ACT® Book Review: Best Books to Study for the ACT® Test

Looking for the best books to study for the ACT® test? My name is Brooke– I’ve been tutoring the ACT® for well over a decade, and have both scored perfectly on the exam and coached a student to a perfect score.

Based on my years of experience tutoring, we’ve compiled this list to help you out.

ACT® Test Prep Books tend to fall in 4 different categories:
1. Official Prep Materials
2. Subject-Specific Strategy Guides (Often written by independent tutors)
3. All Around Strategy Guides
4. All-In-One Prep Books

DISCLAIMER:
Before we get started, it’s very important that you know that the ACT® has undergone changes in the last couple of years. Some of these books will reflect these changes better than others. They started rolling out in about April of 2014, and have continued through September of 2016. As a result, when you use a book, be sure you are aware of what applies and what might not.

Check out our blogs on the New ACT® and the NEW New ACT® Essay for a rundown of those changes.  Some of these books may not reflect changes, but that doesn’t make them useless. Much of the test is the same, so I didn’t want to discount anything that didn’t have everything 100% right.

Official Materials

The BEST WAY to prepare for the test is to use REAL TESTS and learn from those real tests. Take a real test. Go over the answers. Learn from it. Official material makes up 70-80% of what I use with my students. We go over every practice test students take and use these as a method of figuring out what an individual student needs to work on. We also use them as a learning opportunity.

As we review each question we ask:

• What did I do wrong?
• How can I get this type of problem right next time?
• Are there any rules or skills I need to learn to do get the right answer on the test?

If you don’t have a tutor — we have an option for you 
Our online prep videos go through EVERY question in the Official ACT® Guide (and in the REAL ACT® Prep Guide now out of print for even more prep).

If you buy our series on the new guide (The Official ACT® Prep Guide 2016-2107), we’ll send you the book for free.

Taking practice tests and then going over each question and learning how to better approach similar questions is one of the best ways to prepare for the exam.
Yes, you can get some tests for free online — but having the actual book(s) is helpful for a couple of reasons:

1. It’s already printed out.  It’s hard enough to make the time to study for this test, and having everything printed is better and easier. Practicing from a screen is not ideal (most students read more slowly and many of the techniques I teach involve taking notes on the page– which you can’t do on a screen).
2. It includes answer explanations — the official books include typed out explanations will help you review, so you understand the solutions better. They aren’t as comprehensive as what you get with our course or a tutor but they are better than nothing.

So when it comes to buying official materials, it’s a bit confusing because ACT® just released a new book this past year. The old book, however, is still floating around in some bookstores and libraries. Here’s a run down of the two official guides you might run into:

1. The Real ACT®, 3rd Edition (Real ACT® Prep Guide) — out of print (Old book)

This is the old version of the ACT (pre 2014) — granted, the changes  made to the exam since then have been mostly minor with the exception of the essay (brand new essay, dual reading passages, fewer science passages, new items in math, etc.). For a full rundown of what’s changed, again, check out our blogs on the New ACT® and the NEW New ACT® Essay. They’ll run you through the epic saga of changes to the test that have taken place in the last couple of years.

A few notes on this edition:

• 5 full length tests included (we offer explanations on our site to ALL five tests!)
• doesn’t include changes for 2014
• still good prep with with real tests for practice
• many questions (math especially) repeat in both the tests and the “bonus questions” of new book
• Test 4 & 5 are combined to make test #3 in new book (with the exception of the math section)
• Out of print but available used on Amazon or at your local library

My advice for using this book:

Skip all the math sections except test #5 (do that test :)), and use this book for English/Reading/Science with the exception of test #4 Reading & Science– wait on those and take in the new book, and test #5 in the English– again that’s in the new book, too.

2.  The Official ACT® Prep Guide 2020

This is the updated guide– but it’s not perfect. A few tests are a recycled hodgepodge of the old book’s math sections (save for about 10 new questions per section reflecting test updates as of 2014-2016– mostly probability questions).

• Five “real” ACT® tests.
  The first four exams appear to be identical to the previous editions of this guide. I’ve noted the form codes these were sourced from below in case you know of these past exams.
  Test 1 (diagnostic): English, Reading, Science (Jun 2015 73C), Math (73C+10 random questions from The Real ACT® Prep Guide exams, mix of exams, and a few originals), (Code 16MC1)
  Test 2: English, Reading, Science (Apr 2015 73G), Math (random questions from The Real ACT® Prep Guide exams, mostly from Exam #2, and a few originals), (Code 16MC2)
  Test 3 :English (Test 5 from Real ACT® Prep Guide), Reading, Science (Test 4 from Real ACT® Prep Guide), Math (Many from test 4 from the Real ACT® Prep Guide, some random from that Guide, plus a few 73G questions and a few originals.) (Code 16MC3)
  Test 4: June 2017 Code 74C (Code 18MC4), all sections
  Test 5: Dec 2017 Code A10 (Code 19MC5), all sections
• If you buy the prep course on our website, you get this book for free!

For our company’s internal reference spreadsheet on the questions that overlap between the books, we created this somewhat complicated pdf. Not guaranteeing it’s 100% accurate, but if you’re hard core this might help you squeeze every last problem out of these books without repeating.

Repeat Questions – Reference

I recommend getting this book (with our course 🙂) and doing every test in it! Then you can either get the old book and run those tests that don’t overlap OR use the bonus questions in the pdf.

Other sources for official tests:

• I generally like the exercises for practice. He tends to have longer practice sets than Meltzer and often more challenging problems. As a tutor I tend to use this book most often as practice, not teaching, is what I need most.
• He isn’t as awesome at categorizing and explaining rules as Meltzer. Sometimes he calls things by the wrong name or explains rules in a weird way— and other times he just shows examples of what is right and what is wrong without explaining what the rule at play is. Many can still learn from just seeing the right vs. wrong sentence, but if you need more explanation Meltzer might be a better pick for you.

2. Erica Meltzer: The Compete Guide to ACT® English, 3rd Edition

• Better at explaining the grammar rules and is a bit more accurate in her grammar know-how than Phu.
• Sometimes her exercises are a bit too easy (particularly her mock tests)
• Her practice sets also sometimes focus on one idea so much, that she doesn’t replicate some of the really tricky little questions that sneak into the tests at time.