Free Practice Tests
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For Every Exam We Teach.
Official practice tests, free prep materials, and ConnectPrep’s expert guidance, all in one place. Use these resources alongside your ConnectPrep program or as a starting point before you enroll.
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2026-27 Testing Calendar: SAT, ACT & NYS Regents
Every verified test date in one place. Add it to your family calendar or print it for the fridge.
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Practice tests show you where a student stands; a program is what moves the score. Every ConnectPrep engagement starts with a full diagnostic and builds from there through 1:1 Digital SAT prep or 1:1 ACT prep, with the SAT Elite Bootcamp available for students targeting 1500 or higher.
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Practice Test Questions Families Ask Us Most
Straight answers about which practice materials are real, which are official, and which are worth your time. Updated September 2026.
Is there a free PreACT 8/9 practice test PDF?
ACT does not publish a public, full length PreACT 8/9 practice test PDF. The free official materials that do exist are a sample PreACT 8/9 score report and ACT's own free ACT practice test, which uses the same question style on a longer scale.
Almost every site promising a downloadable PreACT 8/9 practice test is republishing generic questions with no connection to ACT. That matters, because the value of a practice test is that it predicts a real score. Here is what is actually official and free:
- Preparing for PreACT Secure, ACT's own preparation guidance for the PreACT family of tests.
- Sample PreACT 8/9 student score report, a public PDF that shows exactly how the score scale and predicted ranges are reported back to families.
- ACT's free official ACT practice test, the closest thing to a real PreACT 8/9 practice test that exists publicly, since the question types are the same.
Practical note for eighth and ninth graders: because the PreACT 8/9 tops out at 30 rather than 36, taking a full length official ACT under timed conditions is harder than the real thing. That is fine. A student who is comfortable with ACT passages will not be surprised by anything on the PreACT 8/9.
What is the PreACT 8/9 and who takes it?
The PreACT 8/9 is a 130 minute assessment for students in eighth and ninth grade that covers the same subjects as the ACT and reports on the 1 to 36 ACT scale, with a top score of 30. It also returns a STEM score and predicted score ranges for the PreACT and the ACT.
Schools administer it, not families, and it is not an admissions test. Its job is to give a student and their family a real, early data point: not a grade, but a projection of where an ACT score would land if nothing changed. Used well, it converts a vague worry in ninth grade into a specific plan for tenth and eleventh.
Is there a free high school entrance exam practice test PDF?
Yes, for most of the major high school entrance exams, and the free ones published by the test makers themselves are better than anything sold or scraped elsewhere. Which test your student takes depends on the school, not on preference.
- SHSAT, for New York City's specialized high schools. The NYC Department of Education SHSAT page is the only source families should start from. Its official handbook contains real retired test material.
- TACHS, for Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. Start at the official TACHS information page.
- ISEE, administered by ERB for independent schools. ERB publishes free "What to Expect on the ISEE" guides and a free online practice test, both linked in the ISEE section above.
- SSAT, used by many boarding and day schools. The SSAT's own free practice materials are linked in the SSAT section above.
If a site is offering one generic "high school entrance exam practice test" that supposedly covers all of these, it is not a practice test for any of them. The four exams differ in scoring, in penalty structure, and in what they actually measure.
How should a student practice for the SHSAT?
Start with the official retired SHSAT material from the New York City Department of Education, and take it timed and in one sitting. The SHSAT is scored on a scaled system where the cutoff moves each year with the applicant pool, so a raw score in isolation tells you very little.
Two mistakes cost students more points than any content gap. The first is untimed practice, which builds the wrong instincts on a test where pacing is most of the difficulty. The second is treating the revising and editing questions as grammar drills. They are structure and logic questions dressed as grammar, and they reward reading the whole passage.
Where do I find a free TACHS practice test?
Begin with the official TACHS information published by the Catholic school offices that administer the exam, linked above. Third party TACHS PDFs are common and are almost never built from real retired material.
The TACHS covers reading, written expression, mathematics, and an abilities section that is unlike anything students see in school. That last section is the one that surprises families, and it is the one worth practicing deliberately rather than cramming.
Practice Test FAQs
Are free practice tests as good as paid ones?
The free official ones are better. A practice test made by the organization that writes the real exam is the only kind that reliably predicts a score, because the question construction and the scaling match. Paid third party tests are useful for extra volume once the official material has been used, not as a first source.
How many practice tests should a student take?
Fewer than most families expect, reviewed far more carefully than most families do. Three or four full length tests spread across a preparation cycle, with a real review session after each, produces better results than eight tests taken back to back. The score comes from the review, not the sitting.
Should the first practice test be timed?
Yes. An untimed score is not a score, it is an estimate of what a student could do with unlimited time, which no test offers. Take the first one timed to get an honest baseline, then use untimed work for targeted practice on specific question types afterward.
Is there an official PreACT 8/9 practice test?
Not as a public download. ACT publishes preparation guidance for the PreACT family and a sample score report, and the closest free equivalent is ACT's own official ACT practice test, which uses the same question types on the full 1 to 36 scale rather than the PreACT 8/9 cap of 30.
What is a good PreACT 8/9 score?
It depends entirely on grade level, since the same score means something different from an eighth grader than a ninth grader. The useful number is not the composite but the predicted ACT range that comes with it, because that is what tells you how much distance there is between where a student is now and where their college list would want them to be.
Which high school entrance exam does my child need to take?
The schools decide, not the family. New York City specialized high schools require the SHSAT. Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens use the TACHS. Independent day schools most often use the ISEE, and boarding schools most often use the SSAT. Many families end up preparing for two, because their school list spans categories.
Do practice test scores predict the real score?
Official practice tests taken under real conditions predict well, usually within a modest band. Practice tests taken at a kitchen table with a phone nearby do not, and they tend to overpredict. The gap between a practice score and a real score is almost always a conditions problem rather than a content problem.
Can ConnectPrep score a practice test for my student?
Yes. We proctor and score full length practice tests for the SAT, ACT, ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, and TACHS, and we return a question by question analysis rather than just a number. Most families find the analysis more useful than the score, because it shows which mistakes repeat.
Related: check every SAT and ACT test date and deadline for 2026-2027, compare the tests in ACT vs SAT, or see how we work in test prep programs and book a free consultation.
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