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ACT practice testing

How Authentic Test Practice Boosts Student Confidence and Unlocks Score Gains

  • Stephanie Constantino
  • January 15, 2025

As educators, our goal is to prepare our students. We spend the whole first week of each school year prepping students with expectations and guidelines for how to be successful in our classrooms. Throughout students’ educational careers, we help them build important skills that will prep them for college—and ultimately, the workforce. We even take time out of our jam-packed days to prepare our students for the wildly unlikely chance that they might catch fire (“Stop, drop, and roll,” anyone?).

It makes sense that, when it comes to high-stakes testing, we want to give our students high-quality preparation so they have a fair chance at success. How do we make sure students walk into test day feeling prepared and confident? The key is authentic practice.

  • What Is Authentic Test Practice?
Authentic practice is test preparation that mirrors the format, style, and experience of the actual test. Emphasis is placed on:
  • Realistic questions: The practice questions look and function the same way they do on the actual test. Every little detail matters, from punctuation conventions to the way trap answers try to lure students into a wrong choice.
  • Frequency and structure: Authentic practice includes more than just test questions that resemble those on the actual assessment. It also includes whole-test features, such as the number of times a specific skill appears in a given test session and the order in which those subjects and skills are tested.
  • Difficulty level: The practice test—at the individual question level, as well as across question sets, passages, and the test as a whole—should provide a similar level of rigor and challenge as the real test.
  • Simulated test conditions: While practicing, students are given the same tools and testing medium, while being held to the same time limits as the real test.

In essence, if it looks like the test, walks like the test, and quacks like the test, it’s giving students the authentic practice they need to help them reach their goal scores.

  • What Do Students Gain from Authentic Test Practice?
Authentic practice isn’t just an opportunity for students to show you what they’ve learned; there are also several key benefits to implementing authentic practice experiences.
  • Reduced Test-Day Anxiety
By becoming familiar with the test’s style, format, and idiosyncrasies, students walk into test day feeling less stressed and more confident. After all, it’s something they’ve seen before. Nothing new, right? They know what to expect, which tools they will have at their disposal, and the amount of time they will have to show what they know. As that timer starts, students can skip right over the question of “How does this test work?” and dive right into “What’s the next question?”
  • Increased Resilience
In an ideal world, students work through every question on test day and know exactly what the right answer is every single time. But let’s be real. We know that the test will almost always have a curveball that will trip up even your strongest test-takers. That’s okay, though!

Thanks to all that authentic test practice, and because students have worked with different question types again and again, those curveballs don’t quite pack the same punch. As a result, students can more easily figure out when and how to use key strategies that improve their guessing accuracy if their content skills fall short.

  • Predictable Success
With authentic practice, students don’t have to wait for their final test score to see how they’re performing. They’re taking simulated versions ahead of time to help reveal their achievement levels and progress. Those scores provide accurate insight into the kind of score they can expect to achieve on the real test.
  • Building from Generic Practice to Authentic Practice
While authentic practice is key to success on test day, it’s important to remember that the basics matter. Start with generic practice, where students focus on mastering a key content skill or building foundational knowledge aligned to each test standard.

Often, generic practice utilizes scaffolding, which stair-steps the learning process for students. By starting with these broader, more accessible exercises, students can focus on strengthening their core competencies, which prepares them to fully engage when it comes time for authentic practice.

  • What Do Students Gain from Authentic Test Practice?
Authentic practice is the cornerstone of effective test preparation programs. By mirroring the real test experience, it equips students with the skills, familiarity, and confidence they need to reach their goal scores.
MasteryPrep offers resources that align with your goals and provide students with the high-quality preparation they deserve:
  • Practice Testing & Analysis: Our practice tests for high-stakes assessments—including the ACT, Digital SAT, and TSIA2— match their rigor and allow districts to quickly identify skills gaps across cohorts of students. Detailed reports also provide insight into test-taking skill metrics, student performance, and actionable next steps to boost outcomes.

  • Curriculum: Our mastery-based curriculum includes scaffolded course modules and instructional materials that align state standards to what’s actually measured on required assessments.

Picture of About the Author: Stephanie Constantino
About the Author: Stephanie Constantino

Stephanie Constantino is the Senior Director of Academic Product for MasteryPrep, where she oversees the development and quality of instructional content. As a former educator and long-time curriculum developer, Stephanie utilizes her experience to consistently deliver high-quality, innovative materials that help students reach their college readiness goals.

Authentic Test Practice with MasteryPrep Solutions

MasteryPrep bundles provide districts with access to a suite of standards-aligned test-prep tools, resources, and workshops to be implemented over the course of the school year.
Learn More

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ACT® is the registered trademark of ACT, Inc. Some items in MasteryPrep programs are the copyrighted content of ACT, Inc. and are reproduced with permission. SAT® is a trademark of the College Board. MasteryPrep LLC has no affiliation with College Board MasteryPrep SAT programs are not approved or endorsed by College Board. The Texas Success Initiative Assessment 2.0 (TSIA2) is an ACCUPLACER® exam, which is a trademark of College Board. MasteryPrep has no affiliation with College Board or the Texas Success Initiative (TSI), and the TSIA2 Mastery program is not approved or endorsed by College Board or the TSI. WorkKeys® is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. The WorkKeys programs are not approved or endorsed by ACT, Inc.

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