ACT announces shorter, cheaper, optional science exam

The ACT announced two major changes to its eponymous exam last week, four months after the former nonprofit was acquired by venture capital firm Nexus Capital.

Starting next spring, the science portion of the ACT will be optional for students, as will the writing portion, which has been optional since 2005. The test will also be a full hour shorter, with 44 fewer questions and truncated reading passages. An ACT spokesperson said the changes would make the test less expensive, but he didn’t specify by how much.

Unlike the SAT, which relaunched in March as a shorter, all-digital exam, the ACT will continue to be available online and in paper-and-pencil format.

The most popular

In an exclusive interview with At the heart of higher educationJanet Godwin, CEO of ACT, said the company’s primary goal is to provide students with a more personally relevant exam and reduce stress and time demands on candidates.

“That’s a message we’ve heard loud and clear from students and stakeholders: more flexibility, more choice,” she said. “We want to support students where they are.”

Godwin said the ACT’s internal research showed that the score on the shortened exam without the science component is comparable to the composite score on the traditional exam; both are scored on a 36-point scale.

They show their work

The new test won’t be available to everyone right away. Students who take the ACT online will get the “enhanced” test, as the spokesperson called it, next spring, and international students will get the new test in fall 2025. But for students who take it in person on specific dates sponsored by school districts, it won’t be available until spring 2026.

Godwin said the ACT wants to “stagger” adoption and implementation and give state partners and school districts time to adjust to the changes. But the gap means that, for at least one application cycle, colleges will receive ACT scores from two “fundamentally” different exams, as the company’s own press release puts it, that admissions offices will have to evaluate as essentially the same test.

Asked about potential challenges in comparing the two models, Godwin again cited internal research.

“We are confident that the research we have done and the research we are continuing confirms that these results have the same meaning,” she said. “These changes are validated by the research.”

When At the heart of higher education Asked to view the data, the ACT spokesperson wrote via email that the company’s research team is still “conducting a linkage study so that the results of the improved test can be compared to the current test” and promised to share the results once they are “ready for publication.”

Akil Bello, director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing and a critic of standardized testing, said the alleged psychometric comparability of the two tests was “hard to swallow.”

“Essentially, the statement from the testing industry seems to be: ‘As long as there are bubbles, everything is fine,’” he said.

Michael Nettles, a professor of psychometrics at Morgan State University and former senior vice president of policy evaluation and research at the Educational Testing Service, said it’s possible that the ACT’s research shows a strong correlation between the two versions. But “it would be great to see the data,” he added.

“Even when data is evidence-based, there are questions about how representative it is of the populations taking the test. That’s why there needs to be much more transparency,” he said. “It’s just like before, where we all had to blindly trust the assessments.”

The Great Shortening

While these changes come shortly after Nexus Capital’s purchase of ACT, Godwin said the testing company began planning for them more than a year before the acquisition.

“This has nothing to do with Nexus,” she said. “We don’t make these kinds of major changes overnight.”

However, ACT’s evolution reflects market forces at work in an evolving testing industry, especially as its competitors make similar changes.

The College Board’s all-digital SAT is also much shorter than the old analog version, though unlike the ACT, it’s no cheaper. The ETS cut the length of its flagship exam, the Graduate Record Examination, in half last May, a move made in the face of a severe financial crisis that has since led to hundreds of layoffs.

Godwin acknowledged that ACT is “letting the market make the decision” in some areas, including whether to keep the paper-and-pencil option; as soon as demand for that type of course dries up, she said, the company will move to all-digital. In other areas, she said, student experience and higher-quality testing have been the driving forces.

“Our analysis shows that students are running out of time and rushing to answer their final questions,” she said. “We want them to be able to demonstrate what they know, not just how quickly they can do their work.”

For Nettles, it is clear that recent measures to shorten exams and provide more flexibility are “market sensitive”.

“When universities started making tests optional and fewer students were taking them (during the COVID-19 pandemic), companies interpreted that as a demand for less demanding and less time-consuming assessments,” he said.

He doesn’t criticize the motivations of test providers, he said, as long as they remain transparent. But the imposition of market logic, particularly in the case of ACT, which is moving from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, is clearly a driver of transformation.

“This is an industry that has long resisted change, so even the smallest adjustment is an opportunity,” he said. “But it’s rare that this kind of change happens without larger changes to the business model.”

Competitive convergence

For years, the ACT’s science section made it more popular than the SAT in states that required exit exams because of its diversity of subjects. At the same time, many students were intimidated by the science section.

Now that some colleges are starting to roll back testing requirements, Godwin hopes that making the science portion optional will increase the ACT’s appeal while retaining one of its unique advantages.

“While there are students, schools and states that see the science portion of the ACT as very important, there are many more students who are not pursuing STEM majors and for whom it doesn’t make much sense,” Godwin said. “It’s about giving those students a choice.”

Nettles said he hopes the ACT can continue to demonstrate its traditional advantages, namely its relevance to traditional high school curricula, one reason he believes many high schools have required it instead of the SAT.

“The ACT has been successful in demonstrating the fit between its content and the high school curriculum over the years,” he said. “The question now is how can that fit be demonstrated in the same way as in the past.”

Godwin said the ACT isn’t done evolving yet, hinting at further changes not only to its exam but also to its overall business model and educational offerings, which she said will begin to extend to the K-12 curriculum and workforce readiness.

“Keep an eye on the ACT,” she said. “We’re picking up the pace.”