Helping Your Teen Get Ready for College Admission Tests

Preparing for college can feel overwhelming for both students and parents. Between coursework, extracurricular activities, and looming standardized tests, it’s not always clear where to start or how to help. One free resource many families don’t realize they already have access to is LearningExpress Library, a test-prep and learning platform available through the library.

Try LearningExpress Library, a free resource that supports students at every stage (and every age!)

LearningExpress Library is an easy-to-use online resource featuring online tutorials, practice tests, quizzes, and e-books to help you achieve your educational and professional goals. In addition to helping you improve your reading, writing, math, and basic science skills, LearningExpress Library offers tools and resources to help you search for jobs, build workplace skills, and prepare for career certification exams. You'll also find college and grad school admissions test prep, GED® test prep, U.S. citizenship test prep, and much more.

LearningExpress Library is organized in targeted learning centers, each with a collection of practice tests, tutorials, e-books, articles, and flashcards to help you achieve your goals. To access these resources, users must create a personal account with an email address and password. This is to save work in progress, store score reports, and revisit any practice tests, tutorials, or eBooks.

Prepare for College Learning Center

The Prepare for College Learning Center is designed to support students as they plan for college and prepare for admission exams. Instead of offering a single test or study guide, the Center organizes resources into clear categories, helping students focus on what they need most.

Students can explore:

• College planning tools
• Guided test prep courses
• Practice exams
• Skills review and refreshers
• Scholarship finders
• College admission essay help

All content is self-paced, available online, and accessible from home with a library card. Click on the category drop-down menu to view the sub-category content.

Let's do a tour of the Guided ACT Course, since testing is coming up this Spring.

What is the ACT Test?

The ACT is an admissions exam accepted by all four-year colleges and universities in the United States. It has four mandatory subject tests: English (45 minutes), Math (60 minutes), Reading (35 minutes), and Science (35 minutes), and consists of 215 multiple-choice questions. There is also an optional 40-minute writing test.

The test is given on six test dates within the United States, U.S. territories, Puerto Rico, and Canada, in September, October, and December, and February, April, and June of the following year. When you take the official ACT, each of the subject tests will be scored individually and then combined into an average score on a scale from 1 to 36. This score is based on the number of correct answers per section. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so guessing is highly encouraged. You can take the ACT more than once and can select which scores are sent to colleges for review.

How Parents Can Use the Guided ACT Course to Support Study at Home

The Guided ACT Course in LearningExpress Library follows a clear, logical sequence that helps students build confidence gradually, something many parents appreciate when supporting test prep at home. Rather than jumping straight into practice tests, the course starts with foundational understanding and moves step by step toward full test-day readiness.

Here’s how parents can use the course to help their student prepare.

Start with an Overview of the ACT

A good place to begin is the Introduction to the ACT tutorial. This section explains how the test is structured, how scoring works, and what to expect on test day. For parents, this overview is especially useful, as it provides shared language for conversations about preparation and progress.

Assess Yourself to Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Next, students assess themselves through short pretests for each ACT section. These assessments identify strengths and weaknesses and help create an individualized study plan. Because results include instant scoring and detailed answer explanations, parents and students can see exactly which skills need the most attention before moving forward.

ACT Sections

From there, the course shifts into focused study for each ACT section, beginning with English and Mathematics, then moving on to Reading, Science, and the optional Writing test. Each subject follows the same predictable structure: an overview of the section and test-taking strategies, a skills review broken into targeted microlessons, and a full-length practice test to check progress. This consistent format makes it easier for students to stay organized and for parents to understand where their child is in the process.

After working through individual sections, students move into full-length ACT practice tests. These exams combine all four required sections and are designed to closely simulate test-day conditions. Taking a complete practice test helps students build stamina, practice pacing, and become more comfortable with the overall testing experience.

The course concludes with a final readiness check and additional study tools. Students can review extra resources such as ACT eBooks and flashcards to reinforce key concepts or revisit areas that still feel challenging.

A Flexible Tool for Independent Study

Because the Guided ACT Course is self-paced and structured, it works well for independent study while still giving parents a clear way to stay involved. Supporting a student might be as simple as helping them follow the sequence, encouraging consistent study time, and checking in after practice tests to talk through results. With everything available online through the library, families have access to a comprehensive ACT prep plan at no cost.