I Took the New, Shorter ACT: Here’s What Students Need to Know

Saturday, April 5th, was the first time that students could opt-in to take the new Enhanced ACT on a computer. Although availability was limited nationwide, a colleague and I were able to sign up and take the Enhanced ACT alongside students. While the Enhanced ACT will only be available via computer-based testing for June and July, it will become the only option in September, offered either on paper or on a computer. 

Here are some of our general impressions about this new test and how students and families should respond.

The computer-based testing mostly worked well.

After checking in, I went to a classroom and was given a laptop and a piece of paper with my login credentials. The proctor had a computer that controlled when each section began. There were some loading times, but nothing that could be considered disruptive. The only timing issue I experienced occurred during the English section. On my computer, I had about 40 seconds left on my screen, but the proctor assumed that everyone was finished and started reading the instructions for the math section. This unfortunately affected my performance on the last question, and I ran out of time before entering an answer.

Students interested in the computer-based test can find sample questions and a demo of the testing platform on the ACT’s website. The testing platform appeared stable during the test and does have some helpful features, including different background/text colors, answer eliminator, and a built-in calculator. The calculator is a scientific calculator, similar to what comes preinstalled on many computers. It does not incorporate Desmos, which is a key feature of the College Board’s Bluebook testing app. There have been some rumors about the ACT adding Desmos to its testing platform, but as of now, it’s regrettably not an option. 

Personally, I’m not a fan of how the testing platform implemented annotation, as any highlighted sections of a passage do not carry over to the following questions. I think most students taking the computer-based test would be better served by writing notes on scratch paper, which was available throughout all of the sections of the test. 

Despite these interface concerns, everyone who took the computer-based Enhanced ACT at my testing location was able to complete their tests without any disruptions or delays.

Fewer questions made for a harder ACT.

One of the features of the Enhanced ACT is fewer questions per section, with English going from 75 questions to 50, Math from 60 to 45, and Reading from 40 to 36. On the classic ACT, the English and Math sections typically included a number of easier questions, but the April Enhanced ACT offered very few that could be described that way. The math still has the general pattern of going from easy to hard, but I was surprised at the difficulty of the first couple of questions. 

The Reading section was different than expected.

Having taken the practice Reading section available on the ACT’s website, I knew to expect four passages with 9 questions each. However, I was surprised that my test form broke from the classic ordering—Literary Narrative, Social Science, Humanities, and finally Natural Science. It instead placed Literary Narrative last and labeled the other three passages as “Informational.” It’s not yet known if this was an anomaly or if shuffling passages styles will become the norm. 

The ACT has stated that 9 of the 36 Reading questions will be “field test items,” which essentially means one of the four passages do not count towards a student’s raw score. It’s possible that the passages are shuffled to prevent bias, since the final passage will on average perform worse than the other three, as a percentage of students will always run out of time. I’ll be curious to see if this pattern persists as the ACT gradually releases more practice materials.

Timing will likely still be an issue for many students.

Despite being a seasoned test-taker, I struggled with timing on most of the sections and ran out of time on the last question of two of the sections. I had expected to have enough time to review my work and play with the interface, but I felt rushed. Perhaps I focused too much on the novelty of computer-based testing rather than the questions themselves. I might perform better on a future attempt, but as a first-time experience, I didn’t feel good about my time management.

The processing speed needed to ace the ACT has been a perennial concern, and one of the key marketing features of the Enhanced ACT is that it offers more time per question. While this is true, the increase in difficulty seemed to offset any advantage provided by having additional time, and I predict that many students will not feel any noticeable timing advantage on the new test.

Science is optional, but essentially unchanged.

Perhaps the biggest change from the classic ACT to the Enhanced ACT is that the Science section joins the oft-forgotten Writing section as optional. Personally, I decided to take the Enhanced ACT without the Science section, as I’ve never been a fan of it, and I thought doing so would ensure that I got the computer-based test and didn’t find myself herded at the last moment into a room only offering the paper test. However, my colleague did take the Science section and reported back that it felt like a classic ACT Science test, with only some changes in passage length and overall timing (40 minutes instead of 35).

Starting in September, not only will the Science section be optional for all ACT administrations, but the Science section will be pulled from composite scores for any recently taken ACT. The Science score will be an addendum and the score report will offer a STEM subscore that averages the Math and Science sections for those who added on the Science section. 

The big question is how colleges will respond, and it’s too early to say. Expect policies to trickle in over summer, but for a current junior, it makes sense to have at least one Science score in case it’s needed.

For now, paper testing remains the best option.

Having taken the new Enhanced ACT on a computer, I would say that there is no current advantage in testing that way. There are some quirks in adapting a paper-based test to a computer-based platform, and, unlike the SAT, which integrated Desmos and switched to a one-passage/one-question format, the ACT has kept with a passage and question style that works best on paper.

Additionally, the ACT has been slow to roll out Enhanced ACT practice, with only one, unscorable test currently available. While there is certainly overlap in content and strategy with both versions of the ACT, speaking as a test-taker, I did not feel that the ACT supported me with practice before this April administration.

However, I don’t think that we should fear the Enhanced ACT that rolls out this September. By then, the ACT will have published the Official Guide, which will have more practice tests. My recommendation would be to wait until September to take the Enhanced ACT and to take it on paper.

For some students, computer testing will be the only option, as some school day testing will use computers and computer-based testing will continue to be the only option internationally. For those who must test digitally, I would recommend taking timed practice tests using the ACT’s digital testing platform to help learn how to best navigate the interface. Also, students taking the computer-based test should rely on their scratch paper, as that will be important for taking notes and solving math problems.

The scale is still unknown.

I’m most curious about the scale, since we know that a considerable number of the questions of each section (10 in English, 4 in Math, 9 in Reading, 6 in Science) are “field test” questions that do not affect the raw score. We know that the SAT has forgone quantitative feedback on their score reports, instead offering a 7-bar scale offering insights about 4 categories for each section. While the Enhanced ACT has none of the adaptive scoring of the Digital SAT, I’ll be curious how they address, or don’t address, the number of field test items in their score report.

‍