Changes to the ACT

Many aspects of the current ACT will remain:

• The content of the ACT will remain tied to knowledge and skills students learn in high school.
• The ACT will still be scored on a scale of 36.
• Assessments will take place in schools and test centers as before.
• Students who are approved for 50% and 100% accommodations will receive them.
• The online version of the test will remain linear, rather than adaptive.
• Students will continue to have the option to take the exam either on paper or online. CEO Janet Godwin says that when demand for paper testing dries up, ACT will go fully digital.

Other aspects will be new and different:

Section changes 

• Both the English and the reading sections will feature shorter passages.
• The science section will be optional. 
• The composite score will be the average of the English, reading, and math scores

Length and timing 

• The exam will be shorter–about two hours, as compared to the current approximately three hours.
• The new test will contain 44 fewer questions than the current test.
• Students will have between 6-14 additional seconds per question, so the pace will feel slower.

Digital-specific test information

• ACT will not allow students to bring their own devices—at least, not for earlier administrations of the digital exam. ACT has discussed a move toward allowing students to bring their own devices in the future, but has yet to make this possible. This may raise concerns as to whether test centers will have sufficient numbers of devices for students registered for the digital exam.
• A built-in calculator application will be available on the new exam, though it appears that this may be simply a scientific calculator. Students will still be able to bring their own graphing calculators to the test.
• Sample new ACT questions and a full, new digital practice test have been released. You can find them here.

Timeline

April 2025:

The 2-hour version of the exam will go live starting with national online testing in the US.

September 2025:

The changes will affect international and paper test-takers.

April 2026:

School-day testing will shift to the new version. However, ACT believes many states and districts will still require Science.

What does this mean for the Class of 2025?

This class should not be affected by the changes, since they’ll need to complete their testing before the changes to the ACT come into effect. They should continue or begin test prep with the current formats.

What does this mean for the Class of 2026?

The new ACT will be available in the spring of their junior year, but we will have more information about the exam well before that time.

Here are possible test prep paths:

• Focus on the SAT
• Take the current ACT & plan to finish testing by December of junior year
• Consider waiting to take the new ACT at the end of junior year as an add-on to previous ACT or SAT testing.

What does this mean for the Class of 2027?

There will be a lot more details, and we’re sure some changes, to the testing landscape by the time the Class of 2027 is ready for standardized test taking. For now, the Class of 2027 should focus on their GPA, extracurricular activities, and community engagement. The earliest we recommend students take ACT/SAT diagnostic tests is in the spring of their sophomore year.

Common myths about the ACT timeline

As facts about the upcoming new ACT trickle through the internet, so does misinformation. So, fact or fiction? Learn the truth about five common myths about the new ACT in our blog.

The ACT Roadmap

Our experts have crafted a few options for testing timelines to help you navigate this upcoming shift in testing formats with minimal disruption to your test prep process. See the roadmap here.

Structure & Content of the new ACT

Ever since ACT announced that major changes will be coming to the test in 2025, our experts have been hard at work searching out official information about the new exam. So far, ACT has released only limited information, but here are the tentative section-specific changes that they’ve announced. 

Tentative section-specific changes 

English

• 50 total items, 10 experimental
• 35 minutes
• Reduced passage length

Math

• 45 total items, 4 experimental
• 50 minutes
• Choices A–D rather than A–E

Reading

• 36 total items, 9 experimental 
• 40 minutes
• Some passages reduced in length

Science (Optional)

• 40 items, 6 experimental
• 40 minutes
• Increased number of items requiring background knowledge