Three months after the College Board, who runs the SAT, announced major changes in its college admissions exam, the ACT has said that it is broadening how it reports students’ scores.
According to a recent article by Kimberly Hefling, the ACT’s traditional 36-point scale will remain the same, but beginning next year, high school students will receive scores on two new “readiness indicators.” These new indicators will show students how they performed in terms of “career readiness” and “understanding complex text.”
There will be new category which will give students a separate score on their STEM performance, which stands for science, technology, engineering, and math, and combines the science and math sections of the ACT.
The second new category will be in the area of language arts, which combines how students performed on the reading and writing portions of the ACT.
The essay, or writing section of the ACT, will remain optional for those who take the exam, but the writing section will be modified to make the essay topics more advanced and to require test takers to provide multiple perspectives on a topic.
The ACT officials reported that these changes have been “well-researched” and have been years in the making.
President of the ACT, Jon Erickson said, “We’re continuing to polish it, but not rebuild it.” Erickson mentioned that these new results that students will see will allow them to interpret them and added, “it will be enlightening and, dare I say, exciting.”
In 2012, the ACT actually had more students take the exam than the SAT, and last year, there were 1.8 million students who took the ACT. And, last spring, the ACT said it would begin offering online testing and started piloting it this year.
The ACT also said it is working on developing language for 2016 that will explain what the ACT scores actually represent as they relate to the newly implemented Common Core standards that a majority of states across the USA are now rolling out.
In addition, the ACT is also making new “open-ended” questions available to school districts in the subject ares of reading, math and science.
If you are planning on taking the ACT, SAT, or both, we offer a variety of programs that will help you be better prepared for these college admissions exams. Please feel free to call us and set up an appointment and we can explain how are program works.