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The ACT test is a standardized test administered to high school students to determine their readiness for college. Students typically take the ACT test in Junior and/or Senior year and include their scores along with their college applications. In case you were wondering, ACT doesn’t really stand for anything. The ACT test was developed as a rival test to the SAT in the 1950’s and was originally dubbed American College Testing and the name stuck.
What Makes Up The ACT Test?
The ACT test is comprised of multiple-choice questions in four core areas: English, math, reading and science. There is also an optional writing component to the test in which the student writes an essay. The math and English questions make up the majority of the exam. Each section of the ACT test has its own time limit. The entire exam (including the optional writing component) takes about 3.5 hours.
How Is The ACT Test Scored?
The highest score a student can earn on an ACT test is 36. The average score earned on the ACT exam is roughly a 20. Without getting too technical, each section of the exam (English, math, reading, science) is scored on the 1-36 scale and then all of the scores are averaged to calculate the composite score. If a student decides to take the writing section, they will receive a score from 1-12, which is then calculated as part of the English score to give the student an English writing score.
On the ACT test, points are scored for each correct answer. Parents are sometimes surprised to learn that students neither earn nor lose points by guessing incorrectly or skipping questions completely. Therefore the goal is to answer as many questions as possible during the time allowed.
What Is A Good ACT Score?
There isn’t necessarily a magic ACT number that will get a student into any college. It really depends on where your student is applying and everything else that makes up the overall application. Colleges are also going to be looking at things like grades, extra curricular activities and the essay. (Don’t forget that grades are still going to be the most important component to getting into college.)
Parents are often looking for hard and fast rules when it comes to ideal ACT scores and unfortunately they don’t exist. Generally schools will have a preferred score in mind when they are admitting new students but typically it is a range, not a specific number.
There is also a bit of give and take when it comes to ACT scores and grades. Sometimes a school will not place too much stock in a lower ACT score if the student’s grades are really strong. (And vice versa when it comes to lower grades and a higher ACT score.) But again, there are no guarantees when it comes to this.
Can You Take The ACT Multiple Times?
You can take the ACT over and over again without any penalties! One of the reasons that we like the ACT test is that you can send your best score with your application and are not required to send all of your scores to most colleges.
We would recommend taking a FREE ACT test with us to see where you score and then you can figure out if you want to try to improve your score.
How Do You Register?
The ACT exam is offered only a handful of times a year. Depending on which school you attend, you may have up to 7 times you could take the test per year. Right now the cost to take the ACT test is $56.
To sign up to take the ACT test, go to actstudent.org