Recent Changes to the ACT

The 2025 Redesign

The ACT's biggest overhaul in years arrived with the 2025 redesign. Science and Writing became optional add-ons, leaving English, Math, and Reading as the only required sections. The Composite is now the average of those three rather than four, so Science no longer feeds the number most colleges look at first. A Science score is still reported on its own and, when taken, pairs with Math to form a separate STEM score. Students decide at registration whether to add Science, Writing, both, or neither.

The redesign also made the test shorter and less hurried. The required sections take about two hours instead of the old three-plus, question counts fell across the board, and Math questions now carry four answer choices instead of five—which leaves more time per question. Reading and English were trimmed and their passages reworked. Because the changes touch content, timing, and scoring at once, any prep material written for the pre-2025 exam is now partly out of date.

Earlier Content Revisions (2014-15)

An earlier round of content changes took effect with the 2014 and 2015 administrations of the exam. Older versions of the test consistently included a science section structured around seven passages, but the latest version contains only six. The reading section was also changed by the introduction of a paired reading passage, which had not previously been a feature of the assessment. Both of these changes had little to no effect on the questions themselves, but the writing section underwent a much more substantial alteration. Before 2015, test-takers were asked to write essays that simply argued for or against a given position articulated in a brief essay prompt. The new writing task's essay prompt presents three distinct perspectives on an issue, on which students are expected to present their own views and relate them to at least one of those three given positions. This more complex writing task is accompanied by additional time; test-takers are now given 40 minutes for the essay instead of the previous 30. Furthermore, essay subjects now concern contemporary topics of broad importance (such as climate change) rather subjects mainly of interest to high school students (e.g. the appropriateness of the school schedule).

Older Background: 2016 Scoring and Score Reporting Changes

For historical context, score reports were reworked back in September 2016. ACT replaced the old 1-to-18 "subscores" with "reporting categories" expressed as the percentage of questions answered correctly, and retired some earlier breakdowns such as Algebra/Coordinate Geometry. The same update added the graphical ACT Readiness Range—which highlights the score band a student who has met a subject's College Readiness Benchmark would usually land in—and a STEM benchmark averaging Math and Science. These reporting conventions still frame today's score reports, but remember that the 2025 redesign has since changed what the Composite itself measures.

Older Background: 2015-16 Experiments with Writing Test Score Scales

Also for the record: during 2015-16 ACT briefly put the Writing score on the same 1-36 scale as the other sections, then dropped that approach a year later because the essay number clashed too much with the multiple-choice scores and confused test-takers. Writing has been reported the same way ever since—four domains scored 2-12, with the overall Writing score the rounded average of those four.

The 2018 Addition of a Seventh Test Date

For many years, there were only six testing dates available in the United States, Canada, and U.S. territories. Beginning in the 2017-2018 academic year, a seventh date was added, administered for the first time in July 2018. ACT intends to offer seven national test dates for the foreseeable future. Most ACT administrations take place at high schools, but the July test date is held primarily at colleges or universities because many secondary institutions are closed during the summer months. The July test date is not currently available in New York, and no test dates have been added internationally.

The Importance of Up-to-Date Preparation Materials

The redesigned ACT still tests the same core skills, but its shorter, restructured format is different enough to matter for how you prepare. Students should work from the most current materials they can find—above all the latest edition of the Official ACT Prep Guide and the practice tests posted on act.org. Older books, videos, and online lessons may still reflect the pre-2025 exam, so check the edition and the question counts before you rely on any of them.

Motives for ACT Revisions

ACT cited alignment with Common Core as one reason for the earlier writing changes. More broadly, competition with the SAT has driven improvements to both exams, with each borrowing the other's better ideas. The 2025 redesign follows the same logic: a shorter, more flexible ACT that lets students skip the sections they don't need answers the SAT's own move to a briefer digital format. Either way, test-takers come out ahead.