Is the ACT Really Getting Harder?
This fall, a whole lot of rumors have been floating around about ways in which the ACT may have gotten harder. As always, your TA team is on the front line, digging into your questions and concerns and getting you the information you need, when you need it. We’re pleased to share with you our analysis of what has changed on the ACT and what hasn’t. Fortunately, it’s mostly good news!
Let's go section by section...
MATH
What Has Changed
The concepts in the math section of the ACT have indeed gotten a touch harder. The ACT may now feature the following additions: vectors, expected value, random vs. nonrandom sampling, conic sections, and residuals. The ACT also really took the trig up a notch.
What Hasn’t Changed
While the changes do mean there are now additional math concepts to focus on in session, there are only 2-5 newer questions appearing on each test. Even better news: about 75% of these new questions can be solved using good old test-taking strategies such as Choose Numbers, Test Answer Choices and especially Elimination.
SCIENCE
What Has Changed
The ACT is now including two questions that require outside knowledge, rather than just one. This means there are fewer questions in this section for which your child can rely solely on the information presented in the passages to answer the questions.
What Hasn’t Changed
The concepts and content of the individual questions in this section have not changed. Though there will indeed be two questions that require outside knowledge, the individual passages have remained very similar over time and our general approaches and answer choice analysis techniques will still work. Even better? We’re now seeing a total of 6 passages in this section (compared to last year’s 7) more frequently. This means chances are high that your child will have one less passage to decipher!
ENGLISH
What Hasn’t Changed
Only good news here! There’s nothing to suggest that the ACT has changed this section in any major way.
READING
What Has Changed
More recent ACTs have occasionally included paired passages, which means students are asked to compare two passages and answer questions based on their relationship to each other. Though this doesn’t necessarily mean the questions or passages are harder, it does require your child to develop an additional skill.
What Hasn’t Changed
Outside of the occasional paired passages, the question and passage types have remained consistent on the ACT year after year. With consistent and focused practice, your children will be very familiar with the questions and passages they encounter in this section.
ESSAY
What Has Changed
The ACT is back to scoring the essay on a scale of 2-12, rather than on a scale of 1-36. Previously, scoring the essay on a scale of 1-36 put the essay in direct comparison with the other sections on the test. On the 1-36 scale, students’ essay scores often seemed lower than their composite scores, thus creating confusion around what a good score looked like. Now that the essay is scored from 2-12 again, it is more straightforward to discern what constitutes a strong score.
What Hasn’t Changed
Though the scoring system has changed, the essay itself remains the same. We know exactly what to expect when it comes to the ACT essay, and therefore so will your child.
Though there are subtle ways in which the ACT has gotten more challenging since the summer, none of these changes should pose a true barrier to your child’s success on this test. Our tutors are staying in the know as these changes reveal themselves, and are equipping your children with the strategies and content they need to face their official tests with confidence. Though these sudden changes from the ACT might seem scary, it's also important to keep in mind that the test is scored on a curve. So, if more unannounced changes come our way in the future, that curve will account for these changes and help keep your child's scores stable.
