ACT American College Test Information
The ACT originally consisted of four tests: English, Mathematics,
Social Studies, and Natural Sciences. In 1989, however, the Social
Studies test was changed into a Reading section (which included a social
sciences subsection) and the Natural Sciences test was renamed the
Science Reasoning test, with more emphasis on problem-solving skills as
opposed to memorizing scientific facts.[12] In February 2005, an
optional Writing test was added to the ACT, mirroring changes to the SAT
that took place in March of the same year. In 2013, ACT announced that
students would be able to take the ACT by computer starting in the
spring of 2015; however, by the fall of 2017, computer-based ACT tests
were available only for school-day testing at limited school districts
in the US, with greater availability not expected until at least the
fall of 2018.
The ACT has seen a gradual increase in the number of test takers since
its inception, and in 2011 the ACT surpassed the SAT for the first time
in total test takers; that year, 1,666,017 students took the ACT and
1,664,479 students took the SAT. All four-year colleges and universities
in the U.S. accept the ACT, but different institutions place different
emphases on standardized tests such as the ACT, compared to other
factors including class rank, GPA, and extracurricular activities.
The main four sections are individually scored on a scale of 1–36, and a
composite score (the rounded whole number average of the four sections)
is provided.
The required portion of the ACT is divided into four multiple choice
subject tests: English, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning.
Subject test scores range from 1 to 36; all scores are integers. The
English, mathematics, and reading tests also have sub scores ranging
from 1 to 18 (the subject score is not the sum of the sub scores). In
addition, students taking the optional writing test receive a writing
score ranging from 2 to 12 (this is a change from the previous 1–36
score range); the writing score does not affect the composite score. The
ACT has eliminated the combined English/writing score and has added two
new combined scores: ELA (an average of the English, Reading, and
Writing scores) and STEM (an average of the Math and Science scores).
These changes for the writing, ELA, and STEM scores were effective
starting with the September 2015 test.
Each question answered correctly is worth one raw point, and there is no
penalty for marking incorrect answers on the multiple-choice parts of
the test; a student can answer all questions without a decrease in their
score due to incorrect answers. This is parallel to several AP Tests
eliminating the penalties for incorrect answers. To improve the result,
students can retake the test: 55% of students who retake the ACT improve
their scores, 22% score the same, and 23% see their scores decrease
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