Trying to get back onto the Blaugust bandwagon! Man, does school ever take it out of you or what?!?
As you may know, I’m teaching ACT Prep this year. All the sections, not just math. With no curriculum. Oh, and have I mentioned I grew up in Texas where we take the SAT so I’ve never even taken it? (I am taking each practice test with them. We’ve just done the reading one and I got a 35/36. I feel like I’m back in high school again comparing scores…)
Did I mention that I was given no curriculum. No workbooks. No website. No books. No idea what I’m doing.
Which means the PrepScholar ACT blog is my new BFF. So far it has been the most helpful site I’ve found. The posts are very thorough and well-written. They also have hints for people that are middle-of-the-pack trying to improve and for those that are trying to get a perfect score. One thing I really liked was their What is a Good ACT Score? post. I liked it so much I modified it and made it into a day’s activity:
(ugh, gdoc file here. I’m sorry.) (Thanks to Chris Haren for letting me know I had the complete wrong description for 75th percentile. It is now fixed in the pic & in the file!) The neat thing is they have a page for each college with GPA, SAT, and ACT scores-just google “schoolname prepscholar ACT.” And if you scroll to the bottom of the prepscholar page, it even has a little calculator that tells you your chances of getting in.
For example, here’s my alma mater: Samford University. It’s also fun when a student mishears it (as many people do) and we end up comparing it to Stanford University.
After the students got scores from five colleges, they figured out their goal scores. I then had them make a motivational poster with their goal GPA and ACT score to hang in the classroom because who doesn’t like a motivational poster, amirite?
I know most of y’all are not teaching ACT, but I thought it might be a good thing to file away for an emergency sub plan, weird scheduling day, or when you just can’t even.