Last month, thousands of local high school juniors took the ACT, a standardized test which will impact their college admissions and scholarship qualifications. The students had spent a lot of time, and in some cases money, to prepare for the test. Despite the immense pressure to perform well, those who had taken an ACT Prep Class, like the one offered at Copper Hills High School, were confident and prepared — they had a semester-worth of knowledge, practice and strategies.

“This class had taught me a lot of valuable knowledge about the test that I had not even taken into consideration at the beginning,” a student said. “It has made me 10 times more confident going into taking this test.”

Confidence and familiarity make a difference in test performance, CHHS ACT prep teacher Jennifer Heckman said. When they’ve taken the practice test multiple times, students have a feel for the timing, the transitions and the downtime.

“Next week I am taking the ACT again and I do not feel unprepared or nervous for it,” a student said. “I have been using Mrs. Heckman's study strategies for the past few weeks and they have been really helping me feel confident.”

Another student admitted, “If I had not taken this class, I most likely would have put off studying for a very long time, but this class was a way for me to study the different subjects and learn more overall about the ACT test going into it.”

Heckman, who typically teaches math classes, became ACT certified to teach the English, reading and science topics found on the test. She is grateful her administrator allows her to attend ACT training sessions and conferences to learn about the test and to bring back various strategies and tools for her students. Strategies help them with wise time management, recognizing patterns, efficiency tips and utilizing down time, among others.

“Before I took this class, I had no idea of what to expect from the test and how to deal with it,” a student said. “The class has helped me understand the ways I can solve, the tricks of the test and how they are just patterns that you need to see and catch up on. I have taken a lot of tests and saw a lot of tricks to see the patterns of the test. Many of the questions were patterns and I couldn't have seen them if it weren't for the ACT prep class.”

Students tried various strategies in class to figure out which ones worked best for them during the test.

“The most helpful for me was her math strategies,” another student said. “They helped me keep my cool on the test as well as feel more sure about my answers. They especially helped me determine how to make more accurate educated guesses on the test.”

The class also provides opportunities for students to learn from their mistakes.

“When creating this class, I wanted to make sure kids were not only learning content, but also analyzing why they were getting it wrong and how maybe next time they can recognize to go down the correct path,” Heckman said. “Throughout the course, as we are studying, we'll take practice tests, and then we're able to compare their score from the last time they took it and create goals and strategies on how to meet that goal.”

She also breaks down the scores, what they mean and tips for raising scores. With this information, students have been able to consistently increase their score each time.

“I was able to see my improvements after comparing the practice tests from the beginning of the class to the end of the class,” a student said.

Heckman said her students have an average increase of 4.3 points between tests but some see even bigger increases. One student started the class with a Pre-ACT score of 20. She took the test three times during the class, her score jumping each time, reaching a 34 (out of 36 possible) on the final attempt.

Another student shared their experience. “I first took my ACT in December and though my overall score did not increase majorly, my individual scores improved drastically. I moved up around 8 points alone on just my science score.”

Heckman created the class last year after she had noticed a steady drop in the number of students taking her advanced placement and concurrent enrollment math courses, which have a minimum ACT score prerequisite. Since universities stopped factoring the ACT scores into admission requirements during the pandemic, students haven’t been taking the test as seriously the last several years, Heckman said. However, her ACT prep class has changed the trend at CHHS — interest in the class quadrupled this year.

“What I love about what I'm doing is that the word is spreading throughout our school that we're finding that you have more teachers now really intentionally incorporating the ACT's into their curriculum all year instead of just right before the test,” Heckman said.

A new version of the ACT test, called the Enhanced ACT, was released last year. This version is shorter, with fewer questions and less time allowed per section, but it gives students more time per question. “They realized that they were able to shorten the test and still get the same quality of data,” Heckman said. 

She said the instructions have better descriptions and the scoring is a little different, too. The ACT test was first introduced in 1959. It has been updated only a few times — a massive revision in 1989, an update to the reading section in 2014 and a scoring update in 2015.