ACT Practice Drills | Free ACT English, Math, Reading & Science

By Brian Stewart, Barron’s Author & ACT Perfect Scorer

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The ACT rewards students who are careful, thorough, and strategic with their time. After more than 20 years of ACT tutoring, I’ve found that the students who improve the most aren’t necessarily the ones who know the most content — they’re the ones who learn to read questions carefully, use all the information available to them, and pace themselves well across all three sections. This guide covers how the ACT is structured, the strategic principles that make the biggest difference, and how to use these drills to improve your score.

For comprehensive content review and full-length practice tests, check out my book Barron’s ACT Study Guide Premium, 2026. But let’s start with strategy.

How the ACT Is Structured

The enhanced ACT, which rolled out nationally in 2025, consists of three core sections plus two optional sections. The total test time for the three core sections is approximately two hours — about an hour shorter than the previous version of the ACT.

Section	Questions	Time	Pace
English	50 questions	35 minutes	~42 sec/question
Mathematics	45 questions	50 minutes	~67 sec/question
Reading	36 questions	40 minutes	~67 sec/question
Science (optional)	40 questions	40 minutes	60 sec/question

* The Writing (Essay) section is also optional: 1 essay, 40 minutes. Science costs an additional $4 to add; Writing costs an additional $25.

The ACT is not adaptive — every student gets the same test. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so you should always fill in every bubble even if you need to guess. Your composite score is the average of your three core section scores (English, Math, and Reading), each scored on a scale of 1–36. Science and Writing are reported as separate scores and do not factor into your composite. Whether to take the optional Science section depends on your target schools — check each college’s policy, since some STEM-focused programs still require or recommend it.

One thing that consistently surprises students coming from SAT prep: the ACT covers a broader range of content. ACT Math includes topics like logarithms and matrices that don’t appear on the SAT. ACT English tests concepts like parallel structure and wordiness that aren’t emphasized on the SAT. If you’ve been focusing exclusively on SAT prep, be ready to expand your content knowledge for the ACT.

The Biggest Mistake ACT Students Make

The most common mistake I see is students focusing on the answer choices before they fully understand what the question is actually asking. They read through the question quickly, jump to the options, and start evaluating — often without being sure what they’re being evaluated on in the first place.

On ACT Reading, this means confusing a “main idea” question with a “detail” question and picking an answer that’s accurate but irrelevant. On ACT Math, it means calculating the wrong thing — finding area when the question asked for circumference, or solving for x when it asked for 2x. On ACT English, it means editing for grammar when the question was really about organization.

The fix is simple but requires discipline: read the question carefully and be sure you know exactly what it’s asking before you look at the answer choices. Spending a little more time on the question itself saves far more time than it costs.

Four Strategic Principles for the ACT

1. Use All the Time You’re Given

The right approach on the ACT is to move through each section at a pace that allows you to do each question once and do it well. Rushing through questions to bank time for review at the end often backfires — careless errors accumulate, misread questions go unnoticed, and the review time you saved rarely recovers as many points as careful first-pass work would have.

Think of your time as something to spend on quality answers, not something to save. When you’re working at the right pace — unhurried but focused — you’ll find that you need less review time because you made fewer mistakes to begin with.

2. Use All the Information in Front of You

Every ACT section gives you information to work with — use it fully. On Reading and English, always get enough context before you answer: read the surrounding sentences, understand the passage’s overall argument, and don’t answer based on an isolated phrase. On Math and Science, use the graphs, tables, figures, and any information provided in the problem. Students who ignore visual data on Science or skip the notes on a Math problem are throwing away free information.

The ACT is an open-book test in the sense that everything you need to answer correctly is right in front of you. The skill is learning to find and use it efficiently.

3. Write Out Your Work

Don’t try to do too much in your head. On Math, write out your calculations, set up equations on paper, and diagram geometry problems. On Reading and English, circle key words in the question so you stay focused on what’s actually being asked. On Science, annotate the figures lightly as you read.

Writing out your work reduces careless errors and helps you visualize the solution path. Students who work in their heads tend to make more mistakes and have a harder time checking their work. If you’re taking the paper test, write directly in the test booklet — it’s yours to mark up. If you’re taking the online version, use the scratch paper provided at the testing center. Either way, the space is there — use it.

4. Balance Speed with Thoroughness

The students who improve the most on the ACT are the ones who find the right pace — not too fast, not too slow. Going too fast leads to careless errors and misread questions. Going too slow means you run out of time before you reach questions you could have answered correctly.

The right balance looks different for each student and each section. On English, you have about 42 seconds per question — brisk but manageable if you’re not overthinking. On Math, you have about 67 seconds — enough to set up and solve most problems if you’re organized. Practice with timed drills to develop a sense of your natural pace, then adjust from there.

How to Use These Drills Effectively

The drills below are organized by section. Each drill contains five questions with detailed explanations for every answer choice.

The most valuable thing you can do after each drill is review your mistakes carefully. Don’t just check the answer — understand why you got it wrong. Were you misreading the question? Missing context? Making a careless calculation error? Identifying the pattern behind your mistakes is what leads to real improvement.

Also review the questions you got right but weren’t confident about. If you guessed correctly, you want to understand why the right answer was right — so you can replicate that thinking deliberately next time rather than relying on luck.

For full ACT content review and complete practice tests, see Barron’s ACT Study Guide Premium, 2026.