Understand the Stakes - Mrs. Blevins' Science
In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, what it takes, and then go into ACT Science tips.Stick with me - this is like constructing a building. First you need to lay a good foundation before putting up the walls and windows. Similarly, we need to first understand why you're doing what you're doing and what goal you're aiming for, before diving into tips and strategies.Understand the StakesIt's really worth your time to improve your ACT score. Hour for hour, it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college.Know that You Can Do ItThis isn't just some fuzzy, feel-good message you find in a fortune cookie.I mean, literally, you and every other reasonably capable student can do well on ACT Science.The reason most people don't is they don't try hard enough or they don't study the right way.Even if you don't consider yourself a science geek, or you got a B in Biology, you're capable of this. Because I know that more than anything else, your ACT score is a reflection of how hard you work and how strategically you study.Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that many questions are nothing like what you've seen in school?It's purposely designed this way. The ACT is a national test, which means it needs to be a level playing field for ALL students around the country. It can't discriminate against students who never took AP Physics (or whose schools don't even offer AP classes). Therefore, the ACT can't test difficult concepts, because this would be unfair for students who never took AP Physics. The ACT Science section can't ask you to solve cold fusion or build a rocket to get to Mars. So it HAS to test scientific concepts that every high school student will cover: how to interpret data graphs, what the scientific method is, how scientific theories disagree from each other.This leads to the big secret of ACT Science:The Big Secret: You Don't Have to Know Much Actual ScienceMany students who study ACT Science are intimidated by the mistaken impression that they need to know a lot of science to get by.The reality is the opposite - it's much more about reading comprehension, understanding graphs, and logic.Now, it SEEMS like you need to know a lot of science, because there will be weird scenarios you've never seen before, from dinosaur claw sizes to how clouds affect soil temperature. These may seem intimidating because you've never learned this in school.Here's an example graph:You've probably never seen a graph like this before in school.The thing is, every other high school student in America hasn't seen this graph before either!The ACT expects you to solve questions for this graph through the skills you've learned in high school - looking at two axes, understanding how a plot works, and getting data values from the graph.This is good news for you: if you can practice the basic skills tested on ACT Science, and you know what types of questions will be asked, you'll do a great job on the section. I guarantee it.Just to prove this to you, further down we're going to understand this graph and go through a few sample questions. The key to improving your ACT Science score is to:learn the types of questions that the ACT tests, like the one aboveput together the concepts you already know to solve the questionspractice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakesNow we'll actually get into actionable ACT Science tips that you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. ACT Science Tips ACT Science Tip #1: Don't Waste Time Understanding Useless DetailsTell me if this sounds familiar: you're reading an ACT Science passage, and it's so overwhelming trying to understand every detail of whatever obscure thing they're telling you about. This is by far the biggest time waster for most students - and because you only have 35 minutes to get through 7 passages and 40 questions, time is a huge factor in ACT Science.Here's the truth: ACT Science passages are full of scientific details that don’t actually matter to answering the questions. This is especially true of all those complicated graphs you see. You literally don't have to understand many of the details to get every question correct.The ACT does this on purpose to confuse you and make the test harder, and to show you what real scientific research kind of looks like. But you aren’t reading a science journal – you’re answering ACT Science questions. A common mistake people make is to try too hard to understand the passage in its entirety. They want to understand every detail in every chart.Trying to understand the entire passage is a HUGE waste of time because most of the passage isn’t going to have a question asked about it. This is true in ACT Reading, and it’s even more true in ACT Science.So what should you do instead?Skim the passage and understand the passage at a very high level. Answer these two questions only:What’s the main point here?What’s the figure showing?That’s it. When I read ACT Science passages, I don’t understand the deep details of what’s happening. I get the gist and I move on to the questions.Let’s try an example from a real ACT Science passage. I’m going to show you how useless most of the passage is and how little you need to understand to answer the questions.My skimming: There is a lake. The lake sediment tells us about the climate in the past. They mention average temperature for figure 3, so that’s probably what the main point is. There’s a weird oxygen symbol 18O, but all I need to know is that SMALLER values mean COLDER.This is a map showing 3 sites. We’ll probably be looking at samples from these 3 sites. Otherwise, I don't care right now where the sites are, how big the lake is, or whether I can see my house on this map. I'm ignoring all the fine details. This shows us a cutaway section of the lake, with the 3 sites from Figure 1. The y-axis is elevation.The key shows that each colored section is a different layer. Lake clay, glacial till, bedrock. The layers change as you move across the graph. How exactly they change I’m not going to care about until I get asked about it. Here's a bunch of graphs designed to be confusing.Well, they all look about the same. We’ll just look at Site 1. The y-axis shows depth, so the further down, the deeper into the earth we go. The x-axis shows the 18O thing. From left to right, this value gets larger. What Site 1 shows is as you go UP in depth, you get a LARGER 18O value. That's all I'm going to care about for now.Now look at the other 2 Sites. Site 2 looks about the same, except for a glacial till line higher up. Site 3 looks the same as Site 1 - curve goes up and to the right.And now there’s this formula. I’m not even going to bother with this until they ask me a question about it.Notice from my notes that I really understand the passage only at a 30,000 foot level. I’m not getting bogged down in details, and I’m not understanding every detail of every graph. Doing that would be a waste of time.Just to convince you this high level of understanding works, we’re actually going to answer all 5 questions for this passage. Look at the Key on the right.Lake clay is gray. Where is it thinnest?Winnipeg, F.You literally didn't even have to read the passage to solve this! You could have solved it just by looking at the picture. We want to find the SMALLEST 18O value, which means it’s more on the LEFT side of the graph.From the dots we see that’s going to be at the BOTTOM LEFT of the figure. Choice C.Once again, you barely had to read the passage to solve this! It's just figuring out where the dots are. OK, so figure 2. We start from Grand Forks on the right, then move to Site 3.Lake clay, the gray piece, gets THICKER. They say this in the question, and we see it in the figure.The question asked about glacial till, the striped layer under it. It gets THINNER as you go from Grand Forks to Site 3.So thickness DECREASES, choice J.Yet once again, you barely had to know the passage to solve this! OK, we want the elevation of the TOP of GLACIAL TILL at each of 3 sites.Glacial till is the STRIPED layer. At Site 1, the top is 200. At Site 2, the top is 205ish. At site 3, it’s 180 ish.Answer choice C is the only one that fits these values.YET AGAIN you barely had to know the passage! To rephrase: it rains. Water gets to 3m deep. What is the 18O 3m deep?Look at figure 3 at a depth of 3m. In each figure, it’s around -15. Answer J.Finally, surprise surprise, you didn't have to know the passage at all to answer this question. EASY PEASY. Notice all the information we didn’t have to care about:In the passage, we didn’t have to care about how old the lake was or how it formed.We didn’t have to care about what 18O means about temperature.We didn’t use Figure 1 at all. Stupid map.In figure 2, we didn’t care at all about bedrock. Also, we only needed to care about how the layers changed when we were asked about it.In figure 3, we didn’t have to care at all about how Site 2 had a glacial till layerI hope you get the point. So much of each passage is USELESS to getting the questions right.The stupid ACT knows this, and they WANT you to get bogged down. “Oh gee, I wonder what bedrock is? How might they ask questions about this?”“Boy this formula looks real tough. What is 18O, and what is 16O? What’s groundwater and what’s standard water? Why multiply by 1,000?”You can waste so many minutes trying to make sense of the entire passage. If you have time management problems, skimming the passage can be a huge time savings for you!Again, when you read the passage focus on only two questions:What is the MAIN POINT of the passage?What is the MAIN POINT of each figure?I’ve started yelling more just because of how angry this test makes me. So let me take a deep breath. Moving on… ACT Science Tip #2: Understand What ACT Science Actually TestsACT Science stands out as the most structured and predictable section on the ACT. What I mean by that is ACT Science has 3 passage types, and each passage type has specific question types associated with it.This is unlike ACT English, where all 5 passages have all sorts of random question types associated with it.To do well on the ACT, you HAVE to predict the questions and passages that you're going to see on test day.Here are the passage types and question types associated with them:3 Data Representation Passages - describes a study, heavy on graphs and chartsRead-the-Graph QuestionsInterpreting TrendsCalculating Values3 Research Summaries Passages - describes an experiment with multiple partsExperimental DesignHypothetical Experimental ChangesInterpreting Experiments1 Conflicting Viewpoints Passage - 2 or more scientists disagree Understanding ViewpointsComparing ViewpointsRemember what I said about ACT Science testing basic skills you've learned before in school? This is it - reading graphs, the scientific method, and comparing viewpoints.Your job is to understand these skills, figure out what you're weak in, and drill those skills until you've mastered them.ACT Science Tip #3: Learn How to Read GraphsBy far the most important single skill on ACT Science is knowing how to read graphs and charts. Nearly half of all questions on the test will relate to reading a graph and making sense of it.Often, the graph will be in a totally unfamiliar subject you've never learned about. The units will be weird, and the shape of the graph might be weird.Don't worry about this - the graph is weird for every other student in the country too.The ACT does this on purpose so that students with advanced science knowledge don't have a huge advantage on the test. For example, if the ACT showed problems from AP Physics, people would riot - it's unfairly discriminating against students whose schools don't have AP Physics.But if the ACT shows a graph about saber tooth tiger tooth sizes, this is OK - almost no one will have seen this graph before, so everyone's on more level footing.If you've been overwhelmed by graphs before, this is important to sink in - ACT Science is designed so that YOU are fully capable of understanding everything you need to answer the questions right - if you learn the right skills.So how do you actually read a graph?The three most important steps you need to understand every single graph are:Skim the intro text. Often the passage will tell you literally "Figure 2 is about X" and this is a big head start. (Like I said in Tip #1, though, don't get bogged down in details.)Read the axes. What does the x-axis represent, and what changes as you move from left to right? What does the y-axis represent, and what changes as you move from bottom to top? This tells you what is actually being shown. Understand the general shape of the graph. Where is it going up or down? If there are multiple lines shown, how do they differ? I mean GENERAL - don't memorize every detail, just get a sense of what's going on. Let's apply this with the following real ACT Science passage.OK - so it's about photosynthesis, which you may remember from AP Biology. It's how plants use sunlight to generate glucose (sugar). We also hear about wavelength, which is a property of light. We can see that Violet light has a shorter wavelength than Red light.Let's step through the 3 steps:Skim the intro text. Here it tells us figure 2 "shows the average rate of photosynthesis at various wavelengths, as a percent of the average rate of photosynthesis at 670 nm." So we get a hunch for what the graph is showing - how fast photosynthesis happens, at different wavelengths. Read the axes. The x-axis shows wavelength, and as you move from left to right, the wavelength gets larger. The y-axis shows rate of photosynthesis, and as you move from bottom to top, the rate gets bigger (which means photosynthesis happens faster).Understand the general shape of the graph. Generally, I see two peaks and a big valley in between. Remember, higher on the y-axis means faster photosynthesis. This means that photosynthesis happens really fast at two wavelengths, and really low in the middle (around 540 nm). Again, few people have ever seen this graph before - or if they have, they've probably forgotten it. Now you understand it just as well as anyone else.With this in mind, we can try answering a question!Let's rephrase the question. "At what wavelength is photosynthesis faster than it is at 670 nm?"Let's rephrase it even more simply. "At what wavelength is the graph higher than where it is at 670 nm?" Because we understood what the y-axis was showing, we know that HIGHER UP means FASTER PHOTOSYNTHESIS.So first, let's find out how fast photosynthesis is at 670 nm. It's right around 100.(Actually, it tells you this in the intro text: "Figure 2 shows the average rate of photosynthesis at various wavelengths as a percent of the average rate of photosynthesis at 670 nm." Naturally, the value at 670 nm should be 100%.You don't have to know this, and I didn't dwell on it since it's not critical to know.) OK, now we look at where the rate of photosynthesis is higher than 100 at the 4 points: 400, 430, 630, and 700 nm. I show these with orange dots here:It's pretty clear that the only dot higher than 100 is at 430 nm. So B is the answer. What we just went over is exactly how you can approach every single graph on the ACT Science section. Some graphs will be more complicated than this, but the principles are really all the same. You CAN understand every graph in ACT Science.If you keep practicing these skills over and over again, you WILL become much better at getting more questions right. Trust me.: Allen ChengEdited by: Miranda Blevins ................
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