ACT

ACT is a college-entrance exam used by colleges and universities in the United States and elsewhere. It is used to evaluate applicants to their institutions, as well as to place incoming students in first-year courses of appropriate difficulty. The ACT measures a student’s ability to perform university-level work.

The ACT exam contains five curriculum-based tests: English, Mathematics, Reading, Science, and Writing.

Because the ACT is curriculum based, performance on these five tests has a direct relationship to a student’s educational achievement. In short, the ACT measures what students are learning in high school and what they are expected to know when entering university.

Facts about the ACT exam

• There are 2 parts to the ACT exam:
  • The Multiple-Choice Exam
  • The Optional Writing Exam
• The testing time for the multiple choice ACT exam 2 hours and 55 minutes.
• Total testing time for the optional Writing exam is 30 minutes.
• The multiple-choice exam covers the following content areas:
  • English
  • Mathematics
  • Reading
  • Science Reasoning
• The four multiple-choice tests are scored individually (1-36) and as an overall Composite score (also 1-36)
• The Composite score is the average of the scores from the four individual multiple-choice tests.
• In addition to the standard multiple-choice exam, students also have the option of taking the ACT Writing Test.
• The ACT writing exam measures writing skills emphasized in high school English classes and in entry-level university composition courses.

When to take the exam?

Students should consider taking it during the Spring semester of their 11th grade, as they will likely have taken the necessary ACT subject material in school by that time. Testing in 11th grade gives them enough time to re-test if their scores aren’t what they had hoped for.