It only takes three letters to make a high school student cringe: ACT. This test can determine where and whether or not a student goes to college as well as how much money in scholarships one can get.  Thus it is understandable that high school students want to get the best score possible.

I went through this same predicament over the summer. I ended up getting The Real ACT Prep Guide to help raise my score.

This book is extremely useful if all one wishes to do is take practice tests. My book had five tests which proved useful. The book does an extremely good job of explaining what the answer is to each problem.

Unlike many books, it actually explains the answer to every single problem, instead of just listing them out. Although there are a few problems that are relatively difficult to understand the answer explanation, overall the Real ACT Prep Guide does a fantastic job of explaining the answers.

Another aspect that the book does extremely well at is calculating one’s scores. Instead of simply giving a score for each test and a cumulative score, the book shows which subsection of each test one is lacking in.

For example, in math I was able to see if I missed more answers in the Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2 or Trigonometry section. This made it much, much more easier to find out which subject I needed to study.

It also gave the percentage of people who got a certain score for each section. I found that helpful because it allowed me to see how I would have compared to others.

The part that the Real ACT Prep Guide was lacking in, however, was the materials to study.

Instead of going over grammar and math skills that one should probably remember, each section for the different tests only talked about the different types of questions. In the English section, the book mentioned commas but it did not actually review the rules.

This was a major problem for me because I found it difficult to study if I did not have 40 minutes to take a practice test. One instance of this was when I would have 15 minutes in class to study but I would only be able to review the types of questions that would be on the test, not the material that would be tested over.

Overall, I would suggest people get this book for the practice tests. However, people should not get this book to review the actual material.