Integrating Essential Skills
40–43% of the ACT math section
Two fifths of the section: rates, percentages, proportions, area and volume from middle school, asked at a question a minute and usually three small steps deep. Nothing here is hard. All of it is where time goes.
Rates, Percentages & Proportions
A rate is a division, and the units say which way round. Miles per gallon is miles divided by gallons; once you have the rate, any other distance or any other tank is one multiplication away.
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- B
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- The rate, miles per gallon
Multi-step Problems
The ACT builds a question by stacking two or three simple ones: find this, use it to find that, then answer what was asked. The wrong choices are the intermediate results, so the last line — checking that the number you have is the number that was asked for — is the one that scores.
- F
- G
- H
- J
- The path adds 2 feet on every side, so 4 to each dimension
Fractions, Decimals & Number Sense
Comparing fractions, ordering decimals, the order of operations, and arithmetic with negatives. None of it is beyond the seventh grade and all of it is on the test, where a slip costs the same as a wrong integral. Common denominators for adding; cross-multiplying, or decimals, for comparing.
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- B
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- The two ends as decimals