, allowing students to worry less and score better.
“Ultimately, we want every student to engage in a process of growth over time to attain their “best” score so that doors of opportunity can open in their future.”