The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

94 DECEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT can get a College Board account, the CB app and a Khan Academy account (good for content review). You will stay up to date, get a daily practice and vocabulary, and have access to Khan Academy’s con- tent library. You can scan your test prac- tice sheets and get them scored through your phone. By contrast, the ACT for international students is only given online, and only through a proctored test center (no at- home tests!). By creating an ACT account ( act.org) , you will have access to two free ACT online practice tests. Use the ACT “untimed” practice tests to get very comfortable with the interface and the tools. Play with each of the tools to see how you can best use them. The Answer Eliminator and Flag tools are par- ticularly useful for using your test time efficiently. Save the timed test for two or three weeks before your test date. The Official ACT Study Guide (ISBN 978-1-119-68576- 0) includes five practice tests, so it is a relatively low-cost way to get content. The ACT has partnered with Kaplan Test Prep for a variety of fee-based preparation options. Start by taking a practice test (in your preferred test, or both tests if you want to determine which to take), get it/them scored and use the scoring guide to see what content you need to learn (or relearn). In general, the more time you have to study before the test, the more content you can learn. Learn or relearn content first. Then apply the content while you practice the taking of the test closer to your test date. If you can, don’t study alone. Grab whatever resources your school offers, and see if they will help you start a study group or class if none already exists. (Not only will you study more and bet- ter, but you will also add a nice line to For both tests, practicing even 15-20minutes a night will help.