Blunt ACT tactics from an Oklahoma ranch
A practical ACT coaching show built on specific moves: when time runs short on Reading, jump to the questions that cite line numbers, and work numeric answer choices from E or from C. It also has a combative streak, attacking ACT's price increases and telling students to walk out of the unscored fifth section.
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Chad Cargill's ACT Test Prep treats the ACT as a test with habits, and it treats those habits as openings a student can use. The show is recorded at the Ollie Ray Ranch in Choctaw, Oklahoma, and it stays close to the workshops behind it, from a virtual session for Seminole State College to classes in Nebraska. One episode is built from the question-and-answer stretch at the end of an online workshop, with students' questions taken one at a time. One of those questions covers backsolving. The rule: start at E when the numeric choices are out of order, and start at C when they run in sequence, so the search only has to move up or down. The Reading advice is just as mechanical. Working through a passage, one lesson counts the questions that name specific lines, five of the first ten, and argues that a student with three minutes left can answer those without reading the passage at all, while granting that context sometimes helps. English gets the same treatment in a lesson on the dash: a pair of dashes around an abrupt break in thought, and a single dash to set off a list that opens a sentence. The lesson then reads an ACT-style sentence aloud with its answer choices and admits this is hard to follow by ear. That is one side of the show. The other side is openly combative. ACT's price increases get an episode titled '59: ACT's Great Inflation - A Rant', and the title is accurate. The same episode takes on college debt, asks whether a chosen degree actually pays off, and complains about political lecturing in public university classrooms. On the unscored fifth experimental section, the instruction is blunt: gather up your belongings, hand in the answer sheet, ask for it to be graded, and walk out, since ACT's rules let a test-taker leave at any time. The episode openly wonders whether anyone else in the ACT prep business gives this advice. That episode also warns students not to depend on advisors to sort everything out, and to do their own research before asking them questions. A third, gentler side appears in a graduation address to the class of 2021. It includes a story about sponsoring a boy in Kenya through Compassion International, travelling to meet him, and a planned day with the Maasai in the Maasai Mara. Its closing charge asks graduates to pursue hard things and live a life that matters. Across episodes, the show keeps pointing students back to earlier installments, especially one on ordering a copy of a test and its answers. The result is prep advice with a clear point of view: specific enough to use on test day, and opinionated enough that there is never any doubt where the show stands.
Made for: Suits a high school student facing the ACT, or a parent helping one, who wants concrete tactics for each section and does not mind strong opinions about testing fees and college costs.
What sets it apart: The tactics come with a stance. Alongside dash rules and backsolving shortcuts, the show tells students to walk out of the unscored fifth section and takes ACT to task over its prices.
Chad Cargill took the ACT test 18 times in high school raising his score 13 points and scoring in the 99.5 percentile. He is the nation's leading ACT test prep workshop presenter having taught nearly 250,000 students over the last 32 years. He travels the Midwest each school day teaching students, faculty, and parents how to beat the ACT. His full workshop schedule can be found at calendar.chadcargill.com. His website is chadcargill.com.
Even a stray dash gets a rule you can use when an ACT answer looks suspiciously plausible.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A live ACT workshop Q&A offers practical tactics and test-day guidance for students.
Chad Cargill's live Q&A from an online ACT workshop works best when it stays close to the questions students are actually asking. He lays out a practical multiple-choice approach: if answer choices are not in meaningful order, he starts with E and moves back toward A; if the…
A sharp, skeptical case for skipping the ACT's unscored fifth section, with a practical college-planning close.
Chad Cargill gives the ACT's fifth experimental section a brisk, skeptical hearing, arguing that test takers can turn in their test and answer sheet, ask that the scored portions be graded, and leave rather than spend more time on questions that will not count.
A clear ACT English lesson that turns dash use into a matching-mark decision.
ACT English can make a punctuation question feel like a matter of taste, but Chad Cargill keeps this lesson grounded in function. He frames the dash as a mark that can signal an abrupt turn or add emphasis, then makes the key test simple: when an interrupting phrase opens with a…
Blunt LSAT advice, fewer expensive mistakes.
ASWB strategy, one scenario at a time.
Admissions consultants on school fit, essays and staying the course.
MCAT content, taught step by step, trap by trap.
Close reading for GCSE English, one quotation at a time.
Chad Cargill criticizes ACT for raising Test Information Release from $22 to $30 while the national test costs about $60.
Chad Cargill's ACT Test Prep episode 58 is a graduation speech for the Class of 2021, centered on living a life that matters.
Chad Cargill's ACT Test Prep episode 57 is a live Q&A recorded on April 14 from the Ollie Ray Ranch in Choctaw, Oklahoma.
Chad Cargill opens by describing the ACT's fifth experimental section, the surprise test that appears after English, math, reading, and science and makes students ask why another answer-sheet block exists.
["Chad Cargill's \"54: Master the Dash and Raise Your English Score Now\" is an ACT English lesson recorded from the Ollie Ray Ranch in Choctaw, Oklahoma.", "He uses a Nebraska workshop story, barricades near Kearney, and a drive toward Hershey and North Platte to open the episode.", "A recorder lesson with his third-grade daughter Carly and the line about needing \"eggs to make an omelet\" becomes his analogy for why students miss dash questions.", "He then defines the dash, works through ACT-style sentence edits, and points listeners to episode 7, episode 33, episode 44, his prep book, and his workshops."]
Chad Cargill says scholarship essays should sound like the student, not an English teacher.
Chad Cargill's Episode 52 gives nine ways to stay focused on the ACT, and he starts by naming the distraction behind each one instead of the fix.
Chad Cargill reviews how the ACT science section has changed since the fall 1990 redesign, including the 2014-15 cut from seven passages to six with 40 questions in 35 minutes.
Chad Cargill explains what zero-level college classes are, why students might have to take them, and how to avoid them through proper ACT preparation.
Chad Cargill shares why he is thankful for American schools, featuring his Congolese children discussing their perspectives on education.
Chad Cargill teaches how to correctly use indefinite pronouns to raise ACT English scores.
Chad Cargill teaches techniques to triple reading speed and improve comprehension for the ACT and college success.