The new enhanced ACT is coming, and prep pros are warning their students to avoid these three mistakes. In this blog, I’m going to give you the inside scoop.
Before we get into it, I just want to mention that we have built an online ACT prep course that you can check out at supertutortv.com. We’re going to be making some changes in the next several months so that it applies to the enhanced test, and it’s not just locked into the current version of the paper test. We’re still in a version that is very much focused on the paper test, but we’re giving you guys a heads up that we’re going to be adapting it so that everything in there is relative to either version of the test.
So let’s dive into it. The enhanced ACT, if you haven’t heard, is a new option from ACT that is starting to roll out in April of 2025 on national test dates. It’s already rolling out in part at school day test dates, potentially, but it’s rolling out for national test dates in April. And so if you are taking a national test date, you’re going to start to have options. Option number one is that you can choose whether you take the science section or don’t take the science section. I know that’s a question I’m getting from people. Should you omit it? Should you take it? Option number two is if you take it digitally, which is the only way you can omit that science section. It also introduces a new test format where you get more time per question, but we’ve never really seen that test before. There is one practice test up from ACT right now that is in this new enhanced format. You can find it on ACT’s website, but besides that, we really don’t have a lot of information on it.
Do Not Be the Guinea Pig
My first piece of advice is do not take the new test. If you can take the old test, do not be the guinea pig. I and many of my test professional friends have seen many students go through many iteration changes of tests, and our general consensus is do not be the guinea pig.
Here is why. You will have curveballs on the test. You will have timing inaccuracies to what you were practicing with. You’re not going to have enough practice material rolling into this test—at least not in April—to really know what’s on it and to have practiced it many, many times in that format with the pacing. And pacing has always been one of the hardest things on the ACT, and we’re not 100% sure how that’s all going to clock out with this new version.
One of the principles of test prep for a test is that the more practice you have, the more prepared you’re going to be and the better you can do on test day. You can’t prepare for something if you don’t have materials to actually practice for it. So, don’t be the guinea pig if you have a choice right now from April until July. The ACT is giving students in certain areas a choice. You can take it on a computer, and that will be the enhanced ACT. That will also give you the option to make the science section optional. I know a lot of students are excited to skip that section, and I’m going to get to that in a bit, but we don’t recommend that you do that because you will be a guinea pig. And usually what happens with scores when people are guinea pigs is their scores can go way down and be inconsistent, and it’s just a little bit dangerous. So, if you’re going through prep and if you’re going to do a lot of work to try to get a great score, prep with what you know.
Take It On Paper
Something is going to happen in September, and that is that everyone will have to take the enhanced ACT on national test dates. So, if you are taking the ACT in September of next year or beyond because those are the dates that make sense for you, the next piece of advice is once that new enhanced ACT rolls out, my test prep friends and I all advise—and I know it’s annoying because you guys love computers—to take it on paper.
Why should you take it on paper? Well, there have been studies that have shown that students retain more when they read on paper. We find that for most of our students, when you introduce a computer, there tends to be more variance in scores. I know for a fact I had a lot of international students who were forced to take the ACT on a computer, and they had reading scores that were up and down like crazy because it is hard to read and annotate on a screen. The retention is just challenging. With math questions, you don’t have to rewrite the math questions, so it saves time when you’re executing things. And so if you can do it right on the page, it’s going to save you time. It’s easier. I know you are digital humans who live in this digital age and love digital things, but from our experience as test prep professionals who have seen people go through paper versus digital, if you have a paper option, that’s one of the great reasons to take the ACT over the SAT.
Does the SAT have some advantages? Sure, but everybody’s taking it on a computer. The ACT is—we are not 100% sure—potentially scaling material whether you take it on a computer or whether you take it on paper the same. And that could just put you at a disadvantage. If you can take it on paper, we really recommend that you take it on paper and do not ditch the science section. Most colleges and universities have not even come up with a plan for how they’re going to deal with this no-science ACT. However, there are a lot of test-optional colleges. If you’re doing really abominably on the science section and you’re applying to colleges that are ranked 50 and below and nothing competitive, maybe in that case you could ditch the science. But for most colleges and universities that haven’t decided yet, you shouldn’t ditch the science because there might be a school where you want to submit it. So that’s kind of our take on the science section.
Do Not Only Practice With the Old Format
The final tip is that if you’re going to take the new test—and obviously by next September you’re going to have to—do not only practice with the old format if you’re taking the new one. Another mistake that a lot of self-preppers make when they’re prepping for a test during a transition is they’ll listen to the ACT, and they say that all the underlying questions are pretty much the same as all the stuff that we’ve always done, so you can just use all the old prep materials. Well, it is true that the types of questions are staying consistent. The frequency of questions is going to change, meaning that there are going to be more English questions with stems that are asking rhetorical strategy versus easy-peasy verb questions, from what I’ve heard from ACT. They’re going to be changing the formula of how many of each type, and they’re probably going to be increasing the number of challenging questions so that they can differentiate between students at the top of the scale while giving you more time per question. One of the biggest challenges of the ACT right now is that it’s a fast test. It’s hard to get it all done in the time that they allot. Once we get to this enhanced ACT, you’re going to have more time per question, and that’s going to be an asset that they got to make up for somehow. So, we’re going to see more difficult questions. But what I will say is you want to practice with as much as you can in the format of the exact test so you can understand the pacing.
So to recap: what do we have? We only have one test right now, but it’s early 2025. By May, ACT will be releasing a book that is full of enhanced ACTs. That book will give you the tool you need to then approach the enhanced ACT. So that’s a must purchase for almost every test taker because it’s going to have the only real official test. And the rest of us who write material are playing catch-up to try to see where the balance changes. What are the areas that are going to become more important? And how is ACT going to make things challenging? So, don’t practice only with old format materials if you’re taking the new one. It’s a mistake that I see a lot of self-preppers make, because they don’t pay attention to exactly all the new ones in these. They read what ACT said, and they just use old materials, which is fine for drill books. If you’re looking at independent tutor books that are drilling down skills, all those skills are going to be on the test. But when you’re looking at practice tests, you want to practice with those new ones that are available. And obviously you might need to supplement with the old ones because you’re going to run out, which is fine. But just make sure you use all the new stuff that’s available.
Hope you guys found this helpful!
