SCIENCE

ACT Science is the one section of this test that has no counterpart in the SAT. It requires you to think logically and move very fast, often making decisions without fully understanding what you have read. Here are some smart tips to help ensure success in your ACT Science studies:

• Above all, timing is the key to the Science test. Because each of the seven passages has several very easy questions – but also plenty of time-suckers – you must pace yourself very strictly in order to get to most of those easy questions! With only 35 minutes to answer 40 questions (to say nothing of reading all that text about battling scientists, random variations of experiments, and baffling charts and unconventional graphs), if you get caught up in Passage I or II, you'll never get to the easy questions in Passages V, VI, and VII! Practice spending no more than 5 minutes/passage and see if you start to raise your score. Use a stopwatch to time yourself until you internalize the pace.

• In order to spend less time in the Science passages, you must read less, much less. Do charts and graph-heavy passages first, text-heavy passages later. If the passage has diagrams and figures, go straight to questions that refer to them, skipping the reading entirely at first.

• For text-heavy passages, such as the "fighting scientists" passage which details two different perspectives or hypotheses on one subject, skim until you get the gist of the issue and each side's main thesis. Then search the questions for clues that will send you to the right sections in the reading. Once you find a word from the question in the passage, be sure to read around it for context to avoid trick answer choices that distort the meaning.

• When confronted with a graph, first ascertain what is being measured on each axis. Get a general idea of the trend (going up, down, leveling off) before answering questions.

• Beware changed or mixed units! Occasionally the