Want to know how your ACT score is calculated? Read on!
What’s an ACT Composite Score?
This is the score that matters most. It’s a number from 1 to 36 that represents the average of your scaled scores from each of the four tests. Each of those four tests—English, Math, Reading, and Science—is scored separately, so on your score report you’ll see how you did on each.
If you scored a 30 on English, a 28 on Math, a 32 on Reading, and a 25 on Science, for example, your overall composite score would be the average of those numbers—in this case, a 28.75, which would be rounded up to a 28.
What’s a Scaled Score?
The scores from 1 to 36 on each of the four tests are called “scaled scores.” They’re calculated by taking your raw score (that is, the number of questions you answered correctly) and converting it to a scale of 1 to 36. The same raw score on different tests might result in a different scaled score, mainly due to difficulty level. A statistical process called “equating” is used to ensure that results are fair and consistent across tests.
What’s a Percentile Ranking?
On your score report, you’ll see some percentages next to each test’s score. These reflect what’s called your “percentile ranking”—that’s the percentage of people whom you did better than. If your percentile ranking is an 85%, then, it means you performed better than 85% of those who took the ACT. Colleges often care more about percentile rankings than actual scores.
What are Subscores?
Subscores tell you how well you did on specific question types within each test. You might, for example, have done better than 80% of test takers on Algebra—in which case, congratulations! You can also use these percentages to gauge the areas on which you’ll need to improve.
What about the Essay?
If you opted to take the essay test, you will have received a score between 2 and 12. Two graders score the essay holistically—based on their overall impressions—out of 6, and those scores are combined to form your essay score. If you took the essay, you’ll also received a Combined English/Writing score, which factors in your essay performance with your performance on the English test. The aim of this score is to provide colleges a similar score to the SAT Writing score, should they desire to consult such a score.
How to Score a Practice Test
If you’ve taken an official ACT practice test, scoring is easy! Just find the score conversion chart toward the end of your book. To find your raw score, calculate the total number of questions you got correct on each test, then look on the conversion chart to find your corresponding scaled score. A raw score of 52 on Math, for example, might result in a 31 for the Math test. Once you’ve done this for all four tests, average those scores together and round to the nearest whole number. That’s your composite score!
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