Plans to update the ACT assessment are scheduled to take effect in the fall of 2015 and 2016, following the recent announcement of the re-designed SAT assessment that will be offered beginning in the spring of 2016. Next year, the sections of the exam that will be changed include the ACT Writing, Reading, Mathematics, and the essay, which will undergo some minor modifications. ACT Inc., who administers the assessment, maintains that the changes will be more subtle than drastic, compared to the overhaul the SAT will receive.
The main focus of the ACT update will be on university readiness. New scores and indicators on the updated ACT will improve student preparedness and success in Career Readiness, English Language Arts, and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pursuits. Supplementing the traditional scores and “college readiness benchmarks”, the STEM and Language Arts scores, and Career Readiness and Text Complexity indicators will provide more insight into the student’s performance. The overall standard scale of 1 to 36 scores on the ACT will not change and will still be reported.
The Essay: The writing prompt for the optional ACT essay will be enhanced and more complex, asking students to “evaluate multiple perspectives on a complete issue and generate their own analysis based on reasoning, knowledge, and experience.” More time will be allotted for developing and writing the essay. The scoring of this Writing test will be updated with sub-scores to measure and evaluate the student’s ability in four areas of competency: idea and analysis, development and support, organization, and language use.
Reading: A new question type will be introduced in the reading test. In this section, two complementary passages will be given for students to compare information and analyze before answering the questions.
Mathematics: The Math test will have more questions targeting a student’s ability to work with probability and statistics. The update here will be quite minor and students who are familiar with the old content will not see any major changes.
Overall, despite the above changes planned for the ACT, students taking the new assessment will have a similar experience to that of the current test. More details on the updated ACT will be available later in the summer. To learn more about the updates planned for the ACT or to register for the upcoming fall dates, go here. For assistance in preparing for the ACT assessment or determining if the ACT exam is the right fit for your abilities, read more about our SAT/ACT Boot Camp or try our SAT/ACT Exam Exploration. Please contact our front desk at (604) 922-8456 or e-mail info@options-wp.chhdev.com with questions or to register for a session.
