In Response to Nate's ACT Prep Post

I found Nate's post about ACT prep at his school to be quite interesting. He seemed to be arguing that the program his school uses, the John Baylor Program, is an effective one, but students don't seem to take it seriously. I'm not familiar with this program, nor do I know anything about it. But, I believe as educators it is our job to make sure that the ACT prep works. Students will, of course, not take something seriously that we do not help them see the importance of. 

In my own internship, I have heard other people in the professional community say that they feel the students are over prepped for the ACT, leaving them exhausted and uninterested in the whole matter before the actual exam is ever delivered. I could certainly see this being the case. Students are prepped and given practice tests multiple times throughout the year, and by the time they take the actual exam in the spring, they have lost interest and are tired of trying. 

So what could combat this? Perhaps there is less importance on which particular ACT prep program is used, and there is more importance on how the prep is delivered. Perhaps the students should not be tested quite so much leading up to the actual exam? I believe that if educators spent less time practice testing and more time simply teaching students what they need to know for the exam, they might have better results. Perhaps one practice exam before the real exam would be enough to show the students what to expect without tiring them of the entire matter. 

Are high school students sometimes lazy? Yes. Do they sometimes take ACT prep less seriously than they should? Yes. But, we adults are guilty of the same -- everyone is. Therefore, knowing human nature, it would seem that educators ought to not worry so much about which fancy ACT prep program they use, and more about how they use it.