<p>The 26% figure is fairly useless. Many students will do well in some sections and not others. A student with 3 28s and a 22 would be deemed unready for college, even if the one low score was in the subject of least importance to their future major and career (not saying any subject is entirely unimportant, but they clearly bear different weight for different people). It’s not surprising that so many people “fail” the science portion because it’s not something that is prepared for in science classes or SAT prep courses (which are far more popular than ACT prep courses). The science section really measures how well one can analyze graphs and statistics, understand how experiments are set up, and skim through long, dense descriptions without wasting time.</p>
<p>If only 36% met the science benchmark, you only need 10% more (that is to say, 28% of those who met the science benchmark) to not reach the benchmark in another subject for 74% to not be college ready in every subject. That overall figure misleading makes it seem that 3/4 of students entering college are going to fail classes all over the place, which just isn’t true.</p>