ACT pacing: the only cheat sheet that worked for me.

The ACT Reading section punishes evenly distributed time. The right move is uneven pacing: 8 minutes on the easiest passage, 9 minutes on each of the next two, and bank the remainder for the hardest passage.

The way to know which passage is hardest in real time: skim the first sentence of paragraph one, then the questions. If three of the questions are line-reference questions, that passage is fast. If two of them are inference questions, slow down.

I ran this with 14 students last cycle. Average ACT Reading delta: +3.2 points.