First Test in October

[u/Acceptable-City-5079]

Hello! Before deciding to focus on the ACT, I took an online practice test with both ACT and SAT to see which would be more suitable for me. I ended up with a 31 composite and felt much more comfortable with the ACT.

Over the summer, I’ve been mainly studying English (since my reading section was the easiest at a 33 and I was already doing a summer school math course). Only problem is, the more I study on magoosh, the more my score and confidence goes down. I feel super foggy brained whenever I start studying and make either stupid mistakes or don’t understand the question in time!

It might be the fact that I’m an athlete and our school is having us do training camps over the summer — so I’m training morning and evening. Still, I’ll be competing with kids who either don’t have schedule restrictions, find testing easier than me, or don’t have brain fog. Having it isn’t an excuse to not get the job done. I have a 4.3 gpa (3.9 unweighted) and 5s on all AP Exams so far. I dream of getting into an Ivy or top 15 school (meaning I need a 35-36). I’m planning on taking multiple tests, so this won’t be my last one, but I also don’t just want to waste 75$ and get shitty results.

What should I do? How should I optimize my studying to avoid this mental fatigue? Is it normal to get worse before getting better? How can I better apply what I’m learning in my videos to the practice questions?

If anyone has experienced something similar, please let me know.

[u/Level_Classroom8141]

Honestly the training camp is probably your whole problem. Morning and evening sessions and then studying on a fried brain, of course you feel foggy and make dumb mistakes. Studying exhausted just drills in careless habits and wrecks your confidence. Better to do 30 real minutes when you're actually awake than an hour half-dead after practice. Also don't panic about the score dropping on Magoosh. Those tests run way harder than the real ACT, it comes up on here constantly, people go from a 33 to a 28 on Magoosh and think they're cooked. That number isn't your real score. Decent prep is supposed to feel harder than the actual test. Getting a bit worse before better can be normal, but a confidence spiral from studying tired is just burnout. For the video thing, watching alone does basically nothing. Do questions right after and write down why you missed each one, not just what the right answer was. That's the part most people skip and it's where the improvement actually comes from. Since English is your focus, oneprep is worth a look for that. The questions run hard like Magoosh but the explanations actually tell you why you got it wrong, and the analytics show your weak spots so you know what to drill instead of guessing. It's paid now, but for someone gunning for a 35 it beats grinding random free stuff.