Cracking the ACT, 2010 Edition (College Test Preparation)

Having had to retake the ACT after 18 years, needless to say I needed help. Bought three books: Cracking the ACT Princeton 2003 edition, The ACT for Dummies, and The Real ACT Prep Guide. Went through all of these books. The one that worked best for me was Cracking. It gave practical advise on how to improve my scores. Tactics were what it was all about. Although knowing math equations may be needed by some people in the future, for me it was getting a higher score. This book did the trick. The other two books helped as well. Ranked in order of importance: 1. Cracking 2. ACT for Dummies 3. The Real ACT. The last one has three practice tests. So if you want to practice taking the test I recommend it. DO NOT READ THE PREP PART OF THIS BOOK!!! It is not a helpful study guide. The ACT for Dummies was pretty good about giving some hard material that you need to know. But I preferred to use the tactics provided by Cracking.

All in all, if you are going to buy...Read more

I am a private math tutor and author of Math Study Guide for the SAT, ACT and SAT Subject Tests: 2012 Edition. I sometimes use the practice tests in this book as a warm up for students and then follow it with the official practice tests found in The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Guide to Include 3Real ACT Tests. However I found two errors in the math tests in this book:

pg 445 problem 39. The answer is C, not H.

pg 453 problem 58. The answer is -12/5. This does not match any of the answer choices.

As an ACT Tutor, I have found this book most helpful to use with my students. From math strategies to punctuation technicalities, this book covers it all. The Science section is extensive, and very helpful as it is bursting with strategies. The practice tests provided in the book are of moderate difficulty. I recommend this resource to any student who wants to be prepared for all 5 test sections and get inside the heads, per say, of the test writers. As the ACT is very time pressured, learning Princeton Review's strategies would be very beneficial to students. I also recommend this resource to any tutor or parent that is looking to help a student prep for the ACT exam. ACT prep can be rather arduous, but is always rewarding--good luck!

Stacy Padula, Author of Montgomery Lake High #1: The Right Person