USA TODAY International Edition
ACT changes its procedures, allows do- overs by section
Trying to get a high score on a college entrance exam? It might have just gotten easier.
The ACT announced the changes on Tuesday, saying they’re meant to better serve students. But the modifications may give even more advantages to rich students, close observers say.
The ACT is one of two national tests many colleges use to judge students’ readiness for college. It considers four subject areas: English, math, reading and science, plus an optional writing test. The other test is the SAT, run by the College Board. The two tests both require most students to pay a fee, and most selective colleges will take results from either assessment.
But the testing companies are in fierce competition with each other. The ACT used to be the more widely used test, but the SAT overtook it in recent years. In 2018, 1.9 million took the ACT, and 2.1 million took the SAT.
Starting in fall 2020, students will be able to retake specific subject areas of the ACT where they did poorly, for a fee. In the past, students had to retake the whole test if they wanted to improve their score.
Students must have taken the test in full at least once before they can retake individual sections. The test also can now be taken digitally at a testing center when it’s administered nationally. That means test- takers will get their results more quickly, ACT officials say.
The changes are meant to better serve students and spare them unnecessary time taking tests, said Mary Michael Pontzer, a vice president at ACT. She said the changes were not taken for the sake of being competitive with SAT or to increase the ACT’s market share.
The company said the actual material in the test would remain the same.
The change with the greatest potential to affect college admissions is the introduction of a “superscore.” It applies to students who have taken the test more than once, and it’s a composite score of their best results in each subject.
Colleges don’t have to use the “superscore,” and they could opt to use scores from a single test. Many colleges already consider a students’ best scores across multiple tests.
Still, some say the advent of onesubject testing and “superscores” could benefit the wealthy and add unnecessary stress to a culture already hyperfocused on test scores.
The changes “privilege the privileged,” said Adam Ingersoll, a co- founder of test- prep firm Compass Education Group. They’re the ones with the resources to pay the fee to retake the test multiple times.