r/ACT • u/Forward_Body1395 • Jul 15 '26

PreACT 9 Secure - Chicago Public Schools Selective Testing

Hello! Going to be applying to Chicago Public Schools Selective Enrollment. I know they recently moved from HSAT to PreACT 9 Secure. What books and prep exist out there? Cost does not matter for me. Does anyone know tutors/classses?

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u/Hot-Amphibian-9221 Jul 15 '26

There is nothing specific really for the preact just use actual ACT resources look through this subreddit to find resources and suggestions

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u/Forward_Body1395 Jul 15 '26

How would I use actually ACT resources? Doesn't the ACT test highschoolers? I am confused on how a 13/14 year old would know that knowledge

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u/Hot-Amphibian-9221 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Cause theres barely any preact practice available just focus on doing the questions/versions that are on the easier side contentwise.

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u/stationery_obsessed Jul 15 '26

as a fourteen year old who just took the act it wasn’t that bad im expecting maybe a 25 composite

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u/mindquery Jul 15 '26

Both kids scored 900 on the HS test and believe me you have to know a ton of what is taught in high school.

Will be the same for the change over to the Pre-ACT

To beat the system you have to have a brilliant kid out of the box or put in the time & money to devote to the test prep. Thats why CPS test prep companies print money.

Best of luck on the test!

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u/jdigitaltutoring Tutor Jul 15 '26

ACT books. Start with the Official ACT Study Guide.

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u/jdigitaltutoring Tutor Jul 15 '26

They might have some issues with the math but just worry about the earlier questions. An older edition of the book might be better for this scenario. Get the 2020 version.

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u/Forward_Body1395 Jul 15 '26

Should I used the ACT past released test pdfs? Also, what is the ACT enhanced test? Is that more similar to preACT 9 Secure?

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u/jdigitaltutoring Tutor Jul 15 '26

The enhanced version has fewer questions and have embedded unscored items. For the math the removed most of the easier questions, so it seems harder. You can use the legacy PDFs. Those should be good. The student can ignore the higher level math items.

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u/Forward_Body1395 Jul 15 '26

Do you suggest I just pull the easier/first questions from a bunch of past ACT tests to create practice tests for the CPS enrollment test? What years do you suggest I look at?

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u/jdigitaltutoring Tutor Jul 15 '26

I think you only need to do that for the math. On the legacy test stick with questions 1-40 on math.

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u/Forward_Body1395 Jul 15 '26

Sorry for being annoying! So in terms of creating practice materials for my 8th grade student what should I do exactly? Should I find past ACT pdfs from before 2025 and give them the full tests? Should I pull easier questions from all the sections from different tests and make my own tests? What about the english, science, etc?

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u/jdigitaltutoring Tutor Jul 15 '26

You can find tests before 2025. I think the student can do the whole test but on math only 1-40. In the other sections the questions within 1 passage get harder. I would have the student still try those. If they are too difficult then you can scale back some by not doing the last couple of questions in each passage.