McGraw-Hill's 10 ACT Practice Tests, Third Edition [Paperback]

I was so happy to see a book containing 10 practice tests! I already had The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Guide to Include 3Real ACT Tests and theBoost Your Score! The Unofficial Software Guide to the Real ACT software that goes with it. This was a really, really good combination and I really wanted to stick with those products since they are based on real ACTs. However, I found that with the reading and science sections, I really needed help with pacing and the only way to do that was to take many of those sections to get used to the timing. I used this book to take A LOT of reading and science practice sections and gradually got faster.

I do have two complaints: 1) some of the answers are too short and left me still unsure of what to do, and 2) at times, it was obvious to me that these tests were not real ACTs. I did feel that the reading passages were easier than the real thing, although the questions felt similar. Also, I used Boost Your Score: Underground Calculator Programs for the ACT Test and was able to use them many times on the real ACTs but not as often on some of the math sections here so I do also think the math sections are a bit different. However, just for comparison: my last few tests from this book were a 25, 26, and 26 while the last real ACT I took (around the same time) was a 25. Overall, I would recommend this book to others (and actually, I already have).

I have been tutoring kids in ACT and SAT and used this book for beginning the ACT process. It is definitely easier to get a 33-34 on this test than on the real thing but you can resolve a lot of timing issues and get familiar with the format with this. After some point the student using these tests the student should be pretty good (31-35 on these) and then it is time to go to the real thing with "The Real ACT Prep Guide" or some of the sample tests from the ACT web site. There will be a drop of about 5-10 points in scores but the timing and format issues will be resolved and the confidence has risen from seeing the improvement in the "made up" tests here. These are important issues and worth the investment in time and money since the real tests are in short supply.

The science questions are easier in that the real test often requires looking at relationships between two charts, or a table and a chart, where this book only asks for interpreting one table, passage or chart at a time. Many people have trouble reading tables or graphs so getting familiar with them is a good thing.

What I do is go over every error with the student that they made on the sample test, make sure there is complete understanding, make up some similar math problems, or similar questions related to the reading or science passage, and show what the underlying method is to answering this sort of question.

There is no reason to need a tutor like me if the student can fully understand most of the answers to the tests, stay on schedule (like doing a test a week or whatever time allows), make up (or find) similar problems to get practice and figure out the short cuts. That many people cannot do all of the above is what keeps the tutoring field alive.

The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is the tests are too easy, and there seem to be about 1-2 errors on each test which is not enough to worry about. So use this book, keep to a schedule, go to the real ACT book when you have a good score on these, and make sure you understand the answers.

I ordered this book to help students get a lot of practice with taking ACT tests. The English and Math sections are pretty close to the difficulty of the real ACT. The Reading and Science sections are little easier particularly the Reading. The passages are much shorter and the questions are much easier than on the real ACT. The Science is a little better and does a good job testing basic skills needed but is a little easier.