Big Changes to the ACT in Fall 2020

The ACT Company has announced three major changes to the ACT starting with the September 2020 test administration.

1. ACT Section Retesting
   Students who have already taken a full ACT will be able to retake individual sections (the ACT is comprised of four sections: English, reading, math, and science).  Students may take one, two or three sections on a given test date.  These section retests will be offered on the same dates as the full ACT (September, October, December, February, April, June, and July).
   
   Since students must still take a full ACT before they may retake any individual section, this does not change our initial approach to ACT preparation.  Students will still need to prepare for all four sections.  However, this change is a huge advantage for students who struggle with stamina or who have a particular weakness in one or two sections.  After taking the full test once, they will be able to focus on the section that is particularly challenging for them.  Creating a customized test preparation strategy focusing on when to prepare for and take each section will be increasingly important.

2. Superscoring
   The ACT is changing the format of its score report.  Students receive a score on each of the ACT’s four sections (English, reading, math, and science) and then a composite score, which is an average of the four section scores.  In addition to providing colleges with a composite score from a single ACT test date, if a student has taken the test (or individual sections) more than once, the ACT will now also provide a Superscore.  The Superscore will be made up of the average of the highest score from each section, across different test dates.
   
   Most colleges already conduct this Superscoring analysis on their own, so this change should not have much of an effect on our students.  It may, however, push those colleges in the minority that have not been Superscoring to begin doing so.

3. Online Testing and Faster Results
   Starting in September, some test centers will offer online testing.  The online test will be offered at testing centers on desktop computers on the same dates as the paper tests.  The online test will be the same test as the paper test, just offered digitally.  The main advantage of the online test is that the results will be returned more quickly.  The ACT claims that some results may be returned in as little as 2 days (as compared to 10-14 days for the paper-based test).
   
   The ACT will still be offering paper-based tests.  For now, online testing is just an option.  Since online testing is new and therefore more likely to run into technical problems, and there are only two real online practice tests, Ivy Link recommends students register for paper-based administrations of the ACT at least for fall 2020.