Fiveable's ACT Math Section Overview: What's On It?
9 min readโขjune 18, 2024
A
Alejandra Ramos
A
Alejandra Ramos
ACTย ๐
53ย resourcesSee Units
If you're here you probably have questions about what is on the ACT Math section. ๐ง This guide will take you through the logistics, what to expect, and some strategies so you can perform your best on ACT day!
๐ย General ACT Logistics
Just as a reminder, there are going to be 4 to 5 sections on the ACT. It will be 4 sections if you choose to take the test without writing, and 5 if you choose to take the test with writing.
The sections are as follows:
English
Math
Reading
Science
Optional Writing Sections (Must have signed up during registration)
Although there are breaks throughout the test, there is no break between the English and Math section. You will want to make sure that you are not burnt out from the English section and that you are ready to switch gears from English to math.
๐ญ What to Expect on the ACT Math Section
โฐ Test Pacing
There are 60 questions total on the math section of the ACT. You are going to be allotted 60 minutes to work on the math section. This means that you should spend on average one minute per question which may seem intimidating but the strategies section will help you maximize this time!
๐ง What is Covered in the ACT Math Section?
Get ready for advanced math on the ACT by studying important subjects like Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics. Also, practice essential skills including Proportions, Percentages, Volume, and Surface Area. Don't forget about modeling real-world situations with math. With practice, you'll become a skilled problem solver and feel more comfortable with challenging math problems.
๐ Preparing for Higher Math
This section focuses on building a strong foundation for higher mathematics by exploring key topics. Expect to encounter around 15-20 questions that will challenge your understanding and application of various mathematical concepts.
- โ Algebra
- ๐ Functions
- ๐ Geometry
- ๐ข Number and Quantity
- ๐ฒ Statistics and Probability
โ๏ธ Essential Skills
This section hones fundamental mathematical skills that are essential for everyday problem-solving. Expect to encounter approximately 10-15 questions that test your proficiency in these areas.
- โ๏ธ Proportions
- ๏ผ Percentages
- ๐ฆ Volume
- ๐บ๏ธ Surface Area
๐ Modeling: Also Tested on the ACT
This section gauges your ability to create mathematical models that represent real-world scenarios. You can anticipate encountering around 5-10 questions that assess your aptitude for translating practical situations into mathematical expressions.
See exactly what skills you will need for each of the above sections in our What do the ACT Math Questions Test? article!
โ๏ธACT Math Section Strategies
โฒ๏ธ Pacing
Do NOT waste time. Although you should always attempt to not be distracted during a timed standardized test, please make sure that during the Math section you are super focused!! The hour that you will have for this test will fly by very, very, VERY quickly.
You should not dedicate one minute to every single question. The first few questions on the ACT are much easier and really only require a few seconds. Do not try to evenly spread your time on each question but rather, spend less time on the easier and simple ones, especially the first few, and spend more time on the ones that require that time, especially the fear-mongering last ten questions.
You should be able to do the first ten questions in less than ten minutes and the first twenty questions in less than twenty minutes. Even just a few seconds saved on these first twenty to forty questions will come in handy when working on the middle and end portions of the Math section on the ACT.
For best pacing, take practice ACT math sections under testing conditions. You do not have to do the entire ACT and can just do the math section. The test tends to be pretty similar in terms of difficulty depending on where you are in the test. By taking practice tests, you will begin to know at what time you are at after answering a certain number of questions on the test.
๐ค What to Study
Start off by taking a general diagnostics test for Math (or all the ACT). This will help you see where you are at. Once you do this, look at the questions you got right and which ones you got wrong. If you guessed but got it right on the diagnostics test, that does NOT count. You would still need to label that as wrong since you got it right because of luck and not because of your knowledge.
Go over the questions you got wrong and work out the problem step by step. If you have the ACT test month and year, chances are that the test has already been worked out on YouTube and you can follow along to see the steps and answer. If you are very serious about drastically improving your score, keep a notebook with the questions you got wrong, the answer choices, and the correct work and spend time reviewing the work.
Although you can specifically look for the style of questions that you got wrong on the diagnostics test on another test and only practice those, I recommend taking a complete test each time you practice. This did wonders for my personal score as I was able to practice pacing and add more questions to review to my journal. This also helped me realize what skills I was okay at but did not always get the question that had that skill right and to also add those questions to what I needed to study.
๐ What to Look For in Questions
On the actual ACT, especially during the first few questions, there will be some answers that are clearly not right. Make sure to remove those immediately. Even if you just cross one out, you have raised your chances of being close to the answer from 0% to 20%.
Look carefully at what the question is asking you. Sometimes, the wording in a question is simple but is actually very tricky and other times, the wording of a questions can seem tricky but the question is actually very simple. You want to make sure that you read the question carefully and that you underline or make notes on the key components of the question. There are times when all you need to look at are the numbers and other times that you will need to look at the words to be able to build the working structure for the question.
๐๏ธ What to Look For in the Test
Do NOT ever look to solve the harder questions first! EVER!
Each question is worth the same amount of points regardless of the difficulty level.
This means that you should always look to solve the easier questions first. If a question is confusing you, skip it and move on. Do not waste time in the middle of the test trying to decipher a question when you still have 30 other questions to go.
Look for what you know. If a question is structured in a familiar way, chances are that you have already conquered a question that is like the one that is on the test. Attempt to solve these questions as carefully and as fast as possible to maximize your score and the time you have left to solve other questions.
I also recommend looking for your strengths. If you are great at surface area and know all the formulas, look for common shapes that have their surface area asked for on the test.
Lastly, look for straight to the point questions. If a question is asking you to simply find x, then it might be a very easy question to answer and an easy way to get an added on point to your score.
๐งฎ Calculator
You will always be better off using a simple calculator that you are familiar with than a fancy calculator you are not familiar with. This is because throughout the test you will be trying to figure out how to use the calculator and waste time rather than using the calculator to help you and save time.
That being said, I strongly urge you to familiarize yourself with a calculator that has a lot of capabilities that can be used to help you solve test questions. This will help you save time and have more confidence in the accuracy of your response.
โ The Last Ten Questions
The last ten questions are know for being very difficult-- they aren't impossible to solve, just difficult. If you have made it through the test just fine up until now and have completed all the other questions, work hard on these last ten and give it your all but be careful with the timing.
- If you have not completed all of the other questions since you have skipped through the test but you have gotten to these ten questions and still have time left, quickly glance over these questions and attempt to solve the ones that you think you can solve.
- Do not get frustrated if you can't and just move on from the question. If you glance over the questions and none seem like you are able to do them or if you have glanced over the questions and attempted to solve the ones that look familiar to you, go back and solve the other questions you may have skipped throughout the ACT Math section before attempting to decipher the ones you have left in numbers 50-60. This is because it is more probable that you can solve the other ones you have skipped than the ones that may not look familiar to you of the last ten.
โ Guessing
The first type of guessing is for when you have a question that you have worked out multiple times and you keep getting the same number that is not listed as an answer choices but is very close to one of the options. Guess that one. Chances are you made a small mistake somewhere around the problem or even if you did it completely wrong, you would have had to have guessed either way.
I tend to make very, VERY, very light marks next to the question number on my ACT answer sheet about questions that I skipped over that I feel like I can solve. When I finish the other questions on a test, I will go back to these and attempt to solve them since I have labeled them as problems I believe I can solve. For the questions that I have absolutely no idea for, I leave those blank. If I have enough time, after I attempt the problems that I believe I can solve, I will go to the blank ones and attempt those but I have some very limited time in the past to get to those questions. Make sure that you always save a minute of your time or so to guess an answer choice on the questions you have no idea how to approach and just bubble in the letters on the test.
A guessing strategy that I have is that I will stick with one letter and guess that on the test when I have resorted to bubbling on the questions that I feel like I can't solve. Statistically speaking, there are five answer choices on the Math portion of the ACT. If there were five questions you needed to guess on in one minute on the ACT there is a 0.00032 probability that you will get all of them right if you guess all of them right if you guess a different letter on all of them; however, statistically you should get at least one right if you guess the same letter on all of them.
Although it may not feel great to guess or even having to consider guessing makes you pessimistic, I was able to increase my score from a score in the 20s to a high score in the 30s by adopting these strategies.
Good look and remember that practicing and reviewing is the key to a good score!
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