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American College Test
The Act (American College Testing Assessment) assess a student's
knowledge in English, math, social sciences and natural sciences. The
test is administered by the American College Testing Program and it
consists of four tests 35-40 minutes long.
Specifically, the American College Test was created to test college
bound students cumulative knowledge in four different subjects: English,
Mathematics, Reading and Science Reasoning. This multiple choice based
test, which is usually administered in the south, is known for testing a
student’s ability to recall formulas and fundamentals from the
aforementioned subjects as well as a student’s ability to solve graphs.
Students are graded on a scale of one (lowest) to thirty-six (highest)
in each of these four categories. The four sub-scores recorded from
these four respective topics are then averaged together for a composite
score that is looked at upon universities for various purposes such as
acceptance, scholarship qualification and then eventually class
placement. This assessment does not penalize students for having
incorrect answers as only correct answers affect the scoring. According
to Mary Beth Marklein of USA Today, the national composite test score
average in 2004 was 20.9, as a record number of test takers (1.2
million) were recorded. She also reported that in 2004, students tested
higher in the reading section of the assessment (21.3), despite rants
that the allotted time for this portion of the test is too short. The
lower composite test scores throughout the years have created many jobs
in preparing for the ACT. Test centers have been developed nationwide,
and companies such as Kaplan offer strategies to taking the ACT along
with practice tests (which are actual ACT tests administered throughout
the years). According to the ACT official website, the test is given on
six dates a year, at hundreds of locations, and students can take the
test as many times as they desire, as the highest score is the only
looked at determining acceptance. The traditional format of the ACT will
now feature a writing assessment starting in October 2005 that tests
students abilities to write a short essay (www.act.org).
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