ITM 301 MOD 3 SLP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

ITM 301 MOD 3 SLP - Essay Example In addition, tabs such as News, Analysis, Blogs, Videos, and Slideshows are also visible on the home page. Overall look and feel Its overall structure meets the standard of a professional website, and covers wide ranges of technological information. However, the exceeding priority given to advertisements undermines the genuineness of its fundamental objectives. It mainly targets people who are interested in technological innovations or people working in Technical field. It also provides useful information to business executives and other professional individuals who would purchase technical devices. Useful features of the site Obviously, the various tabs on the tope of the home page make the website more user-friendly. Similarly, the CIO provides links to social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. It assists the users to share important information through their favorite social networks. Despite their excessiveness, advertisements seen on each page of the website would aid the users to select their best option. The whole resources on the website are free to users; and evidently, the site meets its maintenance costs and other expenses from advertisers. The search option at the top-right corner of the home page enables the users to access required information by entering a key word or phrase.

The Past, Present, and Future of Automated Scoring Essay Example for Free

The Past, Present, and Future of Automated Scoring Essay â€Å"No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be †¦Ã¢â‚¬  – Isaac Asimov (5) Introduction Although some realities of the classroom remain constant –they wouldn’t exist without the presence, whether actual or virtual, of students and teachers –the technology age is changing not only the way that we teach, but also how students learn. While the implications of this affect all disciplines, it is acutely evident in the teaching of writing. In the last twenty years, we have seen a rapid change in how we read, write, and process text. Compositionist Carl Whithaus maintains that â€Å"†¦ writing is becoming an increasingly multimodal and multimedia activity† (xxvi). It is no surprise then, that there are currently 100 million blogs in existence worldwide and 171 billion email messages sent daily (Olson 23), and the trend toward digitally-based writing is also moving into the classroom. The typical student today writes â€Å"almost exclusively on a computer, typically one equipped with automated tools to help them spell, check grammar, and even choose the right words† (Cavanaugh 10). Furthermore, CCC notes that â€Å"[i]ncreasingly, classes and programs in writing require that students compose digitally† (785). Given the effect of technology on writing and the current culture of high stakes testing ushered in by the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a seemingly natural product of the combination of the two is computer-based assessment of writing. An idea still in its infancy, the process of technological change in combination with federal testing mandates has resulted in several states incorporating â€Å"computer-based testing into their writing assessments, †¦ not only because of students’ widespread familiarity with computers, but also because of the demands of college and the workplace, where word-processing skills are a must† (Cavanaugh 10). Although it makes sense to have students accustomed to composing on computer write in the same mode for high-stakes tests, does it make sense to score their writing by computer as well? This is a controversial question that has both supporters and detractors. Supporters like Stan Jones, Indiana’s Commissioner of Higher Education, believe that computerized essay grading is inevitable (Hurwitz n.p.), while detractors, primarily pedagogues, assert that such assessment defies what we know about writing and its assessment, because â€Å"[r]egardless of the medium †¦ all writing is social; accordingly, response to and evaluation of writing are human activities† (CCC 786). Even so, the reality is that the law requires testing nationwide, and in all probability that mandate is not going to change anytime soon. With NCLB up for revision this year, even politicians like Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts agree that standards are a good idea and that testing is one way to ensure that they are met. At some point, we need to pull away from all-or-none polarization and create a new paradigm. The sooner we realize that â€Å"†¦ computer technology will subsume assessment technology in some way† (Penrod 157), the sooner we will be able to address how we, as teachers of writing, can use technology effectively for assessment. In the past, Brian Huot notes that teachers’ responses have been reactionary, â€Å"cobbled together at the last minute in response to an outside call †¦ † (150). Teachers need to be proactive in addressing â€Å"†¦ technological convergence in the composition classroom, [because if we dont], others can will impose certain technologies on our teaching† (Penrod 156). Instead of passively leaving the development of assessment software solely to programmers, teachers need to be actively involved with the process in order to ensure the application of sound pedagogy in its creation and application. This essay will argue that automated essay scoring (AES) is an inevitability that provides many more positive possibilities than negative ones. While the research presented here spans K-16 education, this essay will primarily address its application in secondary environments, primarily focusing on high school juniors, a group currently consisting of approximately 4 million students in the United States, because this group represents the targeted population for secondary school high stakes testing in this country (U.S. Census Bureau). It will first present a brief history of AES, then explore the current state of AES, and finally consider the implications of AES for writing instruction and assessment in the future. A Brief History of Computers and Assessment The first time standardized objective testing in writing occurred was in 1916 at the University of Missouri as part of a Carnegie Foundation sponsored study (Savage 284). As the 20th century continued, these tests began to grow in popularity because of their efficiency and perceived reliability, and are the cornerstone of what Kathleen Blake Yancey describes as the â€Å"first wave† of writing assessment (484). To articulate the progression of composition assessment, Kathleen Blake Yancey identifies three distinct, yet overlapping, waves (483). The first wave, occurring approximately from 1950-1970, primarily focused on using objective (multiple choice) tests to assess writing simply because, as she quotes Michael Williams, they were the best response that could be â€Å"†¦ tied to testing theory, to institutional need, to cost, and ultimately to efficiency† (Yancey 489). During Yancey’s first wave of composition assessment, another wave was forming in the parallel universe of computer software design, where developers began to address the possibilities of not only programming computers to mimic the process of human reading, but † †¦ to emulate the value judgments that human readers make when they read student writing in the context of large scale assessment† (Herrington and Moran 482). Herrington and Moran identify The Analysis of Essays by Computer, a 1968 book by Ellis Page and Dieter Paulus, as one of the first composition studies books to address AES. Their goal was to â€Å"evaluate student writing as reliably as human readers, †¦ [and] they attempted to identify computer-measurable text features that would correlate with the kinds of intrinsic features †¦that are the basis for human judgments †¦, [settling on] thirty quantifiable features, †¦ [which included] essay length in words, average word length, amount and kind of punctuation, number of common words, and number of spelling errors† (Herrington and Moran 482). In their study, they found a high enough statistical correlation, .71, to support the use of the computer to score student writing. The authors note that the response of the composition community in 1968 to Page and Paulus’s book was one of indignation and uproar. In 2007, not much has changed in terms of the composition community’s position regarding computer-based assessment of student writing. To many, it is something that is an unknown, mystifying Orwellian entity waiting in the shadows for the perfect moment to jump out and usurp teachers’ autonomy in the classroom. Nancy Patterson describes computerized writing assessment as â€Å"a horror story that may come sooner than we realize† (56). Furthermore, P.L. Thomas offers the following question and response: â€Å"How can a computer determine accuracy, originality, valuable elaboration, empty language, language maturity, and a long list of similar qualities that are central to assessing writing? Computers can’t. WE must ensure that the human element remains the dominant factor in the assessing of student writing† (29). Herrington and Moran make the issue a central one in the teaching of writing and have â€Å"†¦ serious concerns about the potential effects of machine reading of student writing on our teaching, on our students’ learning, and therefore on the profession of English† (495). Finally, CCC definitively writes, â€Å"We oppose the use of machine-scored writing in the assessment of writing† (789). While the argument against AES is clear here, the responses appear to be based on a lack of understanding of the technology and an unwillingness to change. Instead of taking a reactionary position, it might be more constructive for teachers to assume the inevitability of computerized assessment technology – it is not going away — and to use that assumption as the basis for taking a proactive role in its implementation. The Current Culture of High-Stakes Testing At any given time in the United States, there are approximately 16 million 15-18 year-olds, the majority of whom receive a high school education (U.S. Census). Even when factoring in a maximum of 10 percent (1.6 million) who may drop out or otherwise not receive a diploma, there is a significant amount of students, 14-15 million, who are attending high school. The majority of these students are members of the public school system and as such must be tested annually according to NCLB, though the most significant focus group for high-stakes testing is 11th grade students. Currently in Michigan, 95% of any given public high school’s junior population must sit for the MME, Michigan Merit Exam, in order for the school to qualify for AYP, Adequate Yearly Progress[1]. Interestingly, those students do not all have to pass currently, though by 2014 the government mandates a 100% passing rate, a number that most admit is an impossibility and will probably be addressed as the NCLB Act is up for review this year. In the past, as part of the previous 11th grade examination, the MEAP, Michigan Educational Assessment Program, required students to complete an essay response, which was assessed by a variety of people, mostly college students and retired teachers, for a minimal amount of money, usually in the $7.50 – $10.00 per hour range. As a side note, neighboring Ohio sends its writing test to North Carolina to be scored by workers receiving $9.50 per hour (Patterson 57), a wage that fast food employees make in some states. Because of this, it was consistently difficult for the state to assess these writings in a short period of time, causing huge delays in distributing the results of the exams back to the school districts, posing a huge problem as schools could not use the testing information in order to address educational shortfalls of their students or programs in a timely manner, one of the purposes behind getting prompt feedback. This year (2007), as a result of increased graduation requirements and testing mandates driven by NCLB, the Michigan Department of Education began administering a new examination to 11th graders, the MME, an ACT fueled assessment, as ACT was awarded the testing contract. The MME is comprised of several sections and required most high schools to administer it over a period of 2-3 days. Day one consists of the ACT + Writing, a 3.5 hour test that includes an argumentative essay. Days two/three (depending on district implementation), consist of the ACT WorkKeys, a basic work skills test of math and English, further mathematics testing (to address curricular content not covered by the ACT + Writing), and a social studies test, which incorporates another essay that the state combines with the argumentative essay in the ACT + Writing in order to determine an overall writing score. Miraculously, under the auspices of ACT, students received their ACT + Writing scores in the mail approximately three weeks after testing, unlike the MEAP, where some schools did not receive test scores for six months. In 2005, a MEAP official admitted that the cost of scoring the writing assessment was forcing the state to go another route (Patterson 57), and now it has. So how is this related to automated essay scoring? My hypothesis is that as states are required to test writing as part of NCLB, there is going to be a lack of qualified people to be able to read and assess student essays and determine results within a reasonable amount of time to purposefully inform necessary curricular and instructional change, which is supposed to be the point of testing in the first place. Four million plus essays to evaluate each year (sometimes more if more writing is required, like Michigan requiring two essays) on a national level is a huge amount. Michigan Virtual University’s Jamey Fitzpatrick says, â€Å"Let’s face it. It’s a very labor-intensive task to sit down and read essays† (Stover n.p.). Furthermore, it only makes sense that instead of states working on their own test management, they will contract state-wide testing to larger testing agencies, like Michigan and Illinois have with ACT, to reduce costs and improve efficien cy. Because of the move to contract ACT, my guess is that we are moving in the direction of having all of these writings scored by computer. In email correspondence that I had with Harry Barfoot at Vantage Learning in early 2007, a company that creates and markets AES software, said, â€Å"Ed Roeber has been to visit us and he is the high stakes assessment guru in Michigan, and who was part of the MEAP 11th grade becoming an ACT test, which [Vantage] will end up being part of under the covers of ACT.† This indicates the inevitability of AES as part of high-stakes testing. In spite of the fact that there are no states that rely on computer assessment of writing yet, â€Å"†¦ state education officials are looking at the potential of this technology to limit the need for costly human scorers – and reduce the time needed to grade tests and get them back in the hands of classroom teachers† (Stover n.p.). Because we live in an age where the budget axe frequently cuts funding to public education, it is in the interest of states to save money any way they can, and â€Å"[s]tates stand to save millions o f dollars by adopting computerized writing assessment† (Patterson 56). Although AES is not a reality yet, every indication is that we are moving toward it as a solution to the cost and efficiency issues of standardized testing. Herrington and Moran observe that â€Å"[p]ressures for common assessments across state public K-12 systems and higher education – both for placement and for proficiency testing – make attractive a machine that promises to assess the writing of large numbers of students in a fast and reliable way† (481). To date, one of the two readers (the other is still human) for the GMAT is e-Rater, an AES software program, and some universities are using Vantage’s WritePlacerPlus software in order to place first year university students (Herrington and Moran 480). However, one of the largest obstacles in bringing AES to K-12 is one of access. In order for students’ writing to be assessed electronically, it must be inputted electronically, meaning that every student will have to compose their essays via comp uter. Sean Cavanagh’s article of two months ago maintains that ACT has already suggested delivering computers to districts who do not have sufficient technology in order to accommodate technology differences (10). As of last month, March 2007, Indiana is the only state that relies on computer scoring of 11th grade essays for the state-mandated English examination (Stover n.p.) for 80 percent of their 60,000 11th graders (Associated Press), though their Assistant Superintendent for Assessment, Research, and Information, West Bruce, says that the state’s computer software assigns a confidence rating to each essay, where low confidence essays are referred to a human scorer (Stover n.p.). In addition, in 2005 West Virginia began using an AES program to grade 44,000 middle and high school writing samples from the state’s writing assessment (Stover n.p.). At present, only ten percent of states â€Å"†¦currently incorporate computers into their writing assessments, and two more [are] piloting such exams† (Cavanagh 10). As technology becomes more accessible for all public education students, the possibilities for not only computer-based assessment but also AES become very real. Automated Essay Scoring Weighing the technological possibilities against logistical considerations, however, when might we expect to see full-scale implementation of AES? Semire Dikli, a Ph.D. candidate from Florida State University, writes that â€Å"†¦for practical reasons the transition of large-scale writing assessment from paper to computer delivery will be a gradual one† (2). Similarly, Russell and Haney â€Å"†¦ suspect that it will be some years before schools generally †¦ develop the capacity to administer wide-ranging assessments via computer† (16 of 20). The natural extension of this, then, is that AES cannot happen on a large-scale until we are able to provide conditions that allow each student to compose essays via computer with Internet access to upload files. At issue as well is the reliability of the company contracted to do the assessing. A March 24, 2007 Steven Carter article in The Oregonian reports that access issues resulted in the state of Oregon canceling its contract with Vantage and signing a long-term contract with American Institutes for Research, the long-standing company that does NAEP testing. Even though the state tests only reading, science, and math this way (not writing), it nevertheless indicates that reliable access is an ongoing issue that must be resolved. Presently, there are four commercially available AES systems: Project Essay Grade (Measurement, Inc.), Intelligent Essay Assessor (Pearson), Intellimetric (Vantage), and e-Rater (ETS) (Dikli 5). All of these incorporate the same process in the software, where â€Å"First, the developers identify relevant text features that can be extracted by computer (e.g., the similarity of the words used in an essay to the words used in high-scoring essays, the average word length, the frequency of grammatical errors, the number of words in the response). Next, they create a program to extract those features. Third, they combine the extracted features to form a score. And finally, they evaluate the machine scores empirically,†(Dikli 5). At issue with the programming, however, is that â€Å"[t]he weighting of text features derived by an automated scoring system may not be the same as the one that would result from the judgments of writing experts† (Dikli 6). There is still a significant difference between â€Å"statistically optimal approaches† to measurement and scientific or educational approaches to measurement, where the aspects of writing that students need to focus on to improve their scores â€Å"are not the ones that writing experts most value† (Dikli 6). This is the tension that Diane Penrod addresses in Composition in Convergence that was mentioned earlier, in which she recommends that teachers and compositionists become proactive by getting involved in the creation of the software instead of leaving it exclusively to programmers. And this makes sense. Currently, there are 50-60 features of writing that can be extracted from text, but current programs only use about 8-12 of the most predictive features of writing to determine scores (Powers et. al. 413). Moreover, Thomas writes that â€Å"[c]omposition experts must determine what students learn about writing; if that is left to the programmers and the testing experts, we have failed† (29). If compositionists and teachers can enmesh themselves in the creation of software, working with programmers, then the product would likely be one that is more palatable and suitable based on what we know good writing is. While the aura of mystery behind the creation of AES software is of concern to educators, it could be easily addressed by education and involvement. CCC reasons that â€Å"†¦ since we can not know the criteria by which the computer scores the writing, we can not know whether particular kinds of bias may have been built into the scoring† (4 89). It stands to reason, then, that if we take an active role in the development of the software, we will have more control over issues such as bias. Another point of contention with moving toward computer-based writing and assessment is the concern that high-stakes testing will result in students having a narrow view of good writing, particularly those moving to the college level, where writing skill is expected to be more comprehensive than a prompt-based five-paragraph essay written in 30 minutes. Grand Valley State University’s Nancy Patterson opposes computer scoring of high stakes testing, saying that no computer can evaluate subtle or creative styles of writing nor can they judge the quality of an essay’s intellectual content (Stover n.p.). She also writes that â€Å"†¦standardized writing assessment is already having an adverse effect on the teaching of writing, luring many teachers into more formulaic approaches and an over-emphasis on surface features† (Patterson 57). Again, education is key here, specifically teacher education. Yes, we live in a culture of high-stakes testing, and students must be prepared to write successfully for this genre. But, test-writing is just that, a genre, and should be taught as such – just not to the detriment of the rest of a writing program – something that the authors of Writing of Demand assert when they write: â€Å"We believe it is possible to integrate writing on demand into a plan for teaching based on best practices† (5). AES is not an attack on best practices, but a tool for cost-effective and efficient scoring. Even though Thomas warns against â€Å"the demands of standards and high stakes testing† becoming the entire writing program, we still must realize that computers for composition and assessment can have positive results, and â€Å"[m]any of the roadblocks to more effective writing instruction – the paper load, the time involved in writing instruction and assessmen t, the need to address surface features individually – can be lessened by using computer programs† (29). In addition to pedagogical concerns, skeptics of AES are leery of the companies themselves, particularly the aggressive marketing tactics that are used, particularly those that teachers perceive to be threats not only to their autonomy, but their jobs. To begin, companies aggressively market because we live in a capitalist society and they are out to make money. But, to cite Penrod, â€Å"both computers and assessment are by-products of capitalist thinking applied to education, in that the two reflect speed and efficiency in textual production† (157). This is no different than the first standardized testing experiments by the Carnegie Foundation at the beginning of the 20th Century, and it is definitely nothing new. Furthermore, Herrington and Moran admit that â€Å"computer power has increased exponentially, text- and content- analysis programs have become more plausible as replacements for human readers, and our administrators are now the targets of heavy marketing from com panies that offer to read and evaluate student writing quickly and cheaply† (480). In addition they see a threat in companies marketing programs that â€Å"define the task of reading, evaluating, and responding to student writing not as a complex, demanding, and rewarding aspect of our teaching, but as a ‘burden’ that should be lifted from our shoulders† (480). In response to their first concern, teachers becoming involved in the process of creating assessment software will help to define the task the computers perform. Also, teachers will always read, evaluate, and respond, but probably differently. Not all writing is for high-stakes testing. Secondly, and maybe I’m alone in this (but I think not), but I’d love to have the tedious task of assessing student writing lifted from my plate, especially on sunny weekends when I’m stuck inside for most of the daylight hours assessing student work. To be a dedicated writing teacher does not necessarily involve martyrdom, and if some of the tedious work is removed, it can give us mor e time to actually teach writing. Imagine that! The Future of Automated Essay Scoring On March 14th, 2007, an article appeared in Education Week that says that beginning in 2011, the National Association for Educational Progress will begin conducting the testing of writing for 8th and 12th grade students by having the students compose on computers, a decision unanimously approved as part of their new writing assessment framework. This new assessment will require students to write two 30-minute essays and evaluate students’ ability to write to persuade, to explain, and to convey experience, typically tasks deemed necessary both in school and in the workplace (Olson 23). Currently, NAEP testing is assessed by AIR (mentioned above), and will no doubt incorporate AES for assessing these writings. In response, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Florida State University professor and president-elect of NCTE, said the framework â€Å"Provides for a more rhetorical view of writing, where purpose and audience are at the center of writing tasks,† while also requiring students to write at the keyboard, providing â€Å"a direct link to the kind of composing writers do in college and in the workplace, thus bringing assessment in line with lifelong composing practices† (Olson 23). We are on the cusp of a new era. With the excitement of new possibilities, though, we must remember, as P.L. Thomas reminds us, that while â€Å"technology can be a wonderful thing, it has never been and never will be a panacea† (29). At the same time, we must also discard our tendency to avoid change and embrace the overwhelming possibilities of incorporating computers and technology with writing instruction. Thomas also says that â€Å"[w]riting teachers need to see the inevitability of computer-assisted writing instruction and assessment as a great opportunity. We should work to see that this influx of technology can help increase the time students spend actually composing in our classrooms and increase the amount of writing students produce† (29). Moreover, we must consider that the methods used to program AES software are not very different than the rubrics that classroom teachers use in holistic scoring, something Penrod identifies as having â€Å"numerous subsets and criteria that do indeed divide the students’ work into pieces† (93). I argue that our time is better spent working within the system to ensure that its inevitable changes reflect sound pedagogy, because the trend that we’re seeing is not substantially differently from previous ones. The issue is in how we choose to address it. Instead of eschewing change, we should embrace it and make the most of its possibilities.

Abortion is Morally Wrong Essay -- Abortion Essays

Abortion is the ending of pregnancy before birth and is morally wrong. An abortion results in the death of an embryo or a fetus. Abortion destroys the lives of helpless, innocent children and is illegal in many countries. By aborting these unborn infants, humans are hurting themselves; they are not allowing themselves to meet these new identities and unique personalities. Abortion is very simply wrong. Everyone is raised knowing the difference between right and wrong. Murder is wrong, so why is not abortion? People argue that it is not murder if the child is unborn. Abortion is murder since the fetus being destroyed is living, breathing and moving. Why is it that if an infant is destroyed a month before the birth, there is no problem, but if killed a month after birth, this is inhumane murder? It is morally and strategically foolish, because we lose the middle when we talk about reproductive rights without reference to a larger moral and spiritual dimension, and we are unwilling to use language like transgression and redemption, or right and wrong. -Wolf p54 The main purpose abortions are immoral is how they are so viciously done. Everyday, innocent, harmless foetuses that could soon be laughing children are being brutally destroyed. One form of abortion is to cut the foetus into pieces with serrated forceps before being removed, piece by piece from the uterus by suction with a vacuum aspirator. Another form consists of bringing the foetus feet first into the birth canal, puncturing its skull with a sharp instrument and sucking out the brain tissue. The body parts, such as the head, are given letters, rather than refer to the parts as what they are. In my opinion this is for the doctors who cannot face the reality of what they are doing. The remains of the foetus or embryo, as the case may be, are put into everyday, plastic buckets and then sent to a dumpster where these precious bones and limbs are disposed. However, how and when an abortion takes place are matters of little importance to pro- abortionists and other defenders. Even former abortion practitioners from varying backgrounds and religions have a new view on abortion. These changes of heart were caused by psychological, religious and scientific reasons. One doctor, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, performed 60,000 abortions and supervised 10,000, before scientific evidence and the use of a... ...ou are going to loose.† (Wolf p54) WORKS CITED Alvare, Helen, Wilson, Marle, Wolf, Naomi. â€Å"Abortion: Whose Values? Whose Rights?† Tikkun January-February 1997: pp54-60 Clark, Thomas. â€Å"Thou Shalt Not Play God† The Humanist July-August 1995: p3 Hunt, George W.. â€Å"Of Many Things† America 31 January 1998: p2 Lavelle, Marianne. â€Å"When Abortion Comes Late In Pregnancy, Though Rare, Most Aren’t For Medical Reasons† U.S. News and World Reports 19 January 1998: p31-32 Lefevere, Patricia. â€Å"Ex-abortion Providers; Conversation Tales† National Catholic Reporter 16 January 1998: p6 Merril, Ted. â€Å"Abortion; Extreme Views Ignore Reality† Medical Economics 15 July 1996: p33 McMillan, Jeff. â€Å"Focusing On a Woman’s Right To Self Defense† The Chronicle of Higher Education. 6 December 1996: pA12 â€Å"No Easy Quick Fix Solutions To Abortion Issues† National Catholic Reporter 8 November 1996: p20 â€Å"Reproductive Tract Infections and Abortion Among Adolescent Girls In Rural Nigeria† The Lancet 4 February 1995: p300 Thomas, Judy. â€Å"Pro-life Turns Deadly† Newsweek 26 January 1998: p64 Wallace, Bruce. â€Å"When One Fetus Lives and One Dies† Maclean’s 19 August 1996: pp20-21

Essay --

â€Å"As of 2012, approximately 400,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with MS, with 10,000 new cases being diagnosed each year. Worldwide, MS affects between 1.5 and 2.5 million people.† (Davidson, Fallon, Slomski & Cataldo, 2013, p. 2228). With statistics like this many people have encountered individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The purpose of this report is to describe in detail this disease and how MRI is the modality of choice to diagnose. The Disease MS is an autoimmune disease. This means that the body’s immune system attacks normal tissue. Immune cells attack and obliterate the myelin sheath that surrounds neurons found in the brain and spinal cord. Myelin is an important component of neurons because it acts as an insulator. Myelin sheaths help electric signals travel efficiently from the brain to areas of the body, and â€Å"speeds transmission and prevents electrical activity in one cell from short-circuiting to another cell† (Davidson et al., 2013, p. 2228). MS attacks these myelin sheaths and disrupts the efficiency of that signal. It can be compared to a radio transmission. When myelin is working properly, one can hear a clear broadcast. However, when myelin is attacked and destroyed the transmission is no longer clear. It is jarbbled, hence, it alters and disrupts the message. When myelin is destroyed it turns into scar tissue called a plaque. This plaque will appear as â€Å"small round areas o f gray neurons without the white myelin covering† (Davidson et al., 2013, p. 2228). Causes There is no known reason to explain why the body starts attacking its own myelin sheaths. Though there has been much research, researchers have not been able to pinpoint a trigger. However, through this resear... ...em, because cortical bone does not produce a signal in MRI. This area is often obscured on CT because of the beam hardening artifact. The use of gadolinium better differentiates and increases sensitivity in detecting lesions. Diffusion-weighted imaging also gives MRI the ability to determine the age of lesions or differentiate acute from chronic ischemic changes (Pierce & Dubose, 2012). In conclusion, MS is a disease affecting many individuals. It can shorten the individual’s lifespan, but many treatment options are available to help cope with the symptoms. MRI is an evolving modality as it was just introduced in the 1990s and many advances have been made in the past couple of years. MRI is more sensitive than CT in detecting changes in the white matter of the brain. That is why MRI is the modality of choice to help diagnose a case of Multiple Sclerosis.

CPA REPORT Essay

CPA Report The manager of a large organization has asked the CPA to provide information to outside CPAs examining a subsidiary that has been set up as a corporation. As a part of their review, the outside CPAs want to be provided with the several explanations. The CPAs want to know the methodology used to determine deferred taxes and the procedures for reporting accounting changes and error corrections. The CPAs also want to know the rationale behind establishing the subsidiary as a corporation. Methodology Used to Determine Deferred Taxes The methodology used to determine deferred taxes deals with the basic principles of accounting for income taxes. According to FASB (2013), â€Å"The following basic principles are applied in accounting for income taxes: A current of deferred tax liability or asset is recognized for the current or deferred tax consequences of all events that have been recognized in the financial statements The current of deferred tax consequences of an event are measured by applying the provisions of enacted tax laws to determine the amount of taxes payable or refundable currently or in future years The tax consequences of earning income or incurring losses or expenses in future years or the future enactment of a change in tax laws or rates are not anticipated for purposes of recognition and measurement of a deferred tax liability or asset† (Summary of Statement No. 96). Procedures for Reporting Accounting Changes and Error Corrections SFAS 154 addresses procedures for reporting accounting changes and error corrections. This statement 154 calls for retrospective application for voluntary changes in accounting principles. Through retrospective application, a change in accounting principle is treated by restating comparative financial statements to reflect the new method as though it had  been applied all along. Thus, the company should show any cumulative effect as a retrospective application and an adjustment to the opening retained earnings balance. SFAS also requires retrospective application to be presented with respect to direct effects and related income tax effects of a change in principle. Indirect effects should be reflected in the period of the accounting change (FASB, 2013). Corrections of errors from prior periods are recorded as adjustments to the beginning balance of retained earnings in the current period. The nature of the error should be disclosed as well as the effect on the current and prior periods presented. If an error affects the current or prior periods presented or is expected to affect subsequent periods, the entity must disclose that comparative information has been restated, the effect of the correction by line-item and per-share amounts for all periods presented, and the amount of the adjustment to opening retained earnings (FASB, 2013). Rationale behind Establishing the Subsidiary as a Corporation There several reasons behind establishing a subsidiary as a corporation. One reason is that a corporation maintains a capital stock account, additional paid-in capital accounts, and a retained earnings account. â€Å"Net income or loss becomes part of retained earnings, and dividends are always paid equally to all shareholders of a particular class of stock† (Bline, Fischer, & Skekel, 2004, Chapter 7). Corporations are also able to reacquire some of its own equity interest in the form of treasury stock. Other advantages of establishing a subsidiary as a corporation are Limited Liability. When it comes to taking responsibility for business debts and actions of a corporation, shareholders’ personal assets are protected. Shareholders can generally only be held accountable for their investment in stock of the company. Ability to Generate Capital. Corporations have an advantage when it comes to raising capital for their business – the ability to raise funds through the sale of stock. Corporate Tax Treatment. Corporations file taxes separately from their owners. Owners of a corporation only pay taxes on corporate profits paid to them in the form of salaries, bonuses, and dividends, but any additional profits are awarded a corporate tax rate, which is usually lower than a personal income tax rate.  Attractive to Potential Employees. Corporations are generally able to attract and hire high-quality and motivated employees because they offer competitive benefits and the potential for partial ownership through stock options (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2013). MEMORANDUM TO: Manager FROM: CPA DATE: September 30, 2013 SUBJECT: Professional responsibilities as a CPA In response to the request for more information, the following is a summary of the professional responsibilities of a CPA. This memo will also cover the differences between a review and an audit. CPAs perform an essential role in society, and they are responsible to all those who use their professional services. CPAs have a continuing responsibility to improve the art of accounting, maintain the public’s confidence, and carry out the profession’s special responsibilities for self-governance (The CPA Journal, 2004). CPAs must adhere to the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, which sets forth certain standards of professional conduct. AICPA members are bound by the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. Rule 201 requires that members provide professional services with competency (AICPA, 2013). According to AICPA (2013), â€Å"In the delivery of personal financial planning services, a member shall adhere to the following Principles of Professional Conduct. ET Section 52 – Article I – Responsibilities In carrying out their responsibilities as professionals, members should exercise sensitive professional and moral judgments in all their activities. Section ET 53 – Article II – The Public Interest Members should accept the obligation to act in a way that will serve the public interest, honor the public trust and demonstrate commitment to professionalism. Section ET 54 – Article III – Integrity To maintain and broaden public confidence, members should perform all professional responsibilities with the highest sense of integrity. Section ET 55 – Article IV – Objectivity and Independence A member should maintain objectivity and be free of conflicts of interest in discharging professional responsibilities. A member in public practice should be independent in fact and appearance when providing auditing and other attestation services. Section ET 56 – Article V – Due Care A member should observe the profession’s technical and ethical standards, strive continually to improve competence and the quality of services, and discharge professional responsibility to the best of the member’s ability† (Professional Responsibilities). Review The purpose of a review is to provide limited assurance that financial statements do not have any known errors or departures from the accounting rules found in GAAP. There is usually no testing of information in the financial statements beyond inquiry and analytical review. The CPA will not obtain an understanding of the internal control system or address how the organization is addressing the risk of fraud in the financial statements (Ulvog, 2006). A review involves the CPA performing procedures that will provide a reasonable basis for obtaining limited assurance that there are no material modifications that should be made to the financial statements for them to be in conformity with the applicable financial reporting framework. A review does not contemplate obtaining an understanding of the entity’s internal control; assessing fraud risk; testing accounting records; or other  procedures ordinarily performed in an audit (Barfield, Murphy, Shank & Smith LLC, 2013). Audit The purpose of an audit is to provide reasonable assurance that financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with GAAP. In an audit, the CPA will gain an understanding of internal controls, evaluate the risk of major fraud, test the places where there is a significant risk of major fraud, and perform testing where necessary for the significant components of the financial statements (Ulvog, 2006). The auditor is required to corroborate the amounts and disclosures included in the financial statements by obtaining audit evidence through inquiry, physical inspection, observation, third-party confirmations, examination, analytical procedures, and other procedures (Barfield, Murphy, Shank & Smith LLC, 2013). An audit provides more assurance to a reader of the financial statements than a review. References AICPA. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.aicpa.org/INTERESTAREAS/PERSONALFINANCIALPLANNING/RESOURCES/PRACTICECENTER/PROFESSIONALRESPONSIBILITIES/Pages/ProfessionalResponsibilities.aspx Barfield, Murphy, Shank & Smith LLC. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.bmss.com/news-story.php?cn=172 Bline, D., Fischer, M., & Skekel, T. (2004). Advanced Accounting. Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database FASB. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.fasb.org/summary/stsum96.shtml The CPA Journal. (2004). Retrieved from http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2004/104/text/p80.htm Ulvog, J.L. (2006). Ulvog CPA. Retrieved from http://ulvogcpa.com/Audit_or_Review.html U.S. Small Business Administration. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.sba.gov/content/corporation

Essay on The Stop, Question, and Frisk

Essay on The Stop, Question, and Frisk Essay on The Stop, Question, and Frisk Essay on The Stop, Question, and FriskThe issue regarding the Stop, Question, and Frisk program has been wildly discussed in academic literature and the mass media sources. The Stop, Question, and Frisk practiced in New York City by the City Police Department stands for the legal procedure, which requires stop and question thousands of people, as well as frisk them for weapons, drugs and other contraband. In fact, the Stop, Question, and Frisk practices are based on the established laws and regulations that can be found in the Section 140.50 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law. According to statistical data regarding stop, question and frisk practices, in 2011, 684,330 people were stopped, the majority of them were African-Americans or Latinos (Devereaux, 2012). In this paper, the controversial issues about the Stop, Question, and Frisk practices will be investigated. It is hypothesized that the Stop, Question, and Frisk program fosters racial profiling and leads to discrim ination toward African Americans and Latinos. The following eleven literature reviews attempt to demonstrate the hypothesis and provide comprehensive support for it.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the newspaper article by Ryan Devereaux (2012), several important questions were discussed in relation to the Stop, Question, and Frisk practices. It has been found that in 2011, 684,330 people were stopped, and the majority of them were African-Americans or Latinos (Devereaux, 2012). This fact means the overwhelming majority of people stopped by the police were the people of color. Besides, the Stop, Question, and Frisk practices foster distrust toward the police in African American and Latino communities. Many young people have the sense of fear caused by the police stop-and-frisks.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the article by Michael M. Grynbaum and Marjorie Connelly, the New York’s stop, question, and frisk policy has been criticized because it a llows the police to detain any person they find suspicious. Although that policy has been put in practice in order to succeed in combating violent crimes, today there is much evidence that it promotes racial profiling. It has been found that â€Å"a significant majority of New Yorkers say the Police Department favors whites over blacks, according to a new poll by The New York Times† (Grynbaum Connelly, 2012, p.1).  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another researcher and journalist, Joseph Goldsteinsept supports the position of the previous authors. He has found that in eastern Brooklyn, many young people try to avoid clasping hands when greeting each other in the street because they are â€Å"fearful that their grasp might be mistaken for a drug deal and invite a search by the police† (Goldsteinsept, 2014, p.1).  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the study conducted by David Weisburd and colleagues (2014), special attention is paid to the role of policing practices in the New York crime decline. The researchers highlight the impact of innovations implemented in the New York police strategies. It has been found that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has contributed to the crime drop in the area over the last years. They examined the data on crime and stop, question and frisks policy implementation in order to prove the fact that the stop, question and frisks practices are â€Å"concentrated at crime hot spots† (Weisburd et al., 2014, p. 129). The researchers raise concerns regarding possible negative effects of the stop, question and frisks practices.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the article by David A. Harris (1995), the cases of the stop, question and frisks allow the police to conduct searches and seizures in the streets, making the police officers act without any probable cause. This article shows that the policy requires balancing the interests of the police and private interests.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the study conducted by Andrew Gelmana and colleagues (2007), there is much evidence that the â€Å"police stop persons of racial and ethnic minority groups more often than whites relative to their proportions in the population† (p. 813). Researchers support the ideas of previous authors that persons of African and Hispanic descent face discrimination as they are stopped, questioned and frisked more frequently than white people.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One more article that criticizes the stop, question and frisks policy is the article by Christopher Mathias. A report on NYPD stop, question and frisks policy calls for a comprehensive internal audit. One of the benefits is the â€Å"the effectiveness of stop and frisk† in the prevention of carrying guns on the street (Mathias, 2012). However, the author states that there are more weaknesses than strengths of this policy. People who face these practices point o ut to the fact that â€Å"many stops are unconstitutional† (Mathias, 2012, p. 1). This fact means that many stops lack the proper justification. Innocent people suffer from injustices and violation of human rights.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   At the same time, there are many proponents of the stop, question and frisks policy. The article written by Joseph Ferrandino (2010) provides a comprehensive analysis of the policy, placing emphasis on the benefits of the stop, question and frisks practices. The analysis of New York Police Department (NYPD) stop and frisk practices has been focused on its equity and effectiveness, including technical efficiency. This research reflects the police efficiency, setting the foundation for future investigation of the existing models as well as the outcomes resulting from frisks.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the article by Jeffrey Fagan and colleagues (2011), the discussion of the positive and negative conseque nces of New York City’s modern policing strategies helps to assess the necessity of making an analysis of stop and frisk. The researchers states that stop, question and frisk practice was an â€Å"essential feature, perhaps the most important and active ingredient, in the regime of Order Maintenance Policing (OMP) that began in New York City in 1994† (Fagan, 2011, p. 1). In fact, the research is based on highlighting the fairness of the practice as the central motive of the reactions of people from different ethnic backgrounds, including Whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics to experiences with the police. It has been found that all people want the police to act fairly in relation to minorities.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Besides, in the article by Kevin Buckler and George E. Higgins (2014), special attention is paid to the existing perceived injustice and crime policy preference. The aggressiveness of the policy influence racial and ethnic differen ces in perceptions of residents, but the stop-and-frisk practices are effective at â€Å"reducing violent crime and gun offenses† (Buckler Higgins, 2014, p. 22). The research provides an analysis of the key findings, which contribute to the implementation of the policy in the future. Moreover, the implications for future research are discussed.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Finally, in Fallon’s article, the stop, question and frisk policy is assessed as effective, although it challenges constitutional rights mentioned in the Fourth Amendment. There is a necessity to update the policy in some way, adding the force of law and limiting the ability of the police officers to make adequate policy decisions, without discrimination (Fallon, 2013).  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, it is necessary to conclude that the issue regarding the Stop, Question, and Frisk program remains a controversial issue, although the literature reviews provided in th is paper point out many positive effects of the policy on society in general and each citizen in particular.

The Vb.Net Sender and e Event Parameters

The Vb.Net Sender and e Event Parameters In VB6, an event subroutine, like Button1_Click, was much less complicated because the system called the subroutine strictly by name. If a Button1_Click event existed, the system called it. Its direct and straightforward. But in VB.NET, there are two major upgrades that make VB.NET SOOPercharged (thats OOP for Object Oriented Programming). The Handles clause controls whether the system calls the subroutine, not the name.The sender and e parameters are passed to the subroutine. Use of Parameters Lets look at a simple example to see the difference that parameters make in VB.NET. Private Sub Button1_Click( ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs ) Handles Button1.Click Your code goes hereEnd Sub Event subroutines always receive a sender object and a system EventArgs parameter e. Because the EventArgs parameter is an object, it supports whatever properties and methods are necessary. For example, the old VB6 MouseMove event subroutine used to receive four parameters: Button As IntegerShift As IntegerX As SingleY As Single When more advanced mice came out with more buttons, VB6 had a real problem supporting them. VB.NET only passes one MouseEventArgs parameter but it supports a lot more properties and methods. And each of them are objects that support even more. For example, the e.Button property contains all these properties: LeftMiddleRightNoneXButton1XButton2 If someone invents a trancendental mouse with a virtual button, VB.NET will only have to update the .NET Framework to support it and no previous code will break as a result. There are a number of .NET technologies that absolutely depend on these parameters. For example, since your PC usually only has a single screen to display graphics, your code has to merge the graphics it creates into the same image used by Windows. For that reason, a single graphics object has to be shared. The major way that your code is able to use that graphics object is to use the e parameter that is passed to the OnPaint event with the PaintEventArgs object. Protected Overrides Sub OnPaint( ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Dim g As Graphics e.Graphics Other Examples What else can you do with these parameters? To illustrate, suppose you want to find whether a string, perhaps something you entered into a Textbox, exists in any one of a collection of other Textboxes when you click on one. You could code a few dozen virtually identical subroutines for each Textbox: If TextBox42.Text.IndexOf( SearchString.Text) -1 Then NotFound.Text Not Found But its a lot easier to code just one and let it handle all of them. The sender parameter will reveal which Textbox was clicked. Private Sub FindIt( ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs ) Handles TextBox1.Enter, TextBox2.Enter, . . . and on and on . . . TextBox42.Enter Dim myTextbox As TextBox myTextbox sender Dim IndexChar As Integer myTextbox.Text.IndexOf( SearchString.Text) If IndexChar -1 Then _ NotFound.Text Not Found _ Else _ NotFound.Text Found It! End Sub Recently, a programmer asked me for a better way to delete the line that was clicked in any of six specified lists. He had it working in a couple of dozen lines of code that simply confused me. But using sender, it was really quite simple: Private Sub ListBox_Click( ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs ) Handles ListBox1.Click, ListBox2.Click Dim myListBox As New ListBox myListBox sender myListBox.Items.RemoveAt(myListBox.SelectedIndex)End Sub One more example to nail down the point is a question that was sent in by Pierre in Belgium. Pierre was testing the equality of Button1 and sender using the Is operator for objects: If sender Is Button1 Then ... This is syntactically correct because sender and Button1 are both objects that can be referenced. And since sender really is identical with Button1, why doesnt it work? The answer depends on a keyword that is found a little earlier in the statement. First, lets check the Microsoft documentation for the Is operator. Visual Basic compares two object reference variables with the Is Operator. This operator determines if two reference variables refer to the same object instance. Notice that sender is passed ByVal. That means that a copy of Button1 is passed, not the actual object itself. So when Pierre tests to see if sender and Button1 are the same instance, the result is False. To test whether Button1 or Button2 has been clicked, you have to turn sender into an actual Button object and then test a property of that object. Text is usually used, but you could test a value in Tag or even the Location property. This code works: Dim myButton As ButtonmyButton senderIf myButton.Text Button1 Then

How to Get 36 on ACT English 10 Strategies From a Perfect Scorer

How to Get 36 on ACT English 10 Strategies From a Perfect Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you scoring in the 26–34 range on ACT English? Do you want to raise that score as high as possible- to a perfect 36? Getting to a 36 ACT English score isn't easy. It'll require near perfection and mastery of both grammar rules and rhetorical skills. But with hard work and my ACT English strategies below, you'll be able to do it. I've consistently scored 36 on English on my real ACTs, and I know what it takes. Follow my advice, and you'll get a perfect score- or get very close. Brief note: This article is suited for students already scoring a 26 on ACT English or above. If you're below this range, my "How to Improve your ACT English Score to a 26" article is more appropriate for you. Follow the advice in that article, then come back to this one when you've reached a 26. Overview Most guides on the internet on how to get a 36 on ACT English are of pretty bad quality. They're often written by people who never scored a 36 themselves. You can tell because their advice is usually vague and not very pragmatic. In contrast, I've written what I believe to be the best guide on getting a 36 available anywhere. I have confidence that these strategies work because I used them myself to score a perfect ACT English score consistently. They've also worked for thousands of my students at PrepScholar. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring a 36 is a good idea and what it takes to score a 36. Then I'll go into the 10 critical ACT English strategies you need to get a perfect ACT English score. Stick with me- as an advanced student, you probably already know that scoring high is good. But it's important to know why a 36 English score is useful, since this will fuel your motivation to get a high score. In this guide, I'm going to talk about doing well on ACT English, rather than about raising your combined English/Language Arts score. The reason is that schools typically care much more about your ACT composite score rather than your subscores and ELA score. However, I'll still touch upon how to raise your essay score at the end. Final note: In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to a 36. But if your goal is a 34, these strategies still equally apply. Understand the Stakes: Why a 36 ACT English? Let's make something clear: for all intents and purposes, a 34 on an ACT is equivalent to a perfect 36. No top college is going to give you more credit for a 36 than a 34. You've already crossed their score threshold, and whether you get in now depends on the rest of your application. So if you're already scoring a 34, don't waste your time studying trying to get a 36. You're already set for the top colleges, and it's time to work on the rest of your application. But if you're scoring a 33 or below AND you want to go to a top 10 college, it's worth your time to push your score up to a 34 or above. There's a big difference between a 32 and a 34, largely because it's easy to get a 32 (and a lot more applicants do) and a lot harder to get a 34. A 33 places you right around average at Harvard and Princeton, and being average is bad in terms of admissions, since the admissions rate is typically below 10%. So why get a 36 on ACT English? Because it helps you compensate for weaknesses in other sections. By and large, schools consider your ACT composite score more than your individual section scores. If you can get a 36 in ACT English, that gives you more flexibility in your Math, Reading, and Science scores. It can compensate for a 32 in one other section, for example, and bring your average back up to 34. Princeton's 75th percentile score for ACT English is likely 36. Even though schools don't typically release their ACT scores by section, they do release SAT section scores. As a stand-in for ACT English, we can take a look at SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores at top schools. (I know ACT English and SAT EBRW don't totally overlap, but you do need to be good at reading and writing to score highly on ACT English.) Here are a few examples. For Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth, the 75th percentile SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score is an 800 or 790. That means at least 25% of all students at these schools have a 790 in SAT EBRW, or a 36 on ACT English. But if you can work your way to a 36, you show that you're at an equal level (at least on this metric). Even if it takes you a ton of work, all that matters is the score you achieve at the end. Know That You Can Do It This isn't just some fuzzy feel-good message you see on the back of a milk carton. I mean, literally, you and every other reasonably intelligent student can score a 36 on ACT English. The reason most people don't is they don't try hard enough or they don't study the right way. Even if language isn't your strongest suit, or you got a B+ in AP English, you're capable of this. Because I know that more than anything else, your ACT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. ACT English Is Designed to Trick You - You Need to Learn How Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? You've learned grammar before in school. You know some basic grammar rules. But the ACT questions just seem so much weirder. It's purposely designed this way. The ACT can't test difficult concepts, because this would be unfair for students who never took AP English. It can't ask you to decompose Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The ACT is a national test, which means it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. So it has to test concepts that all high school students will cover, like subject-verb agreement, run-on sentences, pronoun choice, etc. You've learned all of this throughout school. But the ACT still has to make the test difficult, so it needs to test these concepts in strange ways. This trips up students who don't prepare, but it rewards students who understand the test well. Tricky ACT English Example Question Here's an example: find the grammar error in this sentence: The commissioner, along with his 20 staff members, run a tight campaign against the incumbent. This is a classic ACT English problem. The error is in subject/verb agreement. The subject of the sentence is commissioner, which is singular. The verb is "run," but because the subject is singular, it should really be "runs." At your level, you probably saw the error. But if you didn't, you fell for a classic ACT English trap. It purposely confused you with the interrupting phrase, "along with his 20 staff members." You're now picturing 20 people in a campaign- which suggests a plural verb! The ACT English section is full of examples like this, and they get trickier. Nearly every grammar rule is tested in specific ways, and if you don't prepare for these, you're going to do a lot worse than you should. Here's the good news: this might have been confusing the first time, but the next time you see a question like this, you'll know exactly what to do: find the subject and the verb, and get rid of the interrupting phrase. So to improve your ACT English score, you just need to: Learn the grammar rules that the ACT tests. Study how the ACT tests these grammar rules and learn how to detect which grammar rule you need in a question. Practice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakes. I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, let's see how many questions you need to get right to get a perfect score. What It Takes to Get a 36 in English If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you need to get that score on the actual test. As you probably know, writing combines your raw score on the multiple choice section with your essay score to give your final English score out of 36. Here's a sample raw score to ACT English Score conversion table. (If you could use a refresher on how the ACT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this.) Scaled Score English Raw Score 36 75 35 72–74 34 71 33 70 32 68–69 31 67 30 66 29 65 28 63–64 27 62 Source: ACT In this grading scale, you can earn a 36 only if you get a perfect raw score of 75. In fact, I've never seen a grading scale where you can earn a 36 after missing one question. The curve is also typically quite unforgiving. If you miss one question, you drop down to a 35. Miss two, and sometimes you drop down to a 34. Thus, perfection is really important for ACT English. On every practice test, you need to aim for a perfect raw score for a 36. It's pretty clear then that you need to try to answer every question. You can't guess on too many questions and get a 36, which means you need to get to a level of mastery where you're confident answering each question. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to a 36. For example, if you're scoring a 30 now, you need to answer nine more questions right to get to a 36. As a final example, here's a screenshot from my ACT test, showing that I scored a perfect raw score and a 36 on ACT English. OK- so we've covered why scoring a higher English score is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Now we'll get into the meat of the article: actionable strategies that you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. Strategies to Get a 36 on ACT English What's your greatest weakness? Strategy 1: Understand Your High Level Weakness - Content or Time Management? Every student has different flaws in ACT English. Some people aren't comfortable with the underlying grammarmaterial. Others know the grammar ruleswell, but can't solve questions quickly enough in the harsh time limit. (As we'll discuss, the ACT English section applies VERY heavy time pressure. So you likely do suffer from some time pressure- we're trying to figure out how much) Here's how you can figure out which one applies more to you: Take only the Englishsection of a practice test. We have the complete list of free practice tests here. For that section, use a timer for 45 minutes. Treat it like a real test. If time runs out and you're not done yet, keep working for as long as you need. But starting now, for every new answer or answer that you change, mark it with a special note as "Extra Time." Grade your test using the answer key and score chart, but we want two scores: 1) The Realistic score you got under normal timing conditions, 2) The Extra Time score. This is why you marked the questions you answered or changed during Extra Time. Get what we're doing here? By marking which questions you did under Extra Time, we can figure out what score you got if you were given all the time you needed. This will help us figure out where your weaknesses lie. If you didn't take any extra time, then your Extra Time score is the same as your Realistic score. Here's a flowchart to help you figure this out: Was your Extra Time score a 32 or above? If NO (Extra Time score 32), then you have remaining content weaknesses. You might have weaknesses across a range of subjects, or a deep weakness in only a few subjects. (We'll cover this later). Your first plan of attack should be to develop more comfort with all ACT English subjects. If YES (Extra Time score 32), then: Was your Realistic score a 32 or above? If NO (Extra Time score 32, Realistic 32), then that means you have a difference between your Extra Time score and your Realistic score. If this difference is more than two points, then you have some big problems with time management. We need to figure out why this is. Are you generally slow at Englishacross most questions? Or did particular passages or types of questionsslow you down? Generally, doing a lot of practice questions and learning the most efficient solutions will help reduce your time. More on this later. If YES (both Extra Time and Realistic scores 32), then you have a really good shot at getting a 36. Compare your Extra Time and Realistic score- if they differed by more than one point, then you would benefit from learning how to answer questionsmore quickly. If not, then you likely can benefit from shoring up on your last content weaknesses and avoiding careless mistakes (more on this strategy later). Hopefully that makes sense. Typically I see that students have both timing and content issues, but you might find that one is much more dominant for you than the other. For example, if you can get a 36 with extra time, but score a 32 in regular time, you know exactly that you need to work on time management to get a 36. Strategy 2: Comprehensively Learn the Grammar Rules There's just no way around it. You need to know all the grammar rules tested on the test and how they work. In addition, you'll also need to know rhetorical skills that test you in your writing logic. You'll be asked to decide how to organize sentences and paragraphs together. Certain grammar rules, like punctuation, appear far more often than other rules. But because we're going for perfection, you'll need to know even the less common rules. In our PrepScholar program, we've identified the following as the grammar and rhetorical skills you need to know: Grammar Rules Punctuation: Commas, Apostrophes, Semicolons, Dashes Number Agreement: Subject/Verb Agreement, Pronoun Number Agreement Idioms and Wrong Word (Examples: affect/effect, neither...nor, there/their/they're) Parallel Construction Verb Forms: Tense, Conjugation Conciseness: Eliminating waste from sentence phrasings Sentence Fragments, Run-on Sentences Pronouns: Pronoun Choice, Pronoun Case Faulty Modifier Comparison/Description Rhetorical Skills Macro Logic: How sentences and paragraphs fit together Transitional Logic: How to connect different thoughts together Relevance: Determine whether a sentence is extraneous or fits in Author Intent: Understand the point of the author and writing techniques Formality and Tone There are a lot of rules, but they differ from each other in how commonly they appear on the test, and how hard they are to study. For example, Punctuation is the most common grammar rule on ACT English, but it only uses a few separate concepts. The Idioms skill is also very common, but it uses a wide range of idioms, such that each unique idiom appears no more than once on each test. It's therefore important for you to focus your time on studying the highest impact grammar rules. Our PrepScholar program, for example, quizzes you in relation to how common each grammar rule is, so that you focus your efforts on the rules that make the biggest difference to your score. Strategy 3: Do a Ton of Practice and Understand Every Single Mistake On the path to perfection, you need to make sure every single one of your weak points is covered. Even one mistake on all of ACT English will knock you down from a 36. The first step is simply to do a ton of practice. If you're studying from free materials or from books, you have access to a lot of practice questions in bulk. As part of our PrepScholar program, we have over 1,200 ACT questions customized to each skill. The second step- and the more important part- is to be ruthless about understanding your mistakes. Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason.If you don't understand exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. I've seen students who completed 15 practice tests. They've solved over 3,000 questions, but they're still nowhere near a 36 on ACT English. Why? They never understood their mistakes. They just hit their heads against the wall over and over again. Think of yourself as an exterminator, and your mistakes are cockroaches. You need to eliminate every single one- and find the source of each one- or else the restaurant you work for will be shut down. Here'swhat you need to do: On every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question that you're even 20% unsure about When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by grammar skill (eg Number Agreement, Idioms, Sentence Fragments) It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Always Go Deeper- WHY Did You Miss an English Question? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't get this question right." That's a cop out. Always take it one step further- what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Take the Subject/Verb Agreement example I gave above (with the Interrupting Phrase trick). You likely already know how Subject/Verb Agreement works. But if you missed that question, you'd need to think about why you missed it (because the interrupting phrase made you confuse the subject and verb). Then you need to write down a strategy for noticing this in the future. Here are some examples of common reasons you miss an English question, and how you take the analysis one step further: Content:I didn't learn the grammar rule needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific rule do I need to learn, and what resources will I use to learn this grammar rule? Overlooked Rule:I knew the grammar rule, but the ACT question was written in a way that made me miss it. One step further:How do I solve the question now? Is there a strategy I can use to notice this grammar rule in the future? Careless Error:I knew the grammar rule and normally would get this right, but I slipped up for some reason. One step further:Why did I make this careless mistake? Was I rushing? Did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing questions. Yes, this is hard, and it's draining, and it takes work. That's why most students who study ineffectively don't improve. But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll improve more than other students too. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACT prep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty ACT skills. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. We also force you to focus on understanding your mistakes and learning from them. If you make the same mistake over and over again, we'll call you out on it. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Strategy 4: Justify Every Answer and Point Out Specific Grammar Errors Many top students take a "soft approach" to ACT English. They learn the grammar rules when studying, but on the test they go "by ear": if a sentence sounds off, they'll assume it's wrong without thinking too hard about why. When you've mastered grammar rules, this can serve you well. For example, if I said, "The bee fly to the hive," you'd know this was wrong instantly- it just feels wrong. You know simple subject/verb agreement so well that you can tell something is wrong before you can articulate what exactly it is. However, most students never get to this level of familiarity with all ACT grammar rules. This makes trusting your ear unreliable for many rules. This is especially true for wrong word choice, like "Its a good day to be an American." Because "its" sounds the same as "it's," your ear is of no help here! What's the strategy to counter this? Point out the specific error, and justify it to yourself. Let's run through an example. This is a grammar question that needs only one line from the passage to answer: Here's what I'm thinking as I read the question (a stream of consciousness): " 'The Sun sets gradually the images of a winged horse'...this doesn't seem right. I know 'sets' can take an object, like 'Tom sets the bowl down slowly,' but the Sun can't set anything down, and especially not images of a winged horse. This has got to be a run-on sentence, but let me keep reading. 'the images of a winged horse, a drinking gourd, a heartbroken hero appear in lights overhead.' Yep- the second part of this sentence is an independent clause, and it's a run-on because it's improperly connected to the first clause, 'The Sun sets gradually.' So I need an answer choice that fixes this:" F: no change, which is wrong G: this has a comma splice error- you can't connect two independent clauses with just a comma. H: this looks good. It joins two independent clauses properly- with a comma and a conjunction ('and'). J: 'The Sun setting gradually' is now a dependent clause, but to join a dependent clause with an independent clause, you need a comma that's missing here. For example, 'The Sun setting gradually, we drove down the highway.' would be correct. Thus answer J is wrong. Now, I'm not literally thinking all these words in my head, but it matches my thinking process as I go through the question and evaluate each answer choice. You can see how I first identified the run-on sentence error in the original sentence. That made it very clear to me how I could find an answer choice that fixed this error. As you learn the different grammar skills and how they appear on the test, you'll start evaluating answer choices for common ways that the ACT tries to trick you. Is a verb underlined? I'm going to check the subject to see if it follows subject/verb agreement. Then I'll check the verb tense. Is a pronoun underlined? I'm going to check the antecedent to see if it matches. Does an underline come right after a comma? I'm going to check if there's a faulty modifier error. I can justify every one of my answers because I know the grammar rules. This makes my answering more robust, not just based on whether something 'feels' right or wrong. Note as well that in these questions, the ACT often fixes the original error in an answer choice- but then introduces another error. You need to make sure the answer you choose is 100% correct, in terms of both grammar and logic. Don't be intimidated if you can't do this right now. With practice and reflection, you will get to this point. Once again, it's like "the bee fly to the hive." You want to get to a point where all ACT grammar rules automatically sound as wrong as that sentence. Find patterns to your mistakes, and make sense of the chaos. Strategy 5: Find Patterns to Your Weaknesses and Drill Them Remember Strategy 3 above about keeping a list of every mistake? You need to take this even one step further. If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in ACT English than others. You might know pronouns really well, but you'll be weak in sentence constructions and fragments. Or maybe you really like parallel construction, but have no idea what faulty modifiers are. This is especially true in grammar and ACT English, because some grammar mistakes likely sound obvious to you, but others are completely foreign. If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of schoolwork, you might be an athlete or have intense extracurriculars, and you have friends to hang out with. This means for every hour you study for the ACT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible. In concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the 'dumb' way. They just buy a book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're shocked. I'm not. Studying effectively for the ACT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover your bases with a very thin layer of understanding. What these students did wrong was they wasted time on subjects they already knew well, and they didn't spend enough time improving their weak spots. Instead, studying effectively for the ACT is like plugging up the holes of a leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole, and fill it. Then you find the next biggest hole, and you fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to ACT English? In this analogy, your knowledge of English grammar is the leaky boat, and the holes are the gaps in your knowledge. You need to find the grammar rules you're struggling with the most, then do enough practice questions until they're no longer a weakness. For every question that you miss, you need to identify the type of question it is and why you missed it. Once you discover patterns to the questions you miss, you then need to find extra practice for this grammar rule. Let's say you analyze your past practice tests and questions and find that you're missing a lot of misplaced modifier questions. After you identify this pattern, the next step is to find good lesson material to teach yourself the main concepts behind what misplaced modifiers are and how to fix or avoid them. You'll also need to find more practice questions that test you on misplaced modifiers and drill until you're making few, if any, mistakes. This is the best way for you to improve your English score. Once again, this is exactly how I designed our PrepScholar online ACT prep program to work. It automatically figures out your greatest weaknesses so you don't have to. We use advanced statistics with data from our thousands of students. With PrepScholar, you don't need to worry about what to study- you just need to focus on learning. Because it's worked for thousands of students, I'm pretty sure it'll work for you too. Click here to learn more. Strategy 6: Be Careful With "No Change" Answers In ACT English, most questions have a NO CHANGE option. The ACT loves tricking students using these answer choices, because it knows that students who don't know grammar rules won't see anything wrong with the sentence. No Change is a really easy answer to choose. No changes are one of the most common careless mistakes- make sure you don't fall for them. Be very careful whenever you choose one of these No Change answer choices. Typically, these are correct answers around 25% of the time- not much more. (We actually went through and counted this in real tests). If you find that you're choosing No Change 40% of the time, you're definitely not detecting grammar errors well enough. Every time you choose No Change, try to double-check the other answer choices to make sure you're not missing a grammar error. Especially take note of grammar rules that you tend to ignore mistakenly. Like I mentioned in Strategy 2 above, if you write down your mistakes and study your weaknesses, you'll be able to know which grammar rules you're weak at, and pay special attention to. Personally, this was my most common careless mistake on ACT English. When I could see the error, I got the question correct nearly 100% of the time. The only times I missed questions were when I accidentally ignored an error. I solved this by double-checking each of the answer choices to make sure I wasn't leaving any stone unturned. Strategy 7: Think About Grammar in Everyday Life Among all subjects, English on the ACT is special because it appears in your everyday life. For school, you have to read a lot and you have to write a lot. Use these experiences as opportunities to notice grammar rules and sentence constructions. This is unique to ACT English. ACT Math is so bizarre compared to everyday life that you won't just naturally find ways to apply the Pythagorean theorem at breakfast. ACT Reading and Science similarly require very specific skills when reading a passage or chart. But you can practice your grammar skills throughout the day. Here are some ideas: Proofread your friends' essays. Challenge yourself to uncover every grammatical error. Read high quality, formal publications, like the New York Times or the Economist. These articles go through editors, so they rarely have grammar errors. You'll develop that ear for language I mentioned. Notice common errors around you. A lot of people comma splice, for example. Hold yourself to a higher standard in texting and messaging. (I know this isn't that cool- you don't have to capitalize every sentence and use periods, but at least use its/it's and their/there/they're correctly.) The more you think about grammar as a fundamental skill rather than something specialized for ACT, the more natural it will feel to you. Strategy 8: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check Your goal at the end of all this work is to get so good at ACT English that you solve every question and have extra time left over at the end of the section to recheck your work. In high school and even now, I can finish a 45 minute English section in 30 minutes or less. I then have 15 minutes left over to recheck my answers two times over. As I've explained above, the best way to get faster is to get so fluent with ACT grammar that you rapidly zero in on the grammar mistakes without having to think hard about it. Try to aim for a target of spending 40 seconds on average for each question. This gives you enough time to double-check comfortably. What's the best way to double-check your work? I have a reliable method that I follow: Double-check any questions you marked that you're unsure of. Try hard to eliminate those answer choices. If it's a No Change question, double-check that you're not missing any grammar mistakes. If I'm 100% sure I'm right on a question, I mark it as such and never look at it again. If I'm not sure, I'll come back to it on the third pass. At least two minutes before time's up, I rapidly double-check that I bubbled the answers correctly. I try to do this all at once so as not to waste time looking back and forth between the test book and the answer sheet. Go five at a time ("A G C F B") for more speed. If you notice yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a problem and aren't clear how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the next question. Even though you need a perfect raw score for a 36, don't be afraid to skip. You can come back to it later, and for now it's more important to get as many points as possible. Quick Tip: Bubbling Answers Here's a bubbling tip that will save you two minutes per section. When I first started test taking in high school, I did what many students do: after I finished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and filled it in. Then I solved the next question. Finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question 2, bubble in answer 2. And so forth. This actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct tasks- solving questions, and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to different areas of the test. Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, then bubble all of them in at once. This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You also eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot. By saving just four seconds per question, you get back 300 seconds on a section that has 75 questions. This is huge. Note: If you use this strategy, you should already be finishing the section with ample extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of time before you have the chance to bubble in the answer choices all at once. Strategy 9: Read the Whole Sentence Most of the questions ACT English ask you the underlined part of a sentence should be changed. When you answer these questions, don't just read the underlined portion. To correctly answer the questions, you must read the whole sentence (or sentences, if the underlined section overlaps across two different sentences). Phrases not included in the underlined portion of the sentence often provide information that's essential for deciding whether or not the underlined portion should be changed. Let's go through another example from the ACT to see this strategy in action. If you only read the underlined word, you probably won't think there's anything wrong with it. "Consecutively" is an adverb modifying the verb "to speak"- nothing to change there. When you read the whole sentence, however, you're able to notice that because of the phrase "for twelve hours straight", "consecutively" is redundant. In the context of the full sentence, consecutively means "without stopping," and the phrase "for twelve hours straight" implies that she could speak that long without stopping. Therefore, the word "consecutively" is unnecessary and should be omitted. If you didn't read the whole sentence, you might not notice the redundancy error and would most likely select A. However, since the word "consecutively" is unnecessary, the correct answer is D. In addition, certain types of questions on the ACT require reading not just the sentence with the underlined section, but sentences before and after it as well. For example, you need the context provided by multiple sentences to answer some verb tense and paragraph order questions as well. Strategy 10: Experiment with Passage Strategies and Find the Best One for You The format of ACT English is unlike any high school English test most students have seen before. As a result, many students don't intuitively know which method of approaching the passages will be the most effective for them. Because you're already scoring at a high level, I can't say with 100% accuracy which approach will work best for you. You're aiming for a perfect English score, which means that if your strategy doesn't perfectly line up with your strengths and weaknesses, you'll make mistakes or run out of time. Rather than prescribing you one strategy that you must use for ACT English passages, then, I'll instead go through what ways of approaching the passage are the most effective. You can then try the different strategies out and see which one leads to the highest score for you. Passage Method 1: Graf-by-Graf Though every student is different, this is the one strategy that we recommend everyone at least tries. Here it is: Read through the passage one paragraph at a time. After each paragraph, answer the questions referring to that paragraph. Skip if you can't answer a question within 30 seconds. Repeat for each succeeding paragraph. The great part about this strategy is that it both gives you a clear sense of the passage and forces you to read through whole sentences before answering questions about them. The only drawback is that going graf-by-graf can be a little time-consuming, so if you struggle with running out of time on ACT English, you might want to consider one of the other passage methods. Definitely try going graf-by-graf first, though- you might be pleasantly surprised by how well it works for you! Passage Method 2: Answer as You Go Many students gravitate to this method by default because it's both straightforward and quick. We don't recommend it as our top method, however, because of its potential pitfalls. Here's the method: Start reading through the passage. When you come to an underlined word, phrase, or sentence, continue reading past it to the end of the sentence. Answer the question about the underlined word, phrase, or sentence, then move on. The answer-as-you-go method is great if you're using the graf-by-graf approach but keep running out of time with just a few questions left or if you find yourself distracted or overwhelmed by multiple hops back and forth between the same paragraph and different questions. Unfortunately, this method does have one major drawback: you won't get as thorough a perspective on a question's context, which makes answering questions about transitions or the paragraph as a whole more challenging. It can also fail completely if you don't always read to the end of the sentence (for the importance of this, see Strategy 9). Passage Method 3: Sentence-by-Sentence In this approach, you only read the sentences of the passage that include underlined words, phrases, or sentences. If you're running out of time with a lot of questions left over when you use the graf-by-graf method, this strategy might be a good option for you. The key to using this method is that you always have to read the entire sentence. Even if you do execute this method perfectly, however, it suffers from the same drawbacks as answering as you go: if you read through the passage a sentence at a time, you won't get as clear an understanding of the overall structure and context of the passage, which makes answering rhetorical skills questions more difficult. We don't recommend using this method if you're aiming for a score higher than a 25. Passage Method 4: Read the Passage First The final ACT English passage approach we recommend is skimming the entire passage first, then going back through sentence-by-sentence to answer the questions. Of all the approaches to the ACT English passage, this is the most thorough. If you find yourself missing most of the macro logic or big picture questions because you didn't really understand the passage as a whole, this strategy could be a good fit for you. For most students, however, this approach is more trouble (and time) than it's worth- the graf-by-graf method is usually sufficient for answering macro logic questions and is much more time effective. Choose Which Method Works Best for You While we do recommend the graf-by-graf method as a starting point for most students, we can't predict which method will be most effective for you. To figure this out for yourself, you need some cold, hard data about your ACT English performance. Try out each method on at least one (and preferably two) sample passages each, then compare your performance on each. If one method is a clear winner for you, go with it; if not, choose the method that's the most comfortable for you. Once you've tried out all the passage approach strategies and figured out which one works best for you, you must use it consistently with every ACT English practice passage and test. These strategies all depend on teaching you to approach passages methodically, which means that they will only be effective if you use them every single time. In Overview Those are the main strategies I have for you to improve your ACT English score to a 36. If you're scoring above a 26 right now, with hard work and smart studying, you can raise it to a perfect English score. Even though we covered a lot of strategies, the main point is still this: you need to understand where you're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored. One last tip: try to keep a steady head while you're taking the test. It's really easy to start doubting yourself because you know you need a near-perfect raw score. Even if you're unsure about two questions in a row, try to treat every question as its own independent test. If you start doubting yourself, you'll perform worse, and the worse you perform, the more you doubt yourself. Avoid this negative spiral of doubt and concentrate on being confident. You'll have studied a lot, and you'll do great on this test. Keep reading for more resources on how to boost your ACT score. What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides to raise your ACT score. Read our accompanying guides on how to get a 36 on ACT Math and how to get a 36 on ACT Reading. Better yet, read my high-level guide on how to score a perfect 36 on the entire test. Learn how to write a perfect-scoring 12 ACT essay, step by step. We also have a rough index to all ACT Prep info here. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by ACT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today: