Our students have been reporting that, on both the February and April 2015 tests, the ACT Science format was not at all what they expected.
To be clear, the ACT Science format has always been standard in that it contains three types of passages: Data Representation, Research Summaries, and Conflicting Viewpoints. However, recently test-takers have seen the number of each type of passage, and the distribution of questions among passages, change. While these shifts may seem scary, getting to know the possible scenarios you could encounter will help you prepare for the ACT Science test without any fears about its format.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at exactly what’s been presenting a problem on ACT Science, what it might mean for you as a test-taker, and how you can best prep for the formatting scenarios you could encounter on the official test.
Why is This Format Change Such a Problem?
For years and years (and years), the ACT Science test has consistently been formatted this way:
- 3 Data Representation passages with 5 questions each
- 3 Research Summaries passages with 6 questions each
- 1 Conflicting Viewpoints passage with 7 questions
Because the ACT is such a time-pressured test, many students prep for it by using specific pacing or ordering strategies. For example, some students have been taught to “do all the 5-question passages first” or to “allow 4 minutes for the Data Representation passages, 5 minutes for the Research Summaries passages, and 6 minutes for the Conflicting Viewpoints passage.”
Needless to say, many of these students were completely thrown off on the February and April 2015 Science tests when they looked at their exam and saw 6 passages instead of 7 or 6 questions on a passage that they thought would have 5.
The ACT was not able to confirm for me whether or not this will be an ongoing pattern for the test. However, it’s fair to expect that this might be the case on future exams.
So here’s what you definitely CAN expect.
The ACT confirms that the Science question breakdown will be in the following ranges:
- Data Representation: 30-40%
- Research Summaries: 45-55%
- Conflicting Viewpoints: 15-20%
Now, let me make your life easy for you and break down the math.
First, regarding the Conflicting Viewpoints passage, 15-20% means 6 to 8 questions. This means you are highly unlikely to see more than one Conflicting Viewpoints passage on a test because then they each would have only 3 to 4 questions; not really worth your or the ACT’s time.
Regarding Data Representation, 30-40% means 12 to 16 questions, and regarding Research Summaries, 45-55% means 18 to 22 questions.
It’s a little harder to predict what you might see overall because of the flexibility these particular score ranges allow.
Here are a few potential scenarios based on these numbers and on what we’ve seen:
The traditional:
- 3 Data Representation passages with 5 questions each
- 3 Research Summaries passages with 6 questions each
- 1 Conflicting Viewpoints passage with 7 questions
Another possibility:
- 2 Data Representation passages with 6 questions each
- 3 Research Summaries passages with 7 questions each
- 1 Conflicting Viewpoints passage with 7 questions
UPDATE: I confirmed with my own eyes that the above format was the case on the September 2015 ACT.
After this, we start to get into scenarios where there could be different numbers of questions on the same passage type, such as:
- 2 Data Representation passages with 5 questions each
- 1 Data Representation passage with 6 questions
- 2 Research Summaries Passages with 6 questions each
- 1 Research Summaries Passage with 5 questions
- 1 Conflicting Viewpoints passage with 7 questions
….and so on. There are lots of other possibilities if this should happen.
So what can you do to prepare for these potential changes in the ACT Science Test format?
First of all, I would suggest letting go of any strategy that asks you to spend a certain amount of time per passage type. You can’t rely on that.
If you prefer to tackle passages with fewer questions first, you can still do this, just scan through the test when you begin and find the ones that have the fewest questions.
If you need a general pacing strategy, I would suggest sticking to a rule of thumb of about 5 minutes per passage if you see 7 passages and 6 minutes per passage if you see 6 passages, always leaving the Conflicting Viewpoints passage for last (because it takes the most time), but don’t freak out if you take longer on a passage that has more questions, just check your watch after each passage and see where you are at and try to make up the ground on the shorter passages.
Hope this helps all our future ACT test-takers out there feel more prepared for the Science (and you can feel even more prepared by checking out our ACT Science Practice Test questions and explanations, and we will keep you posted on all future developments here on our blog!
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