<p>Hi,</p>
<p>In Barron's 36, they say,</p>
<p>"In order to achieve a perfect score of 36 on the ACT, you will need to answer every question correctly on the mathematics, English and science sections. The reading test offers you the only leeway: you can miss up to two questions on the reading test and still earn a perfect score of 36 overall. </p>
<p>Are they saying that you can miss two questions and score a 36 within the reading test, or that can you miss two questions and still score a 36 overall?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Yes, usually the curve on the reading section is that one or two wrong is a 36 (on the reading section). </p>
<p>The curve varies from test to test, but there are some instances where you can get four (maybe five?) wrong on the whole test and still get a 36 composite (that is, two 35s and two 36s).</p>
<p>I got a 36 on my ACT, and I missed three questions total: two questions on the reading section and one question in the math section. I scored a 36 in the math section and scored a 35 in the reading section. So unless other tests are curved differently, then it is impossible to score a perfect on the reading section if you miss two questions. I believe that it is possible to miss five questions total and still score a 36 composite score, because there are three subscores on the math section, worth 18 each. Since I missed two questions in one of the reading subscores, each subscore worth 18 as well, the subscore total was 34 but I still got a 35. So if you miss 3 (and possibly even 4) in the math, I think you would only go down one point, if two wrong questions equate to 35. So two wrong on reading and three wrong on math should be section scores of 35, 35, 36, and 36, which would average and round up to a composite 36. I hope that helps anyone who views this page in the future.</p>
<p>No… you can get 36 the following ways:</p>
<p>All 36s. (Sometimes Math/Science/Reading have curves where -1 is still a 36. English is always -0 = 36.)</p>
<p>36-36-36-35. (Again, little bit more leeway with the 35)</p>
<p>36-36-35-35. (Still some more leeway here)</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>36-36-36-34 (Which doesn’t have too much leeway, but you definitely don’t need all perfect scores).</p>
<p>Yeah. Getting a 35 is a little bit more feasible, and getting a 34 is 100% obtainable if you’re a good test taker and you’re intelligent.</p>
<p>And to prove… here are the curves for a ‘36’ from previous years:</p>
<p>December 2003:
English: 36 (-0), 35 (-2).
Math: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).
Reading: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).
Science: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).</p>
<p>December 2004:
English: 36 (-0), 35 (-2).
Math: 36 (-1), 35 (-3).
Reading: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).
Science: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).</p>
<p>December 2005:
English: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).
Math: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).
Reading: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).
Science: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).</p>
<p>December 2006:
English: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).
Math: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).
Reading: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).
Science: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).</p>
<p>December 2007:
English: 36 (-0), 35 (-2).
Math: 36 (-1), 35 (-2).
Reading: 36 (-0), 35 (-2).
Science: 36 (-0), 35 (-1).</p>
<p>Obviously the curve got a little bit harder from 2003 onwards but that’s in proportion to the difficulty of the test and the aptitude of the testers. But in other words, you could definitely get at least 4 or so questions wrong in total, in the right sections, and walk away with a 36.</p>