Haywood County GEAR UP TN provided a great opportunity for juniors to do well on their ACT Test this school year. GEAR UP offered a workshop from Jane Ross Tutoring, an ACT prep business, that was developed by Jane Ross and is now located in Cordova, Tennessee. Specialists Beth Carr and Robert Lofton taught the two-day workshop on April 6-7.

The ACT workshop is a six-hour training that covers all four parts of the test. At the beginning of the training, students are shown the format of the science test and then given strategies for reading the passages and locating pertinent information. Students work through a sample science passage with the instructor and afterward complete sample passages individually. In the math portion of the training, students are exposed to the format of that section as well as the most common math skills on the test. During the session, the instructor walks students through a focused review of math skills from middle school math, Algebra 1 and 2, and Geometry. The third segment of the training is a review of grammar skills commonly tested by the ACT and explanations of how to answer the rhetorical skills questions. The day of training ends with information about the reading test: how it is formatted and how to attack the reading passages. Students are taught reading comprehension skills that are directly related to the types of reading passages found on the ACT.

Instructors use authentic materials during the training. Students are given an actual ACT test to use for the practice sessions. The students also receive a set of guided notes for all four tests. At the end of the training, students keep all of the materials in their packet, which they may use for additional practice and review.

Jane Ross Tutoring is a test-prep agency that began in the 1970s. For over 30 years, the instructors from the agency have been developing tips and strategies for tests such as the ACT, the PSAT, and the SAT. The instructors present these strategies to high school students in a one-day workshop format. The ACT workshop is just one of the many GEAR UP workshops held for students throughout the school year.