Officials at ACT, which makes the exam, said Tuesday that starting next September, students who want to improve their scores would be able to retake single sections of the five-part test, which lasts about three hours, instead of sitting for all of them again. The change would allow students to avoid getting worse marks on sections they had taken earlier.
The new policy comes as educators, students and parents debate the role of standardized testing in admissions and whether it is an appropriate measure of student ability or worsens social inequities. Many colleges and universities have made test scores an optional part of applications. But many students still feel compelled to score highly on the ACT and SAT exams, committing to time-consuming and often costly prep sessions to gain an edge.
After the change was announced, some parents, students and tutors wondered if the option to focus their improvement efforts would fan the frenzy over test scores, putting students who do not have access to coaching at a further disadvantage.
The five subsections on the ACT — reading, math, science, English and writing, which is optional — are graded on a scale of 1 to 36. Currently, scores on the four required sections are averaged into a composite score. But students’ highest composite scores may not reflect their highest subscores because they may have done worse on an individual section.
Starting in September, students will get a new “superscore” combining their highest scores on the subsections from each time they took the test. Currently, if students who have taken the test more than once want colleges to see their best subscores, they have to send in multiple test results.
“They might think, ‘Why do I have to sit through and take all these tests again if I only need to improve my math score?’ ” an ACT spokesman, Ed Colby, said. “We’re trying to save them time. We’re trying to save them money.”
It is not yet clear whether colleges would evaluate applicants with a superscore over multiple exams differently from those with a composite score from one exam.
Test experts said the changes would help many students improve their lots. Testing coaches now generally work with students on the entire test. Under the new rules, they would be able to work on one subject at a time, trying to raise a score in math, for example, before moving on to English or science.
But the ability to customize test results in this way could make test prep even more important than it is now, hurting those who cannot afford it or are not advised to seek it, said Sally Rubenstone, senior contributor at College Confidential, an online admissions forum.
“These ‘improvements’ don’t move the admissions process any closer to the destination that I recommend, which is not eliminating tests entirely, but downgrading their importance and allowing only one — or maybe two — test sessions per student,” Rubenstone said.
“I worry that most of the high-achieving kids in my orbit will retest and retest until they can bump subsections of 33 and 34 up to 35 and 36. So standardized testing will become even more of an extracurricular activity than it already is.”
Akil Bello, a college consultant who specializes in working with underprivileged students, said that although the changes sounded positive, “in the world we live in, it advantages the rich, who have coaches, who have advisers, who are strategically crafting their plan to take them to college.”
Another admissions consultant, Joshua Mauro, of Signet Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said he thought superscoring would primarily benefit the ACT, by encouraging students to take its exam instead of the rival SAT. It would also help colleges, he added, by allowing them to report better test scores for students they admitted.
He said several colleges already constructed their own superscores, based on the test results that students send them, because “it improves their standing, their metrics.”
But he said that being able to retake individual subsections would be beneficial to students nevertheless. Just the stress and fatigue of taking a multi-hour test can reduce scores, so taking just part of it would mitigate that, he said.
“In my experience, students taking individual sections do drastically better than when they sit for the full exam,” Mauro said. “I see that as a way to reduce anxiety.”
The ACT says its research shows that superscoring is more predictive of how students will perform in their college courses than other scoring methods.
Kent Rinehart, dean of admission at Marist College, said his office informally superscores now because it wants to present students in the most favorable light, even though test scores are optional there. But he said admissions officers would have to consider whether it was fair to compare the superscores of students who retook the whole test with those of students who retook just part of it.
“I think we’re going to have to take a step back and think about whether the way we superscore today is the way we’re going to superscore it in the future,” Rinehart said. “It would not surprise me if we took a slightly different approach.”
Students can take the test up to 12 times, though most take it only once or twice. According to the ACT, students who take the test more than once have slightly higher first-year college grades than those who take the test a single time. The organization’s theory is that those students are motivated to succeed, which translates into better academic performance.
Taking the whole test costs $52 without the optional writing section, and $68 with it. ACT officials said taking an individual section would be cheaper, but they had not yet decided on a price.
If the change encourages more students to retake portions of the exam, it may ultimately increase revenue for the organization.
Students will also be given the option to take the ACT online, rather than with paper and pencil, on days when it is administered nationwide. The test is now given online only at international test centers and in school districts that administer the test during the school day.
Online results will be available within two business days, rather than the two to eight weeks it takes to get results from the paper-and-pencil tests.
For years, the two dominant test makers, ACT and the College Board, which administers the SAT, have been in a battle for market share. About 1.9 million students take the ACT each year; about 2.1 million take the SAT.
Several experts said the ACT announcement would put pressure on the College Board to make similar changes to the SAT, which has two sections — math and evidence-based reading and writing. Officials at the College Board, which recently withdrew a plan to measure disadvantage with a single number on a test-taker’s score report, did not return a request for comment on Tuesday.
This article originally appeared in
.