Top Three Time Management Skills

Do your students have the time management skills they need to succeed?

There are ultimately three areas that must be mastered to maximize score gains on the ACT: content mastery, test mastery, and time mastery.

Many students know the importance of practicing content mastery and test mastery, but they frequently underestimate the importance of time mastery. So, when they take the 3-hour-and-30-minute ACT test for the first time, they often don’t have the time management skills they need to succeed.

Even though time mastery is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to higher ACT scores, it’s also an area where students can make the easiest gains.

One reason why time management is so important is that questions on the English, Reading, and Science portions of the test are not arranged in order of difficulty—some of the easiest questions can be near the end. Luckily, time management is a skill, and as with any skill, it can be learned.

Check out this video to learn about the top three time management skills your students need to beat the clock and succeed on the ACT:

Top Three Time Management Skills:

1. Pace: Students have to have more self-discipline and keep an eye on the clock so they can propel through each test section. Click here for our Chalk Talk on Three Ways to Improve Pacing.
2. Cherry-picking: At each question, students must ask themselves, “Can I easily solve this and earn points, or is this a waste of time?” They either then solve it or mark and move to return to it later. Efficient cherry-pickers get through each section with time to spare in order to return to those questions they were unsure of.
3. Stamina: The ACT is massively long, and most students aren’t used to this. They can get exhausted in the final test sections. Many factors, both psychological and physical, can affect stamina, so it’s harder to coach but still very important to work on.