That’s good to know - thanks for correcting my misinformation
This really raises interesting questions on the entire concept of standardized testing. What does it aim to test? Your attention span or your scholastic ability? It is apparent that attention spans of students are dropping rapidly, so this could be why ACT is making these changes. They also mentioned students being more comfortable on computers as a reason for providing CBTs.
I feel that these tests are really useful in terms of creating a pressure situation and testing participants under a stressful environment, and this “enhancement” would greatly diminish that function. Superscoring already renders this null though, so the new rules probably won’t make a huge difference either.
It won’t affect my kids but I’m hoping this hastens the demise of standardized tests. This looks more like a grab for market share than anything else.
If ACT really wanted to “help a lot of students,” the re-takes would be free.
So I don’t know if this is a good idea or not but think it could be.
I do not prescribe to the “one and done” model. Too many kids have issues like my two children with 504 /IEP. If my son was one and done he wouldn’t be at Michigan for engineering and that wouldn’t be fair to him. Both kids are excelling in their programs. Why let slower brain processing then effect his ability now.
But I am a proponent for extra time for everyone… If they want /need it. I think it should be a test of knowledge not a test of how to take a test or how quickly you can answer the questions. It doesn’t relate to real life decision making unless you detonate bombs for a living. He won’t… So we are good. ?.
So there can be alot of gaming to this. Why not just take the test. Then retake every section one at a time. You have several months to study for math. Then several to study for science and so on. Silly but betcha that is what is going to happen.
So my solution (know your on the edge of your seats now ?)…
Is to let the kids who want to take it all in one day do that. But give an option to everyone to take math Saturday, Science on Sunday, English on Wed and reading on Friday or something like that.
They have to take it at a testing center so it doesn’t interfere with school and since it’s just one test they can go back to school so they don’t miss the entire day.
It’s a theory. Then if you want to retake a section then you can.
But the way it is now is making the test kinda irrelevant in my book. So… The essay is going to matter more.
That’s my take for now
This change isn’t about helping students. It’s all about bigger market share and more revenues. It’s also shortsighted, as it will make the tests less relevant.
If “helping the students” is true motive here, why can’t we just let them take one question at a time and a maximum of four chances for each question? Bunch of liars and idiots.
Seriously, it is all about money, money and money in every aspect in this country. What is the government doing in this country? What is the education department is doing? Can’t they come up with a standardized test and a simple college admissions method like other countries do? Why do we have to hand over EVERYTHING to money hungry private entities? Day by day, we are becoming the laughing stock of the world.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the SAT introduces section retakes as well.
Then we’ll know the tests have become irrelevant.
@Knowsstuff I agree with just giving everyone more time. Why is it so important to go fast? Both of our kids could get a 35/36 if they had time and a half. They don’t have or need IEPs. Just having to go so quickly cuts down on accuracy.
Our S19 (who got a 1540 in one sitting on the SAT after studying) bagged the idea of the ACT when he decided he wasn’t going to jump through the hoops just to try to go faster. He would get all answers correct on ACT practice tests if he had just ten minutes or so extra time but he just thought it was dumb that colleges would want him to learn the “tricks” and practice going faster. Why was that so important? So, he chose the SAT with it’s better time per question.
Our D21 likes the ACT better so she’s been practicing going faster but it involves jumping around questions and learning how the ACT questions can trick the students. Again, not sure why having to go faster shows anything that colleges should care about, but she’s willing to practice because it’s overall a better test for her. Getting a higher score for her will show that she’s been spending hours practicing a standardized test. That’s it. She’s the same student she was four months ago when she took her first practice test. They will be getting the same kid no matter how high she can get her score.
I really dislike the ACT and this taking one section at a time is definitely another way just to water down results. I’m not even sure anymore what the point of these standardized tests are. What are colleges really able to discern from a score? Maybe a super high score says something as would a super low score but, for a big range in the middle, I think it tells the colleges absolutely nothing they can use to evaluate an applicant.
I don’t know about your students, but all of my daughters’ college exams have time limits, as did her HS tests. Not sure why standardized tests should be different?
This retake thing is a total money grab. It really should be one and done and I hope universities will start looking at that more closely.
I think this is mostly a revenue grab by the ACT. In the past, there has always been a hesitancy to retake because few schools officially superscored and the applicant was at risk that high subscores in one sitting may be lower in a subsequent sitting. Now this is better than superscoring for the SAT because you can truly just focus and study for selected sub components. Other than the $, there is little risk to take the ACT multiple times. I think it also skews comparative results because for better or worse, concentrating for 35-60 minutes vs close to 3 hours is a different test. It will be interesting to see if the College Board follows suit.
This change also on average probably benefits students who have access to better guidance on the application process even more because another gaming component is added. As far as schools admissions are concerned, it probably will have a mixed effect. This system will be advantageous to students who take advantage of this for schools that only look at 1 reported superscore. Less benefit for schools that ask for submission of all scores and already say that they look at each component.
The only way this could possibly work and be a “fair” comparison across students who take all sections at the same time and those who take only selected sections is to scale the scores of subsections differently. For example, an applicant who missed 3 questions on a subsection but took the entire test when scaled against all applicants who took the entire test may make a 35 for that subsection, but an applicant who only took that subsection when compared to other applicants who only took that one subsection, 3 wrong could yield a 33. That would be fair. Kids in similar testing situations would be scaled against each other.
There was an interesting comment by a former Yale AO whose interview I linked over on the Yale page who said that test results have become less important. The link has been disabled because it goes to a commercial prep site, but here is the quote:
"I know you mentioned that test scores are often taken with a grain of salt and that changes have already happened with how test scores are considered. Do you think there will be more changes in how test scores are valued in the admissions process in light of what has happened?
Susan: The overall trend, like you mentioned, is increasingly there is going to be less weight on the test scores at least at elite schools, such as Yale. Whether this unfortunate scandal accelerates this trend…potentially it reaffirms the trend that universities realize, that look, a test score is how a student performs on a test. It is not directly indicative of their academic or intellectual ability. Not to mention that some students spend time with independent test prep companies, some students take it multiple times, and your performance on a test is just one given day.
Overall, there’s so much weight on a transcript that gives an admissions officer much better understanding of how you do consistently on an academic level and how you perform in a classroom discussion, and we get that through teacher recommendations."
I agree that the testing agencies are making themselves less relevant with these changes that benefit applicants who can better game the system.
@homerdog. Exactly. We had my son working with a tutor mostly for timing. He kept doing practice act and in math had all the problems correct but didn’t finish and leaving problems on the table… They worked and worked on the speed of the test. In high school he did math to Calc 3 multivariate, and aced the class. It has nothing to do with his ability.
Like you said he really needed only like 10 minutes or less a section more then his scores jumped.
@momofsenior1… It is a bigger deal when you have this type of kid. He won’t use his 504 at college. He can get extra time if he wants. But you bring up a good point and never asked him if all his tests are timed. I know the have the honor thing. Unless you have a kid with slower processing its hard to rationalize. It does seem to be lessoning the older he gets. There is a brain maturity thing a doctor explained to us. You would never know it by talking or looking at him but in therapy when in high school it was very obvious just talking to him… We were told lots of higher iq math driven kids were like this. … If it was your kid you would do the same.
I understand standardized testing and understand it’s theory. Just don’t think it fits well for lots of ld kids or the like. It has nothing to do with intelligence at all. He is doing great in college in a challenging engineering program at a challenging college.
Next big hurdle will be the Gre for my daughter and whatever professional testing for engineering or MBA etc. Agh…does it ever end… Lol?.
@momofsenior1 I’m all for time limits but they should be reasonable and not force kids to have to use “tactics” to finish on time. Our kids in no way need extra time on any test at school and their school is very demanding. These standardized tests require kids to work very quickly and the questions are purposely obtuse sometimes. Read any study guide and they go on and on about timing. No college test is so focused on the timing.
"No college test is so focused on the timing. "
Not true, many weed out courses like calculus have exams that are not easy to finish. In fact some do a very SAT/ACT-like thing by putting easier problems at the end.
@theloniusmonk really? Not sure what schools you’re talking about but I’d like to know so that we avoid them. Why would any colleges want to weed out kids? They don’t want the kids to learn and grow? Why try to weed kids out instead of teaching them so that they can learn? S19 is not experiencing anything like that at Bowdoin. Even as a freshman who passed out of all calc and is taking linear algebra, his professor is intent on teaching the kids and hoping that they continue to love math. Class is challenging but the professors aren’t interested in “weeding” kids out.
So I think the logical strategy is for all high schools to give all their students A grades across the board. That way they won’t be disadvantaged against easier grading schools, and the difference is more likely to be obfuscated with the test use decline.
I’m not sure if this has been mentioned or discussed. I think that students who retake a section should have a notation on their ACT report that is wasn’t a single sitting. Year after year I am more and more disgusted with the ACT and Collegeboard for their antics, but also with students and their parents trying to think up ways to game the system.
Relying on GPA is another issue if test scores are not used. There are schools where it is impossible to get an “A” and there are schools where it is impossible not to get an “A” if you are an average student. There are schools that allow one to retake a course without mention in the transcript and there are those who automatically go back and mark the grade as “A” if you get 4 or 5 in the AP test. Honors in one school is CP in another. Every time there is an objective comparison, it gets diluted and that’s why holistic admissions have led to a huge industry with larger and larger admissions offices who keep making the admission process more and more complex and on the other side a huge paid industry that provides consulting and guess what these two industries have revolving door for principles who work for an admissions office and then turn around and use that credential to charge $$$s to students and families.
Colleges who want the best sub-section total already recalculate a superscore. I don’t really see how this is any different.
@cottontales I am sure the fact that the student only took, say, math, on the retake would be noted. In fact there wouldn’t be any other scores form that day, so I’d think it would be obvious.
Some colleges need to “weed out” kids because they do not have the space/professors/class sections for all who are interested in certain majors/advanced classes. So if 300 potential Chem majors take Intro Chem and Orgo only has space for 200, 100 have got to go. Maybe not the best example as both are fairly intro-ish courses. Such colleges/departments think they’re doing the bottom (in this example bottom third) kids a favor by shooing them off into an easier major where they can be above the median. I don’t agree with that idea which is why my kid didn’t attend a college with that philosophy and neither did yours 
I have been a full-time test prep tutor since 2006 and have lived (and counseled students and parents) through 2 SAT overhauls and multiple ACT scoring/content tweaks (or as they’ll always say, enhancements).
On the online test… NO. Never. Uh-uh. Not in a million years. There are WAY too many things that can, and will, go wrong with online testing, especially in the early stages. Not to mention, taking a test on a screen is MUCH more difficult than taking it with a pencil and paper! Here in Tennessee, problems have plagued the statewide public school “TNReady” tests because, despite multiple upgrades, the central servers can’t handle the immense amount of traffic generated with thousands of simultaneous tests. I can’t imagine how ticked off I would be if I did 55 minutes of a math test, then the system “Crashed” and I had lost a chance to take the test.
Also, a few years back, the GRE tried to go almost entirely computer-based. Since then, they have significantly expanded their “paper” test dates because so many students were struggling to do a computer-based format. Granted, their tests are administered at official “Testing centers” that have the internet infrastructure to support such an undertaking, but pencil and paper are still the best test-taking implements.
On the superscore-only report… I only think that schools already taking superscores will use this report. The rest will still want full tests, thereby nullifying the single-section retest offers. Since most schools don’t currently take superscores, this seems to me to be nothing more than an “a la carte” add on to make more money for the ACT! Superscores get lots of parent-chat hype in Middle Tennessee because our state’s flagship school, UT-Knoxville, and its related schools take the superscore, and many parents are not aware that the superscore is the exception rather than the rule at most schools.
On the single-section retest… I don’t think it will make sense in most cases to take a single section. I wonder what the single-section cost will be vs. the whole test. I also wonder how they’ll administer the single sections. If, for example, they give each section in order (like the whole test), and a student is just taking the science section (which is last), will that student have to check in by 8, then wait until 11AM or later to take his one section?
The only scenario where I see the single-section making sense is if a student has 34-35’s in every section except 1, and ALL of their top 5 schools accept superscores. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to “blow” 1 of 2 remaining test days on a single section.
I will be recommending to all of my students (especially Class of 2021) to take FULL tests in September/October on paper and that they avoid becoming the unintentional “guinea pigs” of a new system. I remember how badly the SAT rolled out its new test in 2016, and, as with any new system, there will be bugs that take a while to fix.