The ACT Exam Gets an Hour Shorter, Makes Science Section Optional

A student takes an exam in a stock photo. (Singkham/Shutterstock)

High school students taking the ACT test this spring may have a less trying time of it than their predecessors.

The nonprofit company administering the college admissions exam, called ACT, announced July 15 that it will cut the exam’s runtime by as much as a third and make the science portion optional.

“With this flexibility, students can focus on their strengths and showcase their abilities in the best possible way,” the company’s chief executive, Janet Godwin, wrote in a blog post.

English, reading, and math will remain core components of the new ACT, which now lasts just two hours, compared with the roughly three hours for the previous version. That will mean shorter passages in the reading and English sections and a total of 44 fewer questions across all sections.

This change will give students more time to answer each question thoughtfully and help them “perform at their best without the fatigue that often accompanies longer exams,” Ms. Godwin said.

The science section will operate similarly to the ACT’s writing portion, which has been an optional component since 2005. Students will have the option to add science, writing, or both to their core exam, and each extra section will generate a standalone score from the overall composite score.

The updated tests will be rolled out in the spring of 2025 for national online testing and the spring of 2026 for in-school testing.

Approximately 60 percent of high schoolers who graduated in 2023 took the ACT at least once, according to the company.

Last October, the company reported students’ average ACT scores had dropped six years in a row. The class of 2023 had an average composite score of 19.5 on a 1-to-36 scale, down from 19.8 by the 2022 graduating class.

The announcement comes more than a year after ACT’s main competitor, the SAT, went fully digital and trimmed off an hour of test time, reducing it to just over 2 hours. The new SAT is also adaptive, meaning test-takers who score relatively low on the first half of the test will get less challenging questions in the second half.

The ACT company itself is also undergoing critical changes. In May 2023, after posting a net loss for three consecutive years, ACT laid off over 100 employees and began selling buildings at its headquarters in Iowa City.

In April, ACT announced that it was purchased by Nexus Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, in a deal that would see ACT’s transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit business.

The acquisition comes at a time when educators are weighing the value of standardized testing.

The test-optional admissions movement gained steam during the COVID-19 pandemic, as colleges adjusted their requirements for prospective students in response to widespread lockdowns. About 2,000 four-year institutions still don’t require an SAT or ACT score for the fall 2025 application cycle, with some institutions having permanently gone test-free.

However, several Ivy League schools—including Dartmouth College and Harvard, Yale, and Cornell Universities—have reinstated their testing requirements, along with other highly selective institutions like Georgetown University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.