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Changes to the ACT Writing Test
Beginning in September 2015, a number of “enhancements” made to the optional ACT Writing test will roll out. This article will cover what’s changed and what hasn’t, as well as how I feel about those changes. (And if you want a better ACT Essay score, click here for our deepest strategy guide from a perfect-scoring veteran tutor).
Changes in ACT Essay Prompt Topics
First, the subject matter in the prompts is shifting to become broader and less school-specific. While previous prompts focused on questions such as “Should students be required to maintain at least a C average in order to obtain a driver’s license?” and “Should school be year-round?”, the new Writing test’s prompts will ask students to weigh in on controversies surrounding contemporary issues—things like artificial intelligence, climate change, immigration, and so on.
Adjustments to the ACT Writing Task
With this shift in subject matter also comes a shift in students’ mission: to address and critique three different perspectives on a single issue, then to adopt a perspective of their own and explain how it relates to one or more of the three perspectives given. What’s more, while the previous Writing test simply gave positions for and against the issue, the new Writing test presents viewpoints that are more nuanced than black-and-white absolute answers allow. This is more reflective of the ideological grey area that quite often predominates academic discourse.
Lengthening the ACT Essay Time Limit
An essay that responds to three viewpoints and places the student’s own viewpoint in dialogue with other viewpoints will necessarily require more time for structure and planning—and, accordingly, the ACT has alotted students 10 more minutes to prepare their responses: the time limit for the new Writing test is 40 minutes.
Scoring the New ACT Essay
The scoring of the new Writing test will also provide students more information. They will receive a Subject-Level Writing Score between 1-36, as well as individual domain scores ranging from 2-12 in the areas of Ideas and Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, and Language Use and Conventions. In addition, students will be able to view what’s called their ELA score (an average of the English, Reading, and Writing Tests) of 1-36.
Is the New ACT Writing test an improvement?
I believe these changes are absolutely for the better. It’s a bit silly to ask people seeking to prove their college readiness whether or not school should be year-round—but asking them to critique three competing viewpoints on a hot-button issue more closely mirrors the kind of critical thinking and nuanced debate college-level courses require. The previous ACT Writing prompts infantilize them, while the new ones ask them to rise up as the thinkers of tomorrow they’re becoming.
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