If you're preparing for the ACT, buy The Official ACT Prep Guide. [The ACT revises its editions once a year - so, make sure to buy the latest edition appropriate for your test date]. Here's a set of full-length official test questions in English, Math, Reading, Science, and Writing. Also, here are ten ACT Reading tips from Kaplan, ACT’s official test-prep partner, which apply to the SAT as well.
A promising low-cost ACT resource is Achievable, from a Bay Area startup. After spending multiple hours with Tyler York, the company's Founder and CEO, we are pleased to announce that we have entered into a partnership with Achievable.
Why we partnered with Achievable
We have always advised students to take both the SAT and the ACT, but only once each. This way, if a student doesn't do well on the SAT, they can try their luck on the ACT. If the ACT score is better, as evidenced by the concordance tables between the two tests, the student can throw away the SAT score altogether and only use the ACT.
Many students do not realize that before 2016, it was the ACT that was the more popular test, in part because the ACT did not penalize wrong answers and the essay was optional.
In 2016, the College Board fully redesigned its test to make the essay optional and remove penalties for wrong answers. And in a killer move, the College Board signed up with the Khan Academy to become their official partner for test practice. Almost in an instant, the SAT began to recapture its lead in the college admissions test race as the Khan Academy, with its intuitive website for both video lessons and practice, offered its resources for free. During Covid, Khan Academy, always innovating, began to offer free tutor learner sessions through its schoolhouse.world affiliate.
The ACT does not have a Khan Academy-type site. There is no way for students to track their progress online. Students wanting to have an adaptive practice environment, wherein the degree of difficulty of questions changes with student responses, find practicing from the official ACT textbook a sub-optimal experience. The ACT also has a separate science section - and the Khan Academy website does not contain SAT-type practice questions for science. And students desiring more practice than just the five official mock ACT tests available online, feel left behind.
We came away impressed with Mr. York's vision for Achievable, a relatively low-cost site that addresses all of the above deficiencies. He told us that Achievable uses adaptive learning techniques to create and update a personalized model of a student's memory, individually tracking retention and mastery of each ACT learning objective. Their learning engine monitors study progress and continually adjusts ACT practice questions to help student focus and improve study effectiveness while reducing overall study time.
The fees are reasonable too - only $129 at the time we signed our partnership on May 28, 2023. Not only does Achievable offer a one-year access package, rare in the industry, but Mr. York made Rao Advisors clients a special offer. They would extend the one-year access license to two years! All our clients have to do is contact Mr. York at the end of the first-year license and request a free renewal for another year.
Many students do not realize that before 2016, it was the ACT that was the more popular test, in part because the ACT did not penalize wrong answers and the essay was optional.
In 2016, the College Board fully redesigned its test to make the essay optional and remove penalties for wrong answers. And in a killer move, the College Board signed up with the Khan Academy to become their official partner for test practice. Almost in an instant, the SAT began to recapture its lead in the college admissions test race as the Khan Academy, with its intuitive website for both video lessons and practice, offered its resources for free. During Covid, Khan Academy, always innovating, began to offer free tutor learner sessions through its schoolhouse.world affiliate.
The ACT does not have a Khan Academy-type site. There is no way for students to track their progress online. Students wanting to have an adaptive practice environment, wherein the degree of difficulty of questions changes with student responses, find practicing from the official ACT textbook a sub-optimal experience. The ACT also has a separate science section - and the Khan Academy website does not contain SAT-type practice questions for science. And students desiring more practice than just the five official mock ACT tests available online, feel left behind.
We came away impressed with Mr. York's vision for Achievable, a relatively low-cost site that addresses all of the above deficiencies. He told us that Achievable uses adaptive learning techniques to create and update a personalized model of a student's memory, individually tracking retention and mastery of each ACT learning objective. Their learning engine monitors study progress and continually adjusts ACT practice questions to help student focus and improve study effectiveness while reducing overall study time.
The fees are reasonable too - only $129 at the time we signed our partnership on May 28, 2023. Not only does Achievable offer a one-year access package, rare in the industry, but Mr. York made Rao Advisors clients a special offer. They would extend the one-year access license to two years! All our clients have to do is contact Mr. York at the end of the first-year license and request a free renewal for another year.
Sign up with Achievable
Here is the official Rao Advisors partner link to Achievable.https://achievable.me/exams/act/overview/#a_aid=raoadvisors
A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website. But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions.
Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee. Please contact us for more information.
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website. But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions.
Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee. Please contact us for more information.
