By James Grossmann
Alongside the College Board’s SAT, the ACT plays a fundamental role in the postsecondary education track of many students. In every public college in Florida, submission of scores from either the SAT, the ACT, or the Classic Learning Test (CLT) are required for first year admission. Even further for the state of Florida, getting a 29 on the ACT, among other criteria, will qualify students for the highest tier of the Bright Futures Scholarship, which can eliminate all costs of tuition for students attending public Florida universities, an insurmountably important factor in the decision of where – or if – to attend college.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges it wrought for students, many colleges waived their requirements for standardized tests, opting for test-optional or even test-blind policies. Many colleges have opted to maintain their test-optional policies to give students more flexibility in the admissions process and in response to criticisms of the inequality standardized tests often create.
However, many colleges – such as Dartmouth, Georgetown, and MIT – have opted to return to test-mandatory policies due to a need for a standardized bar of comparison to use when evaluating students. Because of these factors, the College Board and ACT Inc. have been under significant pressure to redesign their tests in order to not only combat inequality in test design, but also to make their tests more appealing to high school students in the modern education environment.
In March of 2024, the College Board will transition the SAT to a purely digital format. Alongside this change, the philosophy of the SAT’s design will undergo fundamental changes: the whole test will be significantly shorter, the test will become adaptive to the student taking it, and the entire process will be much more streamlined. ACT Inc., too, has made the move to offer digital exams following the announcement of the College Board’s plans.
As of December of 2023, students now have the option to take a digital version of the ACT. However, the test is still the exact same structure and format whether students take it on paper or digitally – ACT Inc. did not follow suit when the College Board updated the SAT to match the new educational landscape.
The fact that ACT Inc. did not make any effort to redesign their test illustrates the core folly in the ACT’s design: the ACT is stuck in the past. Introduced in 1926, the SAT is continuously changing in response to new developments in education, receiving redesign decade after decade, such as the 2016 redesign and the 2024 digital streamlining. Introduced in 1959, though, the ACT has changed very little since 1989. The ACT’s design demonstrates a lack of understanding of the modern educational environment; the ACT’s design demonstrates a fundamental contradiction between the skills measured and college readiness; the ACT’s design is superfluous to the modern college admissions era – a theme prevalent in each of the ACT’s sections.
ENGLISH
The English section of the ACT presents students with grammar passages laden with errors to be fixed and potential suggestions to increase logical flow. Students are tasked with reading the passages and selecting what changes, if any, would be best in the context of the author’s purpose. With 45 minutes for 75 questions, the English section establishes what is to many students the biggest challenge to taking the ACT – timing. Students have to think fast while answering the ACT English section’s short and to-the-point questions, which in many regards makes it the most well-designed section of the entire test.
Where the ACT English section falls apart, though, is how it is supposed to be used as a measure for college readiness. ACT Inc. reports that scoring an 18 out of the ACT’s 36-point-scale indicates that a student has a “reasonable chance of success” in an English Composition I course in college.
ACT Inc. defines this “reasonable chance of success” by positing that students who meet this benchmark will have a 50 percent chance of earning at least a “B” in the corresponding college class and a 75 percent chance of earning at least a “C.” For the English section, though, there are some concerns this comparison raises. While being able to revise passages is most certainly an important skill in any English class, a college composition class involves one thing: writing.
A multiple-choice test cannot, in any meaningful capacity, measure a student’s ability to procure the critical thinking needed to write a formal essay in college. Ironically, the optional writing section of the ACT – the one non-multiple-choice section of the test that requires students to write an essay – does not have a corresponding college readiness benchmark, even in spite of the fact that it is arguably the only section of the test that can serve as an indicator of success in a college composition course.
While ACT Inc. reports that 96,583 college students were sampled across 68 two-year and 68 four-year institutions to create the English benchmarks, ACT Inc. does not report the proportion of these students that did receive a “B,” a “C,” or above in the corresponding college class, making these results difficult to analyze for statistical significance. The scoring varies slightly with each session of the ACT, but students can generally receive the college readiness cutoff score of 18 on the English section by answering between 38 to 40 of the 75 English questions correctly.
The College Board reports similar metrics. For the SAT, a 480 across the writing and language and reading sections indicates a student has a 75 percent chance of earning a “C” or above in a first-year college-level English or history class. The English section of the ACT is analogous to the SAT’s writing and language section, so most of the criticisms to the ACT’s English section can be applied likewise. However, since the SAT writing and language section revolves around 44 questions in 35 minutes, there are more in-depth questions that focus on passages as a whole. In many ways, the English section of the ACT is the only ACT section that is fundamentally analogous to its corresponding SAT section, as the mathematics and reading sections diverge quite a bit. Since the College Board combines the writing and language score with the reading section score to create the evidence-based reading and writing score (the section score that is out of 800), there is probably more merit to the College Board’s metrics in light of the fact that the reading section of the SAT is fundamentally skill based.
According to ACT Inc., students can miss 35 or more of the English section’s 75 questions but still be deemed “college ready.” Instead of learning how to write and revise, many students will simply learn how to game the English section for a competitive score. Many test-taking strategies can enable students to learn the question types over learning the content. Instead of learning that being concise is best in writing, students will learn that the shortest answer choice tends to be correct. Instead of learning how to maintain a consistent tone in writing, students will learn that the answer choice with a formal tone will tend to be correct. In order to get a higher score on the English test, which will likely be the goal of the vast majority of students, then students will certainly need to have more of an understanding of the basic conventions of the English language. But to meet ACT Inc.’s standards for college readiness, students can simply learn how to game the system. But no matter what score a student receives on the English section, there is no sense in using it as a bar for readiness in a writing course. Thus, the ACT English section succeeds in a few senses as a test of grammatical understanding but ultimately fails as a metric for colleges and universities to use in weighing applicants and as an indicator of success in writing-based courses.
MATHEMATICS
The mathematics section of the ACT tasks students with completing 60 questions in 60 minutes. Questions pertain to knowledge students are expected to encounter in their secondary math classes, as one would expect. Unlike the SAT math section, which tries to encompass questions relating to basic knowledge building into skill-based critical thinking and problem-solving, the ACT math section is a pure-blooded knowledge test. In this regard, the ACT succeeds at gauging if students have the knowledge being tested. But as a measure of college readiness, the ACT math section fails for one simple reason – there’s too much on the test.
ACT Inc. extols the design of their test, arguing in press releases that “The ACT test provides meaningful, standardized data on student achievement and readiness, making it a great equalizer of opportunity for all students.” However, this lofty philosophy does not match the fundamental design of the mathematics section. Compared to the SAT, which does not test beyond Algebra II and related concepts in trigonometry, the ACT tests well into precalculus and higher-level statistics. Matrices, vectors, advanced trigonometric concepts such as the law of sines and cosines, factorials, residuals, permutations, advanced probability – all of these concepts are quite prevalent in the ACT math section, even in spite of the fact that many students taking the test will have never learned about any of these concepts.
These concepts are equivalent to five years of high school mathematics, a hurdle many test-takers are not able to overcome simply because they only have four years of high school and are expected to begin taking the ACT during their third.
And yet, the cutoff for college readiness in the ACT mathematics section is even higher than that of the English section, standing at a 22 versus an 18. ACT Inc.’s benchmarks for college readiness state that if a student reaches a 22 on the math section, the student will enjoy the same “reasonable chance of success” within a College Algebra class, the college equivalent of Algebra II. ACT Inc. does not report any recommendation for using the ACT math section as an indicator of potential success in any other math class.
But the problem in this benchmark is that the ACT math section tests through the entirety of College Algebra and through essentially every math course before calculus. In order to reach a 22 on the ACT math section, a student typically needs to answer over 30 of the 60 questions correctly. While this margin of error may seem rather large, the ACT math section is largely understood to be quite difficult, and reaching this score is not going to come easy for many students – especially those who have not finished precalculus and statistics.
And for students who want a higher, more competitive score for the math section, this task can be insurmountably difficult for those who have not taken these classes.
So, if reaching ACT Inc.’s “reasonable chance of success” will generally require students to have an understanding of material beyond Algebra II, what is the point of using the test solely as an indicator for success in College Algebra?
SAT math questions hit on basic topics and build up to critical thinking, where students are presented with entirely new situations unlike anything they’ve seen before, having to use algebraic reasoning to develop new ways of solving novel problems that serve as a transition into calculus and other higher-level math classes.
ACT math questions are not like that. As stated, ACT math questions are purely knowledge based, with many simply being bizarre. Upwards of eight questions on the ACT math section will throw obscure, miscellaneous situations and concepts at students – topics that do not correlate with college readiness. Calculus students will not need to know what the ones digit of 537 to the power of 102 is. Calculus students will not need to know whatdigit 443 of a repeating decimal is. Calculus students will not need to know how many white faces are on an oscillating cube.
For many students, because of how strange many questions on the ACT math section are, there is no realistic way to reach a competitive ACT math score without studying these niche one-off scenarios in order to game the ACT math section, once again implying that many students will turn to learning the test rather than learning the content.
The same cannot be said of the SAT math section in any capacity.
Students can learn question types that were given on previous SAT math sections, but a student can’t just learn questions to get a high score on the SAT math section – in order to answer the higher-level questions that stand in the way of a student getting above a 700 on a math section, students have to learn algebraic critical thinking. Students must learn how to approach new situations they’ve never seen before by devising problem-solving strategies.
The College Board reports that 530 on the SAT math section indicates the same 75 percent chance of a student obtaining a “C” or above in their placement-based first-year college-level math class – college algebra, precalculus, statistics, or calculus. To that end, these benchmarks work for the SAT since the SAT math section is a dynamic, skill-based test that does not test the knowledge of these classes but rather emphasizes critical thinking skills that serve as a transition into these classes.
The ACT math section does not measure these skills. The ACT math section is just a knowledge test.
The core purpose of an academic aptitude test – especially one weighed as a factor in admission to colleges and universities – should not be to measure what knowledge a student currently has, but rather to gauge their capacity to learn in the future. The ACT math section does not follow this idea, but rather exists as a knowledge test covering topics through its own college course equivalent, fundamentally failing as a college readiness benchmark.
READING
The ACT reading section tasks students with answering 40 passage-comprehension questions in 35 minutes. Immediately, it becomes apparent that timing is not lenient at all in this section. In addition to answering these 40 questions, students theoretically must read and try to comprehend the five passages of different genres the section revolves about.
The silver lining, though, is that questions in the ACT reading section tend to be more surface level than that of the SAT. While the ACT reading section can certainly have harder, more involved questions detailing with aspects of entire passages, they are much fewer in number than the SAT, which presents students with 65 minutes to answer 52 questions based on six passages and related data sets (that is, before the SAT transitions into its digital format, which will not include passage sets but rather short excerpts to correspond with individual questions. It’s indeterminate thus far how these changes will impact the SAT’s college readiness benchmarks for reading).
So, acting on that premise, many students will not take the ACT reading section with reading comprehension in mind. Instead, many students will just skim the passages or even skip them entirely, only referencing them as the questions do. This strategy helps many students find success in the ACT reading section, as a large portion of the questions typically ask about details from the passages in a vacuum, meaning that a thorough understanding of the entire passage may not necessarily be needed.
But that is learning a test and not the content or skills in its worst form.
ACT Inc. argues that “The ACT reading test measures the ability to read closely, reason logically about texts using evidence, and integrate information from multiple sources. The test questions focus on the mutually supportive skills that readers must bring to bear in studying written materials across a range of subject areas.” But the fundamental design of the ACT reading section encourages students to only skim the passages; the fundamental design of the ACT reading section encourages students to bypass reading comprehension.
In college, students will have to do an extensive amount of reading as a core part of every course they take. But on the ACT, many students must learn how to avoid reading in order to get a competitive score on the reading section.
ACT Inc. reports that a 22 on the reading section indicates the same “reasonable chance of success” in the following courses: “American History, Other History, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Economics.” Success in college English courses is supposed to be predicted by the English section.
Reading comprehension is certainly an important skill for these social science courses. But the fundamental design of the ACT reading section teaches students to put reading comprehension on the backburner while taking the test. Students are encouraged to find ways to shortcut reading while taking this test, a habit that should not be carried into college. On a fundamental level, the ACT reading section contradicts every skill in reading that students need in order to succeed in college.
SCIENCE
The ACT science section is probably the most unique section across the SAT and ACT. Instead of being presented with questions about subjects in the sciences students may have studied in high school, the ACT science section presents students with passages, data tables, graphs, and the like. Students will be presented with question sets pertaining to a wide variety of topics – lab experiments, scientific debates, diagrams of the aerodynamics of a squirrel – and students will have to answer questions based on the short passages and stimuli.
Similar to the reading section, 35 minutes are allotted to answer 40 questions about numerous passages and diagrams. The subjects the passages come from typically stem from earth/space sciences, biology, chemistry, and physics. If students are unfamiliar with the subjects of the passages, they are expected to be able to gleam the information they need to answer the questions from the passages themselves.
The ACT science section is, to be blunt, bizarre. The questions are often designed to seem convoluted and obsolete such as to bring out students’ abilities to reason through foreign material, a skill that actually has many applications in college and beyond. For most students, though, this turns the test into a battle of picking out what iota of each passage corresponds with which individual question.
In some regards, this makes the ACT science section analogous to the reading section. Instead of reading comprehension, though, the science section of the ACT theoretically focuses on quantitative reasoning. The ability to comb through data and identify what is relevant; the thinking necessary to juxtapose two dissenting scientific arguments; the power to relate foreign concepts to understandable ideas – these are valuable skills and are hypothetically the core tenets of the science section.
ACT Inc. describes the science section as requiring students to “recognize and understand the basic features of, and concepts related to, the provided information…examine critically the relationship between the information provided and the conclusions drawn or hypotheses developed…generalize from given information to gain new information, draw conclusions, or make predictions.”
But for many students, this idealistic thinking does not match how they approach the test. A similar problem as the reading section occurs in that many students do not approach the science section with critical thinking in mind; rather, many students simply treat the test as a connect-the-dots game of matching the minutiae of abstract diagrams to surface-level multiple choice questions.
Instead of trying to relate data tables of tiger frog mass and caloric intake to anything they’ve seen before, many students will just only reference specific data points when the questions do, disregarding any connections they could make via critical thinking. Instead of trying to relate diagrams of trigonal planar bonds back to their chemistry class, many students will skip the underlying ideas in favor of just gaming the questions. Many students will skip critical thinking and quantitative reasoning in favor of learning the test.
An odd lapse in the design of the ACT science section is that, despite the fact students are supposed to reason through foreign material as an equalizer to the fact students may have taken different science classes in high school, approximately four questions out of the 40 in the science section will outright require outside knowledge. Many miscellaneous topics can barrage students in these few questions – Newton’s first three laws; structure and function of cell organelles; chemical formulas for cellular respiration and photosynthesis; atomic structure; layers of the Earth. Analyzing fluctuations in scoring for the ACT across several years, missing four questions can generally drop a student’s score in the section by upwards of five points.
ACT Inc. states that “Advanced knowledge in these areas is not required, but background knowledge acquired in general, introductory science courses may be needed to correctly answer some of the questions.” But given that graduation requirements in science vary wildly in many different areas, it’s impossible to guarantee that all test-takers will have an understanding of the miscellaneous – and rather out-of-place – material being asked by these few questions, undermining the idea of an equitable test to be used in college admissions.
For the science section, ACT Inc. sets the mark at 23 for a “reasonable chance of success” in a college-level biology course. This benchmark, though, is emphatically undermined by the argument that very few skills manifested in the science section’s questions directly translate into a biology course. Sure, basic quantitative reasoning may indirectly translate into all science classes, but biology is a course that puts content understanding and system analysis as a priority – skills completely disconnected from the ACT science section.
Nonetheless, ACT Inc. purports that the 41,651 students they studied across 40 two-year and 50 four-year institutions are sufficient evidence to claim that success on the ACT science section indicates potential success in a biology course. In actuality, the relationship may be the opposite; students who take courses in biology and other sciences in high school are probably more likely to score higher on the ACT science section due to the fact they’ve been exposed to material that will help them grasp concepts on the ACT science section. Then, in college, they are more likely to succeed in courses in biology and beyond due to their background experience in high school. To that end, a student’s score on the ACT science section can be read as a final product and not a predictor.
Ironically, for a section that emphasizes quantitative reasoning, ACT Inc. is equating correlation to causation when using the science section as a benchmark for success in a college-level biology class.
The SAT does not have anything like the ACT science section. Basic stimuli do appear throughout the ELA section and graph analysis is a component of the math section, but the ACT science section’s skills are specific to just the ACT in most regards. In that capacity, the College Board likely does not see many of these skills as relevant to a college readiness test. Since most colleges treat the SAT and ACT equally, this implies that colleges do not significantly value the skills fostered in the ACT science section, either. So, much like the rest of the ACT, the ACT science section stands as a well-written test in a vacuum but has little relevance as a college readiness benchmark and even less value from a college admissions standpoint.
WRITING
The ACT writing section is typically the least important section of the ACT to most students. The writing section is optional, and students must pay an additional fee when registering for the ACT in order to take it. Additionally, the ACT writing section is not factored into a student’s composite score. Very few colleges consider the ACT writing section, and even fewer request it. Only three colleges in the U.S. still require the ACT writing section: Martin Luther College, Soka University of America, and the United States Military Academy (West Point).
So, for a test taken by millions of people, why is the ACT writing section so disregarded?
In several capacities, the ACT writing section is rather obsolete. The ACT writing section provides students with a blurb of context on a societal issue and three differing perspectives on the issue. Students are then asked to formulate their own stance on the issue, synthesizing, agreeing with, modifying, or refuting the three given perspectives. Then, in 40 minutes, students must handwrite an essay in which they form a claim about their own perspective and defend it with tangible and/or hypothetical evidence from their own experiences.
The ACT writing section is quite analogous to something like the argumentative essay on the AP English Language and Composition exam, with the chief difference being the given perspectives in the former. The latter tasks students with developing a perspective all their own without any pre-given stances to base it upon, which is a better indicator of an essay found in college.
While both are timed essays, most essays students encounter in introductory English courses in college will likely not be timed, with students being given multiple weeks to work on an essay that factors in higher-level research in order to formulate a more detailed claim.
Moreover, in order to apply to college, most students will have to write a personal statement and a barrage of other essays. So, most colleges probably perceive reviewing an ACT writing score – when they can’t review the essay it comes from – as redundant.
Before it was effectively discontinued, the SAT essay tasked students with writing a basic rhetorical analysis. This was novel and likely of more value from a college admissions standpoint, as a rhetorical analysis is something colleges had essentially no vessels of reviewing beforehand.
But in the end, the College Board still discontinued the SAT essay, citing that “We’re adapting to respond to the changing needs of students and colleges. This change simply streamlines the process for students who have other, more relevant opportunities to show they can write an essay as part of the work they’re already doing on their path to college.”
ACT Inc. has not shown any signs that they wish to discontinue the ACT writing section. The ACT writing section is scored on a 12-point-scale and reported separately from the other sections, not affecting a student’s composite ACT score. This one tidbit makes it completely irrelevant to many students who simply wish to get the highest composite score they can.
ACT Inc. does not directly report a college readiness benchmark for the writing section.
THE ACT: A MISCELLANEOUS TIRADE
In 2023, roughly 1.9 million students took the SAT, reports the College Board, up from 1.7 million in 2022. For the ACT, ACT Inc. reports that the results were just under 1.4 million students in 2023, up from roughly 1.35 million the year prior. Objectively speaking, the SAT is currently more popular than the ACT, and the gap between their quantity of test takers is growing – a pattern likely to only be exacerbated by the SAT’s streamlined digital redesign. The SAT is outpacing the ACT.
In many ways, this is symbolic of how the ACT is rather archaic.
The benchmarks ACT Inc. reports for college readiness have not been updated or even reevaluated since 2013 – over a decade ago. Since 2013, many events – such as the COVID-19 pandemic – have changed the way students learn, posing the question of why these benchmarks have not been under scrutiny – or, rather, why the entire test, whose four major sections have not had a change in content or structure since 1989, has not changed in response to this new educational landscape.
OKAY, BUT HOW DO COLLEGES ACTUALLY VIEW THE ACT?
Because of how competitive the modern college admissions process is, ACT Inc.’s own standards obviously will not suffice for most competitive colleges. And no, the vast majority of students do not see ACT Inc.’s college readiness benchmarks as the scores they wish to reach.
In 2015, as a response to this growing concern, ACT Inc. introduced new scores as a part of a student’s ACT score report – ELA and STEM.
ACT Inc. reports that a 20 for the ELA score – which effectively combines the scores of the sections in English, reading, and writing to be one average – indicates a student is prepared for “English Composition I, American History, Other History, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Economics,” the same courses measured already by the English and reading sections by themselves, now arbitrarily combined into one score alongside writing. For the STEM score, an average of the mathematics and science sections, ACT Inc. states that a 26 – the highest score for a benchmark ACT Inc. reports – indicates college readiness in “Calculus, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Engineering.”
But these combined scores don’t change the test itself, just how the scores are reported, meaning they can’t truly measure readiness for these courses if the test isn’t designed to emphasize the skills students need in these classes. ACT Inc. can change the way they report scores and make slightly different recommendations, but they can’t obscure the fact that they haven’t truly updated the test in over a score of years. ACT Inc. can’t obscure the reality that the ACT, as it’s currently designed, does not truly measure readiness for any college course. The ACT is still the archaic test it has always been; the ACT is still fundamentally designed in a way that discourages skills students will need in college; the ACT is still stuck in the past.
Colleges and universities have been making their own policies for how they consider the ACT in admissions processes for scores of years. For the University of Florida, the 25th percentile for composite ACT scores out of attending first-year admits in 2023 was 28 – higher than every single benchmark ACT reports for college readiness. The 50th percentile was 31, and the 75th percentile was 33.
Whether it be due to internal studies or a competitive applicant body, many colleges have higher expectations for ACT scores when reviewing students due to a need to be able to compare students using a numerical data point. The expectations over ACT scores have only increased – and are still increasing – in recent years as a result of competitive colleges adopting test optional policies.
But raising the bar for ACT scores does not change the fact that no ACT score accurately indicates college readiness.
The ACT is fundamentally designed to discourage skills that indicate college readiness – the English section does not measure a student’s ability to procure answers to open ended prompts via critical thinking; the math section is purely a knowledge test, not an aptitude test; the reading section teaches students to ignore reading comprehension; the science section fosters skills that are largely irrelevant to most colleges classes; the writing section is redundant to most colleges.
And yet, almost every college treats the SAT and ACT as equals.
The SAT, despite its own flaws, is designed as a skill-based test and is quite effective at being an indicator of college readiness. Critical thinking, reading comprehension, and quantitative reasoning are the core of every single question the College Board asks. What the ACT conjures up, though, is largely proprietary to the test and disconnected from the skills students need in colleges. The fact that these tests are treated as equals in college admissions and as bars for merit scholarships – such as Bright Futures – raises many questions when these tests measure entirely different qualities; the SAT is a skill-based test and the ACT is a knowledge-based test.
Because of the ACT’s proprietary nature, many students studying for the ACT have opted to learn the test and not the content or skills.
Hundreds of review books and online prep courses tout their ability to help students reach their target score for their ACT by drilling question types and strategies into their minds. A pervading mentality surrounding ACT preparation is that students can dramatically increase their scores by simply learning how to game the test; learning how to answer the questions without any regard for learning the skills and content.
But by learning the test, students have emphatically validated the reality that the only skill the ACT truly measures is one’s ability to take the ACT. In order to maintain a competitive ACT score in one of the most stressful, involved, and competitive college admissions eras to date, many students feel pressured to throw any skills gained from learning the ACT because, at the end of the day, the ACT does not truly require skills that indicate college readiness.
ACT Inc. maintains that ACT scores are accurate indicators of imperative skills for college, perpetually arguing that “These tests are designed to measure skills that are most important for success in postsecondary education and that are acquired in secondary education.” But the fundamental design of the ACT disregards this mantra; the fundamental design of the ACT favors students who know how the game the test over students who hold college readiness skills; the fundamental design of the ACT is an archaic relic of an era where college readiness exams measured arbitrary skills; the fundamental design of the ACT is a slew of topics irrelevant to the modern college admissions era – the ACT is a miscellaneous tirade.
