When Career Center Specialist Gardner Humphreys first started counseling, superscoring for the SAT began increasing in popularity. Now, 16 years later, the ACT is offering a similar retake policy to improve students’ overall test scores. Students can also take the ACT online.
The ACT consists of four sections which count towards the test-taker’s 36-point score. In previous years, students only had the option to take the entire test or not take the test at all.
Students can retake select portions of the ACT while retaining their good section scores, like superscoring, which involves taking a student’s best score in each section on their SAT scores, allowing a student to submit their highest reading and math scores.
Humphreys said he appreciates how section retakes are available, though he said retaking the ACT will become more complicated.
“I like that they’re giving the option,” Humphreys said. “But it does make it a little complex, since in the old days if you wanted to get a better score, the answer was easy: just keep testing.”
Now that students can take the ACT online, Humphreys said he will advocating for more students to do online practice. Despite this, junior Rajith Pandeti said he prefers pen-and-paper testing and would not consider taking the ACT online.
“Taking the pen-and-paper version of the [ACT] is more appealing to me because I tend to concentrate better,” Pandeti said.
Not everyone is happy with the new changes. Senior Gelila Kebede said she is disappointed she never got to take advantage of the new policies.
“I took the ACT three times because one of my sections was so low, especially in comparison to the others,” Kebede said. “If [section retakes] had been an option it would’ve helped me a lot.”
According to ACT data, only 45 percent of students decide to retake, but Humphreys expects that number to increase when section retakes become available.