<p>I do not understanding how the ACT test scores are arrived at. DS just took the ACT this April. His English subscores were 18 and 17 (for a total of 35), but his English test score was a 34. Same with reading - subscores of 16 and 15 (totaling 31), yet a test score of 30. I won't even ask about how they got the math test score, with 3 subscores. Am I missing something, or not understanding something correctly?</p>
<p>According the ACT website, "There is no direct, arithmetic relationship between subscores and test score—this means your subscores usually won't add up to your test score." The composite score, however, IS a simple mathematical average of the subject scores, rounded to the nearest whole number. For each section, the "raw" score of total correct is converted to a scaled score.
Hope this helps! If you have more questions about the ACT, I would suggest going to actstudent.org and looking at the "understanding your scores faq."</p>
<p>The subscores are only there to help elucidate which areas your DS needs to work on. The relative values are important, not the absolute values. </p>
<p>Also, no one really cares about subscores, only the subject area scores and of course the composite score.</p>
<p>okay
so everyone always says this</p>
<p>what the heck does DS stand for?</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanations. His composite score was a 32; he's happy with that, but he may retake it just to see if he can get a little higher score. BTW, DS says he understands the scoring (it's just me that can't get it!)</p>
<p>DS stands for my dear son, or darling son. DD is dear daughter.</p>