ACT has dropped a bombshell announcement of three major changes to the test coming to the National test dates in spring 2025 and to school-day testing in 2025:
- Students will be able to choose to take the ACT in either a digital format or a pencil-and-paper format
- The ACT will be shortened and offer more time per question
- The ACT Science section will become optional for test takers at registration. English, Math, and Reading remain required
ACT has released frustratingly little specific information, but below we explain the changes as we understand them and what they mean for students.
The Digital ACT
It may surprise many students and families to learn that the ACT has offered a digital version of the test for school-day and international testers since 2017. After losing significant market share to the SAT following the launch of the Digital SAT in the United States, ACT has decided to make the digital version of its test more widely available to its biggest market.
A digital version of the ACT will now be offered to students taking the National test dates–the annual test dates that most of our students register and prepare for. ACT has seen that students broadly prefer digital testing, and they are answering that call.
ACT has committed to keeping a pencil-and-paper option available for students who prefer that format. This differs from the SAT, which must be taken digitally.
No details have yet been provided regarding permitted devices, technological requirements, and updates to the user interface to come with the new test.
A Shorter Test with More Time Per Question
The new version of the ACT will be 44 questions shorter. To put it in perspective, the current version of the ACT has 215 questions. The new version will have 171 questions. The Digital SAT has 98 questions, by comparison. Since the ACT will still have about 75% more questions than the SAT, it will still be true that each ACT question missed has less of an impact on a student’s score, on average, than each SAT question missed.
The ACT will also be giving students more time per question in each section of the test. This is massive news for students: over the years, the speed of the ACT has been the most significant challenge. Students who have completed diagnostic testing for both an SAT and an ACT report to us that the ACT “felt” harder because of the time pressure, even if they scored much higher on the ACT. This quality-of-life upgrade to the test’s time limit should make the test feel much less daunting to students. However, it is important to remember that the ACT is curved. The feeling of an easier test does not mean a student is performing any better relative to their peers.
ACT has not released the exact time limit or the number of questions for any section, and we do not feel comfortable guessing about that based on the limited information available from the digital ACT pilot programs run this spring. ACT will provide more information, and we will update you accordingly.
The ACT Is Science Optional
The ACT is making the Science section optional, as the Writing section currently is. It seems that students will have the option to register for four different permutations of the ACT:
- The ACT without Science and Writing
- The ACT with Science, without Writing (our recommendation)
- The ACT without Science, with Writing
- The ACT with both Science and Writing
No college has yet revealed its policy on requiring or eliminating the newly optional ACT Science section. This is news to colleges as well, and they will need time to digest it before updating policy. Colleges are historically slow to make major testing policy changes (pandemics aside).
Our advice is that until future notice students take the ACT with Science and without Writing, because very, very few colleges require ACT Writing, and we don’t yet know how colleges will respond to the optionality of ACT Science. Taking the test with Science keeps your options open while we wait for more information.
Unresolved Questions
ACT’s post was mum on several key points. Among them:
What specific ACT test date will be the first to incorporate these changes?
ACT has given no more specific timeframe than “spring 2025” for National testing and “spring 2026” for school-day testing.
Our best guess is that the changes for National Testing will coincide with the April 2025 test date. This is because the Test Information Release (TIR – the option for students to receive a copy of their test and list of missed questions) was moved up from April and June (the usual times) to September and February for the 2024-2025 school year. Most likely, this is because February will be the last date of the test in its current format before the switch to the new digital version.
Will the shorter version of the test and optional Science section only be available for for the digital ACT? What if I would prefer to take the paper ACT?
ACT’s announcement was written in such a way to imply that the optional Science section and shorter test were contingent on a student testing digitally.
“Both of these exciting changes, along with other enhancements to modernize the test, will roll out starting with National online testing in spring 2025 and then for school-day testing in spring 2026.” [emphasis ours]
However, absent an explicit announcement, we do not know for certain whether optional Science and the shorter test will be available on paper or not.
Will there be a TIR for the new version of the ACT?
ACT had previously expressed that they plan to keep the TIR regardless of future test changes. The SAT got rid of its comparable product when releasing the Digital SAT, but this is presumably due to the adaptive nature of the exam making it more challenging to release a TIR and maintain test security.
Theoretically, since the digital ACT is not adaptive, ACT should be able to keep its word on keeping the TIR. However, no official TIR dates are listed yet for after February 2025, so this is an open question. If they keep the TIR available, the next TIR should be in the fall of 2025, in either September or December, based on recent trends.
Will the difficulty of ACT questions increase to offset its new, easier time limit?
ACT has said that the difficulty of the questions is not planned to increase. That seems somewhat impossible, given that the general tradeoff between the SAT and ACT is that the SAT offers more complex, abstract questions and allows students more time, while the ACT offers more straightforward questions with a more challenging time limit. Making the test easier by keeping the questions at the same level and upping the time-per-question seems like it would lead to curves that are very volatile at the top–where one small mistake could cost a student significantly with so many students getting more questions right.
As with the rest of these developments, we will wait to see what materials ACT releases for the new version of the test.
What practice materials is ACT releasing for the new version of the test, and when?
There has been no word on this yet, but we do not expect the style and type of questions to differ dramatically on the new test format–they would need a longer runway to redesign the entire test. We expect currently available ACT practice test materials to be accurate in type and style of question, but with a more punishing time limit than on the new test.
We eagerly await more word from ACT on this front.