Shaeffer is second in a class of 450 in Missouri, and she plays soccer and runs cross country. Her ACT score didn’t match the rest of her record.
Before she came to us, she’d taken a weekend group course that met for two hours every Saturday and Sunday for eight weeks. It didn’t teach her much about how to take the test. On her own she then studied English grammar and taught herself some trigonometry, and in two weeks her score went from a 25 to a 28. Her dad thought the missing piece was test-taking strategy.
She enrolled with us in April of her junior year. Her goal was a 32 or better, for schools where merit aid would make a real difference to her family.
Reading and English first
Her coach, Taleen, built the plan around two test dates. Reading and English came first, aimed at the June ACT, and Math was saved for July.
Reading came quickly. By early May, Shaeffer had a perfect score on a Reading practice test. English took longer. She started out missing about 20 questions per practice test, mostly on comma rules and run-on sentences, and kept a sheet of every rule she missed. By the end of May she was missing four or five.
Math meant learning trigonometry she had never been taught, starting with the rules for solving triangles that don’t have a right angle.
When the real tests lagged behind
Shaeffer took the ACT in June and again in July. Her superscore, which combines her best score in each section across test dates, rose to a 29. But her real scores kept landing below her practice scores, especially on grammar in English and on geometry in Math.
So Taleen rebuilt the plan for September around those two gaps. The first three weeks went to geometry and trigonometry, the next three to grammar and punctuation, and the last two to full-length practice tests under real conditions. Shaeffer also started a log of every careless mistake, like a dropped negative sign, so she could see which ones kept coming back. And they decided she would take the online version of the test, so she could use the Desmos graphing calculator she was already fast with.
A perfect Reading score
In September Shaeffer scored a 31, with English 31, Math 27 and a perfect 36 in Reading. Every section is higher than where she started, and the 31 is her new superscore.
That leaves her one point short of the 32 she set out for, and Math, at 27, is her lowest section.
"Here is my scores!!! I'm very happy thank you so much!!!"
— Shaeffer S.
What we did differently
- Planned the June test for Reading and English and the July test for Math, so each sitting had one job.
- Had her keep a sheet of every grammar rule she missed, and later a log of every careless mistake.
- Taught her the trigonometry she'd never been taught, starting with triangles that aren't right triangles.
- Rebuilt the plan after July around the exact topics her real tests had exposed.
Coached by
Taleen
Every Boosted Brains coach has a perfect or near-perfect ACT score and has been personally trained by Carson Weekley (perfect 36) and Martin (Head of Student Success).