Officials at the A-C-T college entrance exam headquarters in Iowa City have some advice for high school students: take tougher classes this fall. Ken Gullette says too many kids graduate from high school unprepared for the next step. Gullette says some kids think they don’t need tough classes if they’re going to attend community college. Gullette says it’ll be a news flash for some kids but college is college and they need to be prepared for the academic rigors of college coursework wherever they go, so they need to take high school more seriously. He says parents need to take charge and encourage their kids to take the tough courses. Some of the A-C-T recommendations include: three years of social studies, biology, chemistry and physics, and two years of a foreign language. Gullette says “When you don’t take those high level courses you arrive in college unprepared for the academic work.” Of all the high school graduates in 2004 who took the A-C-T nationwide, he says an alarming number had very poor showings. Only 26-percent were ready to earn a C or higher in college biology and only 40-percent were ready to earn a C or higher in college algebra. Gullette says “Students are not only not taking the right courses, a lot of times the courses that they’re taking aren’t teaching them skills they need.” He says a lot of the kids who have to take remedial classes in college end up dropping out because of frustration.
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