This April, the ACT plans to do something it hasn’t done in over three decades: make wholesale changes to its test. Granted, the changes it plans to roll out this spring aren’t terribly significant, but they’re certainly more consequential than anything the ACT has done in recent memory. In today’s post, we’ll discuss those changes and how students in the classes of 2026 and 2027 should navigate them.
First things first: students should not avoid this new version of the ACT. The changes will largely be cosmetic – this is not a complete overhaul. There will be no new content, and they will not be changing their testing methods.
Students who know the current/old version of the ACT well will find the material on this new/enhanced version very familiar. Plus, all of the changes to the test are designed to be more favorable to students. Students have nothing to worry about with this new version of the test.
Changes to the ACT: The What
Largely in response to the College Board’s recent overhaul of the SAT, the ACT is attempting to make its test more enticing to high schoolers by shortening it, relaxing its time constraints, and eliminating one of its most intimidating sections from scoring. We’ll start with that last one first.
Science will now be optional
The most consequential of these “enhancements,” as the ACT likes to refer to them, is that the Science section will be optional for test takers. It will also be removed from the calculation of students’ Composite scores, even for those who opt to take that section of the test. Whereas previously (or currently, depending on when you’re reading this) the Science section was mandatory, and a student’s score on that section factored in evenly to his or her Composite score, it will now become entirely optional. Furthermore, students’ Composite scores will only be calculated from their English, Math, and Reading scores.
Old/current Composite score calculation:
New/enhanced Composite score calculation:
Students who opt to take the Science section will still get a score on that section of the test, but it will be reported separately.
Fewer Questions, More Time
The ACT will also be slightly reducing the number of questions on its English, Math, and Reading sections and adjusting the timing parameters on those sections to allow for relatively more time per question. (The Science section will remain unchanged in both of these respects). The tables below show the specifications of each of the sections of the current/old ACT and the new/enhanced ACT.
The ACT will be allowing students roughly 6 more seconds per question on the English and Math sections and 14 more seconds per question on the Reading section, which has historically been one of the hardest sections for students to complete in the time allotted. This might not seem significant at first blush (an extra 6 seconds per question?) but when aggregated over the length of an entire section, it will make a difference for many students, especially those whose natural test-taking pace usually leaves them rushing to finish the final handful of questions. Speaking from experience, we can safely say that that describes a large percentage of ACT test takers.
The notorious “5th section” of the test, which the ACT has traditionally used to test new questions, will be removed. The ACT will now include new “field test” questions – that DO NOT count towards students’ scores – into the 4 multiple choice sections.
Content and Format
In terms of the skills and concepts it tests, the new/enhanced ACT will look and feel almost identical to the current/old version of the test. There will only be a few minor changes to the test’s format and content. Here’s an enumeration of each of those changes on each of the 4 multiple choice sections:
English
- Each question will now contain a “stem question.” That’s a fancy way of saying an actual, written question. Currently, many of the questions on the English section didn’t actually have a written question. On those items, the implied question is “which of the following answer choices is the most grammatically acceptable way to write the underlined portion?” On the new/enhanced version of the ACT, those items will contain a written question to that effect.
- Some – but not all – of the passages will be shorter. The ACT still plans to test five passages on the English section, but with only 50 total questions, some of those passages will, necessarily, be shorter. Though according to the one practice test available on the ACT’s website, most of the passages will be the same length as they are now, just with fewer questions.
- An argumentative essay will be added, as well as questions dealing with argumentation, though this is not true of the one new/enhanced ACT practice test the ACT has made available on its website.
Math
- Each question will have only 4 answer choices, down from 5 answer choices on the current/old version of the test.
- There will be fewer advanced math questions and fewer long word problems (though we remain skeptical about this).
Reading
- Some passages will be shorter, but only marginally so. They will still be significantly longer than SAT passages, and, according to the one new/enhanced ACT practice test available, about 85% of the length of the passages on the current/old version of the test.
- Each passage will now have only 9 questions, down from 10 on the current/old version of the test.
Science
- There will be at least one passage on each test that deals with Engineering and Design.
- There will be more questions that test outside scientific knowledge.
Changes to the ACT: The When and How
The ACT has decided on a somewhat gradual approach to the rollout of these changes. As you may know, the ACT provides both paper-pencil and digital versions of its test. Until now, these two versions of the test were identical in every way except method of delivery. That will change for the Spring 2025 ACTs (April, June, and July). The new/enhanced version will be administered digitally, and the current/old version will be administered on paper.
On the September 2025 ACT, however, these changes will take effect for the paper-pencil version of the test as well. At that point, all ACTs – except for those offered during school-day testing in October (only applicable to a small minority of test takers at certain high schools) – will be the new/enhanced version of the test. Here’s a helpful graphic that illustrates the timeline of this rollout:
Will colleges and universities accept these changes?
That’s a very important question in all of this. After all, if these changes make colleges believe that the ACT is somehow a less accurate indicator of students’ college readiness than the SAT, then that spells trouble for the survival of this test. We’re not saying that is or will be the case, but we do need to be mindful of colleges’ reception of these proposed changes to the ACT. Thus far they’ve largely been mum on this matter, leaving all of us to speculate and strategize as best we can with nothing but history and common sense as a guide. Both of which suggest that colleges will, by and large, accept these changes uncritically, like they’ve done with all of the SAT’s myriad – and sometimes wholesale – alterations to its format and content in recent years.
The one caveat in this case, though, is that the express purpose of all of the proposed changes to the ACT is to make the test easier and more palatable to students. The test does not, however, offset any of these changes with elements that make the test more challenging. When the College Board recently overhauled the SAT to make it more palatable to students, it also significantly increased the difficulty of many of the questions. Additionally, the College Board made the test adaptive and instituted a fancy new scoring protocol (Item Response Theory) to ensure that this shorter, leaner test would still be able to assess students’ college-readiness with the same accuracy as the larger and denser (some might say “bloated”) paper-pencil SAT of years’ past. None of these counterweights – or anything resembling them – are included in the new/enhanced ACT.
Luckily for students, the current realities of the college admissions landscape – shrinking applicant pools due to demographic shifts, threats to funding, the current political and social climate – make it exceedingly likely that most, if not all, admissions departments will look the other way and accept the changes to the ACT, brushing under the rug any concerns they may have about the effectiveness of this assessment. For the first few years, at least.
That said, the removal of Science from the composite score could be a point of contention for some universities, particularly those that place an emphasis on STEM readiness. Interestingly, the few that have made formal announcements about the Science section – Harvard, Stanford, Brown, and West Point – have all said they will accept ACT scores with or without the Science section. Many other schools will certainly follow their lead, but it’s uncertain whether colleges will genuinely treat the Science section as optional or subtly prefer applicants who submit it.
Recommendations for the class of 2026
Act Fast/Prepare to Travel – We don’t think students in the class of 2026 – current Juniors – need to avoid the new/enhanced ACT. But the limited availability of administrations of the Digital ACT will likely preclude most 11th graders from taking the new version of the test before the end of the school year. And we always strongly recommend that students get at least one – but preferably more than one – administration of the ACT (or SAT) before the end of their Junior year. Unfortunately, there are very few testing centers that are able to participate in administering the computer-based version of the test (because host centers must provide computers). As of this writing, all testing centers within a 65-mile radius of our offices in northern New Jersey that will be administering the Digital ACT on April 5th are full, and only two such testing centers have availability for the June and July administrations (and one is in upstate New York). This is the case in most parts of the country, unfortunately. Luckily, there are many, many more testing centers that will be administering the current/old ACT on paper on April 5th, June 14th, and July 12th, and a vast majority of them still have availability. In other words, if you’d like to take the new ACT this spring, digitally, you’d better act fast or be prepared to travel far to take it.
Of course, these availability issues will work themselves out in September, when the paper-pencil ACT switches to the new/enhanced version of the test.
Take the Science. If you are nevertheless able to snag a seat for a digital administration of the new/enhanced ACT this spring, we very strongly recommend – except in “extreme” or very special cases – that you opt to take the Science section. As we mentioned above, we simply do not know whether – or which – colleges will require (or prefer) ACT scores to be submitted with Science. We do not want students who opted not to take the Science section to be unpleasantly surprised by an announcement from their first-choice college that they will only be accepting ACT scores taken with Science.
And though we wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to take this new/enhanced ACT this spring, it might be worth seeking out if you’ve been struggling with the speed of the current version of the test. The timing parameters of the new ACT are only a bit more forgiving than those of the current version, but that little bit could make the difference for some students.
Recommendations for the class of 2027
Things are a bit simpler for current sophomores, most of whom won’t be able to choose which version of the ACT to take. With few exceptions, students from the class of 2027 will be testing in the fall, winter, and spring of the 2025-26 school year, and by then the ACT will have fully transitioned to its new format.
Don’t Avoid it. As we’ve mentioned a number of times already, we don’t think students should actively avoid the new ACT. Most of the changes to the test are superficial, and students will be able to thoroughly prepare for it both with new practice material provided by the ACT (which is forthcoming, we trust) and with practice questions and tests in the old format, with a few small arithmetic tweaks to the timing parameters.
First Choice Prep’s SAT/ACT Diagnostic Test has been updated to reflect these changes to the ACT as well, so students who take that test with us this spring and summer should feel confident in its diagnostic utility.
Don’t Rush the Process. We would strongly recommend AGAINST trying to rush your test prep so that you can take one of the final administrations of the current/old version of the ACT. It’s never good to prepare for these tests before you’re ready to do so, and in this case there’s no benefit to it either.
Take the Science. Until we have more information from colleges about the optionality of the Science section, we will continue to recommend that students prepare for and take the Science portion, especially if they plan to apply to competitive schools. We have to believe that many colleges will prefer ACT scores with the Science section to those without, especially in the hyper-competitive admissions environment we find ourselves in. Time will provide more clarity, but for the foreseeable future it’s a much safer bet to assume that at least some of the colleges you’ll eventually apply to will want to see your Science section scores (even if they don’t explicitly say so).
Key Takeaways
The ACT’s changes, while not revolutionary, mark the biggest shift in decades. With fewer questions, more time per item, and the optional Science section, many students may find this version slightly more forgiving.
For the class of 2026, the transition period means test availability may be a deciding factor. If securing a seat for the digital ACT proves difficult, sticking with the familiar paper-based version through July 2025 is a practical choice. However, students struggling with pacing might find the New/Enhanced ACT’s timing adjustments beneficial.
For the class of 2027, there’s little reason to worry. The fundamental content of the test remains largely the same, and preparing with current ACT materials—with minor timing adjustments—will be just as effective.
The biggest unknown is how colleges will respond to the Science section becoming optional. Until there’s clear consensus, we strongly recommend students take the Science section to avoid limiting their options.
As always, the best approach is to prepare early, take multiple official practice tests, and make informed decisions based on personal strengths and target colleges’ policies. If you have any questions, First Choice Prep is here to help navigate the evolving testing landscape.
Leave a Reply