Substitute Teachers Lounge

Teaching ACT Tips (and Gripes) to Students

October 02, 2021 Greg Collins Episode 124
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Teaching ACT Tips (and Gripes) to Students
Show Notes Transcript

The best student strategies for the ACT test no longer involve content -- they involve question format and statistical patterns.  

When I was in high school and teachers advise me about the AC T, it was about the content. Now it's mainly about how to answer the questions. And all those tips and strategies are right here right now. Alright guys, welcome back to another week, I want to talk about the AC t today. And here's why, over the last three years that I've substitute taught, it's come up every year, because I've done some high school every year. It's sort of the time of year now when a lot of students are taking the AC T and sa t as well. In fact, I'd say, s a t is probably more popular in many areas of the country than the AC t 's. But in my particular area, it's more about the AC T. And the strategies. I remember buying books strategies. Back in my day, were the content, how to study the content. And for the most part, I'll be honest with you, you either know it or you don't, you know, it's kind of if you didn't pay attention in class and don't know about the content? Well, you know, it's kind of your fault at that point. So most of the strategy these days are training on the questions and the format and what AC t does to Yes, trick you. And many people think it's what the AC t does to keep you from scoring those 26 through 28 and higher scores, because that's going to cost some money. That means additional scholarships. And there are a lot of smart, intelligent teachers out there that think the AC t purposely formulates the test to reduce the number of 26 through 28 scores, and therefore reduce the amount of money that needs to be handed out in scholarships. So we're going to talk about that. First, I'm going to do a totally unrelated story about a substitute teacher this week, something that happened that you don't want to be involved with. Here's the story. This happened at a school that I know about. And some of the students, some of the teachers or even walking by the room and in telling administration, listen, that substitute teacher in there is not giving those kids any attention. He is basically rendered back in his chair. We're looking away from the kids on his phone and basically has his head buried in his phone. So the assistant principal went by, look through the window and confirmed what everybody was saying. So principal went by, open the door with the key, walked in. substitute teacher never looked up. He could actually see the kids snickering cause they knew why the principal was there. He walks over to the desk again, substitute teacher never looked up. In fact, he saw earbuds in his ears. So he then starts rapping at the desk until the substitute teacher finally turned around. I don't know what the consequences were other than the fact that they'll never ask that substitute teacher back. So guys, don't get caught up in something like that. Now, I'll be honest here, the fact that you're taking the time to listen to a podcast about substitute teachers means that you want to improve you're not one of those people. But if you ever run across people that tell you that's all they do. Tell them how that is terrible for those kids, that they need to at least pay them attention and show that they care. So that's the end of my soapbox for today. Actually, it's not because I'm getting ready to get on a soapbox about the AC t test. I've really picked up on from a lot of teachers as a substitute teacher and substitute teachers need to know this. I hope there's some teachers listening to we all need to know this. ac T is important for getting into college. You've heard the rumors, especially after going through all the COVID situation. For those of you that are listening in the future. This is October Third 2021 This is the time period we're talking about. There's rumors going around that a lot of colleges will stop taking aptitude scores such as the AC T and LSAT and still just base everything on grade point average and performance in high school. We're not really to that point yet, you know, some colleges may be doing that on a trial basis. But we're not really to that point yet. But it's important to realize that I feel like teachers are now sharing strategies about the questions themselves and the way they're composed, more so than the content of the material. Now, whether you think that's right or not, it's it's the facts. There are statistically proven testing methods that work on the AC T, I'm want to share some of those with you. And what I've already told you about how, you know, just like any other business, any other organization, they try to save money where they are where they can. And that means the more students they can keep from getting a high score, the less money is going to exchange hands from scholarship, whoever that money might be from. So we got to face the facts, that if we want our kids to get a high score, 28 kind of kicks you into a higher echelon of scholarship money, course, the maximum score on an AC T is 36. I won't tell you what I got, I know partially of some people that have moved their scores from a 19, all the way up to a 26. And most of what they did on their second attempt had to do with questions strategies, rather than studying more for the content. So let's get into it a little bit. Now, what I have is some strategies I've heard over the years, I am not confirming or denying that they work, I'm just going to tell you that there is a large amount of people that insist that they do work. I'm not even going to tell you I agree with them. But I am going to try to prepare you to share with students, the great thing about this teachers can use this information to share with students substitute teachers can use a few of these each time they teach the kids that are going to be taking the test in high school, and therefore get them prepared, you'll be on the top of those students list. If you give them just a couple of ideas at the end of your teaching class that will help them on their AC t endeavors. I'll start with some general strategies I have come across that I've heard teachers say that they share with their students over all in general. And then I'm going to get into some specific for each of the categories, the main categories that are in the AC t test. First of all, this is true of any test. Don't leave anything blank, make sure that they do remind them don't leave anything blank. If they skip ahead, they have to remember mark on that test Tim the mark on the test, it's okay to do that. Circle things. Make sure you put big stars next to questions that you have to come back to so you don't forget, here's a strategy. That's interesting. I guess you know, I'm a big statistics geek anyway. And apparently, according to statistics, and we're talking about questions that the student has no idea about, they're going to have to pick a letter. Okay. Let's say you got ABCD, let's say out of 100 questions, I don't even remember how many questions are on the test anymore, let's say out of 100 questions, you're guessing at seven. Statistically speaking, it seems that a strategy that works best is for all seven of those questions. Pick the same letter. Like if you decide your letter is going to be B, well pick B on all seven of the questions that you have no idea about. Now if you have an inkling of an idea that is different. I feel like I'm talking to the students now. But if you if the student has an inkling of an idea, they need to go with that. But if they have no idea at all about a question, and there say seven of them on the test, and you decide to go with B that's just a suggestion, maybe you want to go with C that's the best strategy. Statistically speaking, you'll get more of those seven correct. If you choose the each, you know the same letter on each one, rather than just jumping around. Apparently jumping around from all seven of those questions and picking different letters, increases the likelihood that you're going to get them all wrong. Whereas if you pick the same letter, for instance B, again, on all seven of those questions, you will at least get some of those questions, right? So that's an interesting strategy. If you've got a chance, you know, you can get old AC t test, share some of those with the students. See if that strategy works, have them work through some just marking the same letter for maybe five questions and saying, You're doing it that way. And then having another student Mark five different answers, five different letters for the same questions, see if that strategy works for you. But what I'm reading is, statistically speaking, that will work. I'm going to talk about the reading section next. Now, I think most of you have listened to more than one episode of this, a lot of you have gone back and listen to them all. A lot of you have listened to all of them from the beginning. And it don't take no Albert Einstein to know that I'm a math guy. So I'm strong in math, math comes more naturally to me. And the reason I say I'm not bragging is because reading and English does not that are my that is my weakest categories. Kind of enjoyed, right? By the way, I've got to tell you, I told you last week, I'm gonna say it again, I wrote a novel called butterfly swag. It's about the butterfly effect and time travel. And I've given away probably 40 books and all the kids are coming back and say they love it, when I gave a copy to all of my own kids. And one of them admitted to me today that he said, I didn't want to read that I figured it would be so dumb. And he said, but I actually enjoyed the book. So butterfly swag, I've, it's gotten me so excited. Because I've handed out at least 40 copies, students come up to me every day, and asked me if they can get a copy of the book, and I am more than happy to give them one for free, sign it, it makes me feel good. It makes them feel good. They come up to me and talk about it. They're leaving me reviews on Amazon. So it's really cool. So sorry, I just had to mention that, while we're on the topic or off the topic, so to speak, go to our Substitute Teachers Lounge, Facebook group, we talk about a lot of stuff on there more so this week than ever. Some of its very controversial, we will continue more of the controversial type of discussions on there. So if you like that kind of thing, or if you just want to chime in, tell your viewpoint, I won't allow anybody to criticize you. But I will allow you to state your opinion strongly. Okay. Now, I do want to say this, we're getting some new members, sometimes they will post things for sale. From what I can tell most of the time, it's not to make them money. It's more like Teachers Pay Teachers type stuff. Be careful, because if I can see, you're only doing this to make money for yourself, I'm going to take you back off. And some of that is coming from new members. So that's not what we're there for. I love sharing of ideas. But if you're going to post something like this, tell us which one of those that you're recommending, that you really like that you've used in the classroom and it works well. Okay, enough of those asides. Let's get back to the AC t test. on reading. It's interesting about reading because here's the main strategies. And first of all, this first one is a main strategy for any test AC T or classroom, remind those students The first thing you should do, especially if you have a really if the student really has a good idea, but not a perfect idea. Well the first thing you should do is go down through those answers and cross out any obviously incorrect answers, narrow your choices that will help quite a bit. Secondly, if you're a fan if the student is a fast reader, it's probably best for them to go ahead and just read and answer in the order of difficulty. If you're a slow reader though, read the three passages answer the questions try your best skim the for section and guess for the best answers or in other words if you're a fast reader, you know doing an order a difficulty if you're a slow reader, just take them as you can and do your best. Now often, and this isn't on every answer these are most of these strategies are ones that the student don't have an idea what the answer is often in writing The longest answer is correct. So have them read the longest answer. And if that sounds like it might at least be correct, then or sound correct. That's probably the one they should go with. And remember, remind them, they can mark on the test themself. They're answering on like a it's not a Scantron. But it's very similar to that on a separate sheet. Now, here's some things that seem to work. They should avoid an answer that has an absolute term such as always, never all. Absolutely, and completely. Lot of times those are answers you should ignore because always means all the time never changes never means it never happens. never will. So a lot of times those absolute terms if you're guessing at a question, maybe leave those off. Look for the negative negative words. Except not reject same strategy there. Pay attention to contrast words that signal a change in meaning the correct answer usually follows those words are like However, in spite but yet in there for so as the rating the correct answer usually follows those types of words. So those are some good tips for the reading section. And we've got three other sections to go. I don't want to hurry through this, but I don't want to keep you here forever either. So I'll try my best to get through all the tips that I have heard over the years, about the different sections. Okay, here we go English section 20% of the time, I have heard that's a one in five chance, the answer is no change. Because AC t thinks maybe your students are too scared to pick that answer. 20% of the time, it's no change. So if you think it's no change 20% of the time it is the shortest answer, believe it or not, is usually right. They want the answers as brief as possible. Always read the omit delete the underlined portion. Answer option first. If it is grammatically correct and make sense that's the right answer. Yes or no questions are more than likely No, if you have no idea that might be something to keep in mind. Remember, they should all the students should remember that the function of the English show the function of period colons and semi colons is to separate sentences. The function of Commons dashes and parentheses is to set off clauses within sentences, commas separate items in list, and you separate two sentences with words like for and nor, but, or yet, or so. Just those simple ideas in the English section will also help the students with that science and math is a little bit shorter in strategy, you might want to remind the students that they don't have to memorize anything. So they should feel free to mark right on the text and mark right on the grass for words that you know the big words, the defining words, the words that they remember from their classroom, mark those because you're probably going to need to come back to those in your answer. They should scan their graphs first. Most of the time, answers will be found within the graphs and the charts themselves. So that's what they should be scanning. And reading will be normally opposing viewpoints. Again, don't try to memorize just mark up the text. You know, look for things that contrast with each other. Look for the keywords and that will help them quite a bit in the science section. And finally, math. You know, a lot of people think math is the hardest part. And to be honest, I'm going to give you the least amount of strategy on that tell the students and again this is should be their strategy on every math test. They take maybe every test they take, go through and answer the easy questions. First. Answer the easy ones first, easy and hard questions that you're going to get the same amount of points so don't spend all your IP the first three questions look to be hard, save them for last because if you ended up spending, the student ends up spending too much time on them. Well, they're not going to get credit for the easy ones either because they're not going to get to them so all they can do is do the best they can obviously get a calculator if allowed. And again, don't leave anything blank. So math, easy question first. Easy and harder. Questions are the same amount, and just remind them do the best they can. Math can be quite intimidating to some students. And if not taught properly, I'd go back to something I said in one episode how a student came up to me. And even though the teacher he was talking about is a very good teacher, a very friendly teacher, he hated the fact that every time he asked this teacher something they would say, you should already know that before then, given their answer, it made that student reluctant to go back to that teacher. So don't catch yourself in that bind. Okay. Now, some final overall tips, here's what you should tell them remind them, guess if they can eliminate at least one choice across all the answers that they know are incorrect, that will help quite a bit, make sure they avoid stray marks on their answer sheet. A machine is kind of finicky like that and will score your test and they don't know what the machine is not going to know the difference between your correct answer and a careless mark on your test. easy questions usually come before hard one. So that's something to keep in mind. Keep checking till the student to keep checking that they're the placing their answers in the correct section and number on the answer sheet. You don't want to put it in an ad section that's not even used, and mess up in that regard. Again, don't spend too much time on any one question. Hope you want to shoot for just a few seconds on the easy ones. And not spend maybe more than one or two minutes on the hard ones. Have them practice they should be practicing with. There's there's old AC t test floating out there all the time. Also tell them they shouldn't ever change an answer. Unless they're sure they made an error. You know, the old statement that's been said many times your first impulse on an answer is usually the correct one. So unless you're sure you messed up, have them never changed an answer, okay, only only if they're sure they made an error. One thing that I thought was an interesting strategy that I heard a while back is make sure you read the question carefully. Now that's not new advice. But what happens sometimes if you'll read a keyword that you remember from your classroom discussion, and you get so ingrained in knowing what that is and then seeing an answer that would apply that you forget to answer what the question is saying, maybe it's got a word in there like a CEP like all these work except and you're so keyed up about getting it correct that you answer one of the words you remember, make sure the students practice reading the questions very closely, so that they don't miss understand. I'm given tests this year in my classroom to students who might have only with missed one question, and they missed it, because they didn't realize the question was looking for the exception rather than what was truly applied in that situation. So remind him of that. And then I think it kind of helps just to know the general format of an AC t test. This is it there's typically unless things change and I guess they have the right to change it anytime they want to AC t there's 19 analogies. There's 19 sentence completions 40 reading comprehension 35 math, multiple choice 15 quantitative comparisons and 10 student produce responses. So that's important. share those with those students. If you've got the AC t coming up soon they'll be so happy that you did if it's a while away for you, you know they they get to retake it if they want to so hopefully you know that's okay to tell them and for them to keep them back of their mind but not to the point that they don't concentrate the first time they take it there's such a thing as being overconfident i've i've seen students that gotten much better grades than me in high school that I scored higher than them on the AC t test significantly higher. And I think sometimes you can go in overconfident and see those words that remind you of something and mark an answer that might be incorrect. But if you use all these tactics, I think the students will be in good shape. Teachers share these with your students. By all means, I hope this is one episode that we have post galore on Substitute Teachers Lounge group page on Facebook But because I want to know your strategies, Doggone it, what are your strategies to help these students get through this AC t test? Yes, the goal is to learn the material, but it sure doesn't hurt to know some tips about actually taking the test teacher share that with your students and substitute teachers have a few of those in your back pocket to share with all them at the end of your class.