The American College Test (ACT)

The American College Test (ACT) is an entrance exam that many colleges and universities in the United States use as part of the college admissions process. The ACT is a standardized test that evaluates a student’s skills in five core areas: English, Mathematics, Reading, Science, and Essay Writing (optional). Students in grades 11 and 12 take the ACT so that they can process admission into colleges or universities.

The ACT is composed of four multiple-choice sections- English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science-and one optional essay section-Writing. Total testing time is 2 hours and 55 minutes for the ACT without Writing and 3 hours and 35 minutes for the ACT with Writing.

The ACT provides four answer choices to questions in the English, Reading, and Science tests but five answer choices to questions in the Math test. The ACT has a unique feature in which the odd-numbered questions have answer choices labeled A through D or E, whereas the even-numbered questions have answer choice labeled F through J or K with the exclusion of I.
Each correct answer on the ACT gets you a raw point, and there is no penalty for wrong answers. A scale score ranging from 1-36 is computed for each test on the basis of the raw score secured in that test. The ACT also provides a STEM score and seven different sub-scores.