Score improvement depends on your starting point and how much you practice, but most students see meaningful gains with focused tutoring and consistent practice. If you're scoring in the 18-24 range, improvements of 3-5 points are common with dedicated preparation. Students starting higher (28+) may see smaller gains since there's less room to improve, but targeted work on your specific weak areas—whether that's grammar rules, pacing, or rhetorical questions—can still move your score up.

The biggest hurdles are usually pacing (running out of time before finishing all 75 questions), distinguishing between similar answer choices, and understanding the rhetorical questions that test writing style and organization rather than grammar rules. Many students also struggle with comma rules, pronoun agreement, and verb tense—the grammar concepts that appear most frequently. Working with a tutor helps you identify which specific areas trip you up and develop strategies to tackle them efficiently under time pressure.

Your first session focuses on understanding where you stand and what you need to work on. A tutor will likely review a practice test or section you've completed to identify patterns in your mistakes—whether you're missing grammar questions, rhetorical questions, or struggling with specific rules. From there, you'll develop a personalized study plan that targets your weak areas and fits your timeline before test day.

Practice tests are essential because they help you build stamina, identify patterns in your mistakes, and get comfortable with the test's timing and format. Taking full practice tests under timed conditions is especially valuable—it's different from drilling individual questions because you have to manage your time across all 75 questions. Most students benefit from taking 3-5 full practice tests during their preparation, then reviewing mistakes with a tutor to understand why you got them wrong and how to avoid similar errors on test day.

You don't need to memorize every grammar rule, but you do need to recognize and apply the most common ones that appear repeatedly on the test—like comma usage, pronoun agreement, verb tense, and parallel structure. The ACT tests practical grammar skills in context, not obscure rules, so a tutor can help you focus on the 20% of rules that appear 80% of the time. Understanding how to spot errors and apply corrections is more important than memorizing definitions.

Test anxiety often stems from feeling unprepared or unsure about your approach, so building confidence through practice and strategy is key. Working with a tutor helps you develop a consistent method for tackling questions, which reduces uncertainty and anxiety during the actual test. Techniques like starting with easier passages, skipping difficult questions and returning to them, and practicing deep breathing during timed drills can all help you stay calm and focused when test day arrives.

Most students benefit from 4-12 weeks of tutoring before test day, depending on their starting score and target score. If you're aiming for a modest improvement and have a few months, meeting 1-2 times per week works well. If you're closer to test day or need more significant improvement, more frequent sessions can help you make faster progress. Your tutor can recommend a schedule based on your goals and timeline.