How to Increase Your Child's ACT Score
Read time: 6 min · Last updated: June 21, 2026
Most students can raise their ACT score meaningfully. How much depends on two things I haven't seen any other test prep company tell parents straight up. Score increases are influenced by two main factors: where a student is starting, and how much room for growth they have.
A motivated student in the low 20s? Huge increases are possible. A student missing the math curriculum needs a math tutor, not an expensive ACT tutor. This guide walks through what improvement actually takes at each level, section by section. I've gone through the ACT's own published material so you don't have to guess — or rely on guides that guess.
A quick note on the framing in this article: this guide is for the parents. Your student will actually do all the work. I'm flagging this up top because it matters throughout.
What Other Score Guides Get Wrong
You probably searched "how to improve your ACT score" or asked ChatGPT, which is what brought you to my website. Welcome — you're in the right place. Every other score guide gives advice about taking practice tests, reviewing mistakes, and learning time management. It's not wrong advice. It just misses the bigger question: does your child actually know the material the test is asking about?
The ACT is a test of college-readiness, which shows up in the kind of content it tests. My source for this entire article (and website) is the ACT's Technical Manual. Super dry stuff, I know. But the technical manual is correct — just inaccessible. The material in it shows up on actual real tests. I've checked all of them, including the new enhanced version. I've also looked at ACT's College and Career Readiness Standards to confirm it tells the same story as the Technical Manual and the official tests. It does.
No other test prep website has done this. I'd estimate that fewer than 1 in 1,000 tutors has looked at the technical manual. I have, because I found it extremely helpful for knowing the entire domain of knowledge I need to teach — and my reviews speak for themselves. I also don't want to guess or waste anyone's time. Personally, I want to do things in the most efficient way possible, which is where my interest in reading the technical manual came from.
The reason no other website has this information or take is that being a great tutor is one thing; knowing how to build a website that can rank for national and international search queries is another. Those two things are rarely present in the same person. That's what I'm trying to do here: translate what the ACT says (and doesn't say) into clear, plain language for parents. That's also what I do for my students. It's my whole ethos.
What the ACT standards actually reveal is that the score bands map onto specific classes taught in high schools. The test assumes a student has taken certain classes to reach certain bands. The major road to improvement is seldom strategy — though strategy is huge. The road to improvement is in knowing the subjects tested. That's a different job depending on where your child is starting versus where they want to end up, and how much work they're willing to put in.
How Much Can Your Child Realistically Improve?
So how much can your child actually improve? The most honest answer is: it depends on the starting and ending point. Sub-20s to mid-20s is easy, and usually fast. Moving from the high 20s into the 30s is slower, but achievable. Going from a 33 to a 36 is extremely difficult, for reasons I'll get into later. I've written a separate guide on how much improvement is realistic by starting score if that's the specific question on your mind.
What Each Score Band Actually Requires
This is the part you won't find translated anywhere else. The ACT groups scores into bands and describes the skills — and by extension the coursework — each one assumes. Here's what that means in plain terms for the sections that make up the composite (English, math, reading, science). Use it to locate where your child is and see what the next band actually demands.
English
| Score Band | Roughly What It Means | What the English Band Assumes Your Child Has Been Taught |
|---|---|---|
| 13–15 | Beginning to develop the tested skills; well below the college-readiness benchmark. | Basic mechanics: can delete obviously random sentences, handle simple past/present verb tenses, and fix errors that break basic common sense. |
| 16–19 | Near the national average; crosses the official college-readiness benchmark (18). | Middle-school grammar: can fix obvious fragments and run-ons; understands basic subject-verb agreement and frequently confused pairs (there vs. their, lead vs. led). |
| 20–23 | Solid core competency; the fundamental rules of standard written English are in place. | High-school freshman ELA: mastered basic series commas, apostrophes for plural nouns, and straightforward transitions (first, afterward). Can identify a paragraph's main purpose. |
| 24–27 | Above average; understands sentence flow and early structural logic. | Sophomore/junior ELA: manages complex parenthetical commas, colons, and semicolons. Handles pronoun agreement across separate sentences and fixes complex misplaced modifiers. |
| 28–32 | Strong; a skilled editor who can manipulate tone and style. | Advanced/Honors ELA: understands subtle rhetorical choices. Can judge whether material is plausible but irrelevant, link abstract paragraphs with transitions, and handle tricky subject-verb inversion. |
| 33–36 | Top few percent; flawless execution of complex grammar and sophisticated style. | AP Language / near-perfect accuracy: masters subtle punctuation boundaries (essential vs. nonessential clauses) and aligns conclusions with an essay's overarching theme or central image. |
Each row maps to the reporting categories on the score report. If your child's report flags a category like "Conventions of Standard English," the section guide breaks down exactly which skills sit underneath it — see the ACT English guide for the full skill list.
Math
| Score Band | Roughly What It Means | What the Math Band Assumes Your Child Has Been Taught |
|---|---|---|
| 13–15 | Beginning to develop the tested skills; below the benchmark in every section. | Arithmetic, basic fractions and decimals, simple one-step equations. |
| 16–19 | Near the national average; pre-algebra is solid, algebra is emerging. | Pre-algebra and intro algebra: rates, proportions, evaluating simple expressions. |
| 20–23 | Crosses the college-readiness benchmark in math (22); core algebra in place. | Algebra I solid: first-degree equations and inequalities, simple quadratics, basic geometry, the Pythagorean theorem. |
| 24–27 | Above average; functions and coordinate geometry are working. | Algebra II underway: function notation, polynomials, the distance formula, basic trig ratios. |
| 28–32 | Strong; ACT's own framing is that the student now uses variables fluently. | Algebra II solid plus precalculus beginning: systems, full quadratics, exponential relationships, intro trig. |
| 33–36 | Top few percent; synthesis and abstraction, very little room for error. | Precalculus: trigonometry, logarithms, sequences, modeling — plus near-perfect accuracy. |
If a specific topic is the bottleneck — say quadratics or trig — the fastest fix is to drill that one skill, not run another full test. The ACT math guide is organized by exactly these topics so you can send your child straight to the weak spot.
Reading
| Score Band | Roughly What It Means | What the Reading Band Assumes Your Child Has Been Taught |
|---|---|---|
| 13–15 | Beginning to develop basic tracking; struggles significantly with the test's brutal pacing. | Literal retrieval: can find explicitly stated facts (names, dates, events) on the surface and follow very simple timelines. |
| 16–19 | Nearing average competence, but still below the benchmark (22). | Basic comprehension: locates simple details at the sentence and paragraph level and interprets basic figurative language in straightforward narratives. |
| 20–23 | Crosses the college-readiness benchmark (22). Core high-school reading habits are solid. | Core analysis: infers central ideas, summarizes key supporting details, and identifies clear cause-and-effect or comparative relationships in moderately challenging text. |
| 24–27 | Above average; comfortable with complex, academic-level prose. | Advanced analysis: locates and interprets minor or subtly stated details, tracks implied comparisons, and sees how an author's purpose shapes style. |
| 28–32 | Strong; handles dense, unfamiliar passages efficiently. | Honors/AP literature prep: navigates complex text structures, draws subtle conclusions from difficult academic language, and analyzes conflicting arguments. |
| 33–36 | Top few percent; near-perfect speed and accuracy. | College-level research depth: excels at synthesis — drawing subtle conclusions by connecting information across different parts of a passage or multiple texts. |
Reading is the section where pacing and skill are hardest to separate, which is why the ACT reading guide treats them as two distinct problems. And if science is on your child's plate, the ACT science guide covers the section most parents misunderstand — it barely tests science at all.
Before You Pay Anyone: Build the Floor First
Here's the advice that costs me money I don't want. If your child is not solid in the fundamentals, the fix is not to pay an expensive ACT or SAT tutor. That fix is free. My website covers all the material, and what it doesn't cover was purposely left out because Khan Academy already did it better.
I don't want to be paid to walk a student through material they could learn better for free. It's a waste of your time and money — and a waste of my skill. So build the foundation first, for free. Then bring me the parts that genuinely need a specialist's help. That's a much smaller, more valuable slice of the work than the big prep companies want to sell you.
Which brings me to the packages those companies want to sell you. The big bundled offers — "LOCK IN NOW," "every section from scratch," "dozens of hours of content" — are, for most people, not a great deal. Many of these bundles are just material that already exists online for free; you simply weren't aware the ACT's "CSE" category meant grammar, which is one of about 13 discrete topics, all of which your child can study for free in the ACT English pillar.
A student who has already done the groundwork doesn't need to review that material with a specialist. They need a specialist for the parts that remain immune to self-study. I lay out when ACT tutoring is merited and when it isn't in Is ACT Tutoring Worth It?.
The Step-by-Step Method That Actually Works
Once the floor is in place and your child is genuinely on board, the climb itself is the same shape at every level. The band is just a representation of how steep each level's climb is.
- Start with a real diagnostic. A full, timed, official practice test, scored correctly, is where the plan comes from. You can take one through my free online ACT practice test, and my ACT diagnostic test walks through how to read the result by reporting category.
- Figure out which section to start with based on the score you need. Does your child want to start with their weakest material? Sometimes that makes sense. Sometimes the smarter move is to start with their strongest section. There are far too many factors to settle here — but it starts with knowing what score your child actually needs.
- Confirm the appropriate coursework has been completed by reviewing the score bands above. If the student hasn't taken the relevant course, that's a real bottleneck. It can be genuinely hard to get those points without taking the course or learning the material from a textbook, Khan Academy, or similar.
- Drill errors, not random questions. Most lost points are specific and repeated: a comma rule missed, a math question where the student doesn't cross discourse (e.g. given algebra, solve geometry), a reading level outside the student's current ability. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see — at least 80% of students do it before they come to me. Why run test after test instead of isolating the issue and solving it? The honest answer is that high-school juniors are right at the cusp of developing the capacity to solve complex problems, which is one of the very things the ACT tests.
- Then add timing. Only once your child has actually learned the material. If they don't know it, they'll never produce the right answer in time. But once they do know it, they should start practicing under time, because recognizing the material on the clock is an extension of the same skill.
- Retest, rinse, wash, and repeat.
Two Mandatory Questions Before Starting
First: what score does your child actually need? Higher is not a goal. Check the middle-50% ACT range each target school publishes and work backward. Chasing points beyond what the list requires can cost months for a number that changes nothing. I wrote a separate guide on figuring out the score your child actually needs.
Second: is your child genuinely invested? A parent who wants the score and a student who wants it are two different projects, and only the second one works. Sustained improvement takes months of self-directed effort; a student doing it under pressure tends to plateau and burn out. If they're not bought in yet, that conversation is worth more than any tutoring hour.
Aiming for a Specific Score
The path looks different depending on the number you're targeting. Each score sits at a different band with a different coursework floor and a different ratio of knowledge-building to error-fixing. I've written level-specific guides for each common score target:
You'll notice there's no standalone "how to get a 36" guide. According to the ACT's own research, a 33 through a 36 all sit within about a percentile point of each other. So the difference between a 33 and a 36 operates on two axes: first, you need to know all the material in the 33–36 band; second, you need to make zero errors within it. Two different but closely related tasks. Here are the ACT's national ranks, from their own website:
| Score | English | Math | Reading | Science | Composite | STEM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 35 | 99 | 99 | 98 | 99 | 99 | 99 |
| 34 | 97 | 99 | 97 | 99 | 99 | 99 |
| 33 | 96 | 98 | 95 | 98 | 98 | 98 |
| 32 | 95 | 98 | 93 | 97 | 97 | 98 |
| 31 | 94 | 97 | 91 | 96 | 96 | 97 |
| 30 | 93 | 96 | 89 | 95 | 94 | 95 |
| 29 | 91 | 94 | 87 | 93 | 92 | 94 |
| 28 | 90 | 93 | 85 | 92 | 91 | 92 |
| 27 | 88 | 91 | 83 | 91 | 88 | 90 |
| 26 | 86 | 88 | 80 | 89 | 86 | 88 |
| 25 | 84 | 85 | 78 | 86 | 83 | 85 |
| 24 | 81 | 81 | 75 | 82 | 80 | 81 |
| 23 | 77 | 77 | 71 | 76 | 76 | 77 |
| 22 | 73 | 74 | 66 | 70 | 72 | 73 |
| 21 | 69 | 71 | 60 | 65 | 68 | 68 |
| 20 | 63 | 68 | 55 | 59 | 63 | 63 |
| 19 | 58 | 64 | 50 | 53 | 57 | 58 |
| 18 | 53 | 60 | 46 | 47 | 52 | 51 |
| 17 | 49 | 53 | 41 | 40 | 46 | 44 |
| 16 | 46 | 45 | 37 | 33 | 40 | 35 |
| 15 | 40 | 32 | 32 | 26 | 34 | 26 |
| 14 | 33 | 20 | 27 | 19 | 27 | 17 |
| 13 | 27 | 10 | 21 | 14 | 20 | 10 |
| Mean | 18.6 | 19.0 | 20.1 | 19.6 | 19.2 | 19.5 |
| SD | 7.0 | 5.6 | 7.1 | 5.8 | 6.1 | 5.4 |
Which is to say: there's no defensible way to write a guide for "how do I get a 19" or "how do I get a 20" or "how do I get a 21," because the ACT doesn't work that way. There are score bands instead. If your child is at a 24, for example, read the 20–23 guide and the 24–27 guide. There's a strong chance your child is a 20–23 in some sections — say math and English — and a 24–27 in others. You need to look at the different bands and the score breakdown to understand how to get a higher composite.
All of this assumes your child knows what reporting categories are and how to read them off a score report. If the report still looks like a wall of codes, start with ACT reporting categories explained. And if scores haven't come back yet, here's when ACT scores are released.
Where a Tutor Actually Helps
If your child has done the groundwork, is motivated, and needs help improving their score — then let's set up a call. That's exactly when a specialist can be most helpful. If you're not sure whether your child is there yet, the consult is exactly where you'd find out, including me telling you if a tutor isn't what you need. You can see how I work and what it costs on the tutoring and pricing pages.