Ivy Lounge Test Prep®/The Ultimate ACT Reading Guide

  • $250

The Ultimate ACT Reading Guide

  • Course
  • 28 Lessons

Self-paced online course to teach you ALL the content and strategies you need to know to ace the ACT’s Reading Section…in under 6 hours!

Raise your hand for each true statement:

➡️ You think you’re just ‘bad at reading’ compared to your friends.

➡️ You find the ACT Reading section too fast-paced—the passages themselves aren’t hard to understand, but you struggle to answer them all within the time limit.

➡️ You find yourself reading and rereading passages and paragraphs and see the clock ticking…especially on that dreaded double passage.

➡️ You consider yourself ‘bad at vocab’ and hate when reading questions quiz you on this.

➡️ You feel bad that you have to guess on so many questions at the end of the section…or if you DO manage to answer most of them, you find you were rushed and make VERY careless mistakes.

➡️ You tend to over-analyze each question on the test, debating with yourself and wasting precious time.

➡️ You just keep taking more and more practice tests, but you don’t have a strategy to improve your Reading Section score

➡️ That said, the ACT is still a better test for you than the Digital SAT is, so there’s a looming pressure to perform well

Are all of these—or any of these—getting in the way of your dream ACT Reading score?

And, thus, your ACT Composite score?

Luckily, there’s a way you can turn things around once and for all.

Introducing...

“The Ultimate ACT Reading Guide”

I've taken my foolproof system for dramatically raising hundreds of my students' ACT scores and put it into this online course! 

Learn ALL the strategies you need to know to efficiently study and practice for the ACT’s Reading section...so you can reach your target score with ease. 

Improve your Reading section score in less than 6 hours with binge-able video lessons.

Here’s what you’ll learn inside:


✔ Understand how the Reading section is structured in the first place

How the section is graded and how to best guess for the highest score possible.

✔ Learn winning strategies for all Reading question types so you’re never confused about what the test is asking you again. 

✔ Figure out your main ACT Reading strategy—kind of like your personalized "passage choreography"—so you can accurately answer more questions with less time (and headache!). Trust me, one of my four methods WILL work for you! 

✔ How to quickly and accurately navigate the Paired Passage found in each ACT Reading section…no more reading and rereading for YOU!

✔ How to successfully practice for the ACT’s Reading section before test day, so you efficiently drill your problem areas and build momentum.

This course is designed to be followed and implemented at your own pace. When you learn each new strategy, you’ll start to notice instant changes to your Reading section ability.

What Parents + Students Are Saying

"I always thought I was just a bad test taker. It was only after learning these strategies that I finally believed I could perform well on the ACT! I'm forever grateful for how much I improved [14 points in Reading!]. Thank you so much!"

Ariadni K.

New York, NY

"I got my ACT scores back, and I’m literally shaking. Thank you so much for everything! I couldn’t have gotten this 35 composite without you!"

Libi H.

Chicago, IL

"Our daughter's score went up by six Composite points after working with Kristina. It was as if Kristina got into the mind of our daughter and cracked the code of how to get her to approach the test. Her method works!"

Gabrielle L.

Scarsdale, NY

Imagine sitting down to take the ACT and you’re feeling:

💫 Relieved knowing you know exactly what questions are on the test—and exactly how to answer them

💫 Confident that you know exactly how to navigate each passage to earn a top score

💫 Test Day feels like a total breeze!

If we're meeting for the first time, I'm Kristina!

I founded Ivy Lounge Test Prep® after serving as head tutor for two different elite Manhattan tutoring agencies...and realizing that I was the one telling THEM the latest testing news, patterns I'd noticed, and strategies I'd developed to keep my students one step ahead of the tests.

I grew up in Dallas, TX, breaking city and state records for math and general academic achievement. I graduated as valedictorian of Dallas's Talented and Gifted Magnet High School and then Magna cum Laude from Brown University (MIT was my backup school).

I've spoken all over New York about test prep and the college process, write the Ivy Lounge Test Prep® blog, and reach students on six continents with the magic of the internet.

Why am I sharing with you all of this?

SIMPLE: I know a lot about what it takes to achieve a killer ACT Reading section score, and it starts with leveraging the right content and strategies.

Here's exactly what you get inside the course:

Intro to the ACT Reading Section

Here, you'll learn the basics of the ACT's Reading section, including its structure, how it's graded, and how to guess!
Welcome!
Preview
Structure of the ACT's Reading Section
Grading
Guessing
Why Your ACT Reading Score is So Low + What WE'RE Going to Do About It!

Specific Question Types You Need To Know

There are certain question types on the ACT's Reading section that you can get right...IF you know EXACTLY how to approach them! In this section, I'll teach you my tried-and-true strategies that have worked for my ACT students around the globe—and gotten them AMAZING score improvements!
Intro: THESE are the ACT Reading Question Types You Need to Know!
Vocab-In-Context Question Strategy
"Infer"/"Suggest"/"Imply" Questions
"Purpose"/"Function"/"In Order To" Question Tips
Big Picture Questions
A Note About "EXCEPT" Questions

Pick Your Main ACT Reading Strategy

This is the MOST important section of this whole course, because how you choose to read and answer the questions in the ACT Reading section will determine if you finish in time... AND how accurate you are! And, believe it or not, there are MANY ways you could go about reading each passage in the ACT's Reading section. 

This part of the course will walk you through the main strategies that have gotten amazing score improvements for MY students around the globe: one of them will absolutely work for you, too!
Intro: Your ACT Reading "Experiment"
Method #1: The Blurb
Method #2: The Underliner
Method #3: The Treasure Hunt
Method #3.5: The Modified Treasure Hunt
Method #4: The Skeleton
YOUR Turn! Conducting Your ACT Reading Method "Experiment"

The Ultimate ACT Paired Passage Strategy

Each Reading section on the ACT will have a passage that's really TWO shorter passages back-to-back. You'll have to answer some questions based on Passage A alone, Passage B alone, and then based on the relationship between BOTH passages.

My fail-proof strategy shows you how to get all these questions correct WITHOUT wasting your valuable time!
The Basic Paired Passage Strategy
The Paired Passage With Each ACT Reading Method
How to Practice the Paired Passage Strategy

Getting in the Right Head Space

You might know all of my expert strategies, but if you can't seem to focus during the ACT Reading passages, you won't get very far. In this section, I show you my two favorite techniques to get you PRESENT and FOCUSED during the test, so that you can realize your potential on Test Day.
Intro: My Top Two Tricks for Maximum Focus during the ACT
Power Poses
Three Points of Contact

Conclusion

Now, let's put together EVERYTHING you just learned, including HOW to go about practicing all these strategies.
Putting it ALL Together
How to Practice for a Top ACT Reading Score
Additional Support / Resources
CONGRATS!!!

Frequently asked questions

Do you guarantee ACT scores or score improvements?

Ivy Lounge Test Prep® and/or its founder Kristina Semos do not guarantee scores or score improvements, as the ultimate scores are dependent on a student's work and specific performance on the day of the test. That said, these strategies, concepts and materials have helped many students improve their scores!

Does this course include practice tests and/or practice questions?

Nope! This course does NOT have practice question drills in it, as there are many other resources for that, including the ACT's website itself!  (And I DO tell you exactly which ones to use for what purpose and where to find them.)

The purpose of this course is to help you UNDERSTAND, in record time, EXACTLY how to approach each ACT Reading passage and question type. As many of these are my proprietary strategies, you simply won't find them anywhere else.

Think of it as getting me as your private tutor to teach you the Reading section—at a $2000+ discount!

Can I get a refund?

I stand behind my products, and your satisfaction with them is important to me. However, since you'll have immediate access and can easily learn all the strategies in a few hours, there will be no refunds or returns.

Is this course for the current version of the ACT or for the new ACT that will roll out in 2025?

Thank you for asking! This course is for the current version of the ACT.

That means the online ACT BEFORE April 2025 and the paper-and-pencil ACT BEFORE September 2025.

Once more information about the new test format is available, I will update my ACT materials to match!

Are you ready to finally improve your ACT Reading section score? Let’s make it happen.