News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Upper Cumberland Juniors are gearing up for ACT testing on Tuesday.
Livingston Academy English Teacher Heidi Adams said that students have been preparing to take the four-hour-long test for some time. She said that the point of the testing is to measure a student’s ability to use and apply skills they’ve been learning throughout their education.
“Students are prepared for this ACT even from 1st grade,” Adams said. “Just simply learning skills about finding main ideas, and vocabulary, and things like that, but at a higher order of thinking.”
Adams said that any child can get a high score regardless of their level of courses or grade. She said that all it takes is using common sense and applying it to skills they already know.
Adams said that the current goal for scores is 22. She said that that seems to be the magic number to open the door for college acceptance or scholarship opportunities should the student pursue higher education.
“And having the ability to be seen at colleges a little sooner than those that might have a lower GPA and not a high ACT score,” Adams said. “So sometimes an ACT score can get them in. Not to mention with the military also and a lot of jobs are now kind of buying hat information too. So our generation, and our parents’ generation, we didn’t necessarily have the ACT and it didn’t really affect us as much unless we were going to college. But this generation, it affects every part of their life after school. So it’s really important.”
Adams said that the key to success in the ACT is to tackle it head-on. She said that if you know the rules, you can win the game. She said that all of these students have been exposed to the test, they know the rules, and can go in with a positive attitude and score whatever they want.
