<p>Saw someone mentioning that the June ACT was a national test which was supposedly slightly harder while the September/October ACTs were state tests and supposedly slightly easier...would someone please explain? I've never heard of any of this national/state test thing before. Is the September ACT supposed to be easier in the slightest?</p>
<p>That information is incorrect. There are six annual ACT national test dates in which the ACT is given everywhere at one time during Sep, Oct, Dec, Feb, Apr, and June. Thus, Sep and Oct and June are all national test dates.</p>
<p>There are then a number of states, which include Ill, Colo, and Mich, in which the ACT is used as part of the state’s annual assessment testing to demonstrate compliance with the federal no child left behind laws. For that test, usually all juniors in the state take it. Each state that has that particular ACT test has its own testing date usually separate from the national testing dates, most between Jan and March.</p>
<p>The tests given on those state testing dates are not easier than the ones given on the national testing dates. They come from the same library of tests that the ACT uses for its national tests. ACT has a large number of tests that it keeps using again and again and thus a test given in any particular month this year could easily have been one given 6 years ago in a different month. Also, the grading is not different for those state tests from the national tests. There is no curve of the test that depends on those who take the test on the same day. ACT uses its historical statistics for any given test to determine what the scores will be for those who are taking a test this year. In other words, before one even walked into the room for the June 2013 test, the score from 0-36 that one would get on each section was already matched up with the number of correct answers needed to get a particular score on that 0-36 scale, with the result that the section scores that one receives for the June 2013 test do not depend on how well or how poorly all the other June 2013 test-takers do.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>