ACT (test)

The ACT is an achievement test for college admissions in the United States made by ACT, Inc. It was first given in Fall 1959 by Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT Reasoning Test. Some students who perform poorly on the SAT find that they perform better on the ACT and vice versa. The ACT test is made of 4 tests: English, Math, Reading, and Science reasoning. In February 2005, an optional writing test was added to the ACT, like changes to the SAT that took place later in March of the same year. All four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. accept the ACT.

ACT (test) Media

• Historical Number of SAT and ACT Test Takers

• SAT-ACT-Preference-Map.svg

  This map of the United States shows the states in which more seniors in the class of 2024 took the SAT than the ACT (colored in blue), and the states in which more seniors took the ACT than the SAT (colored in red).

• Historical Average ACT Scores.svg

  Historical average ACT scores of college-bound seniors

• Average ACT Composite Scores by State (2014).pdf

  This map shows the mean ACT composite scores of students within the United States in 2014.

• Percent ACT Composite Scores of 36.svg

  Percent of high school seniors scoring a composite of 36 on their ACT test from 1997 to 2023

• 2005 distribution of ACT scores

Related pages

• Global Assessment Certificate
• SAT, the main competitor to ACT's examination

Other websites

• ACT, Inc.
• Website for test takers
• ACT Club Archived 2018-09-03 at the Wayback Machine
• ACT Education Solutions Archived 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine
• ACT International Services Archived 2011-07-11 at the Wayback Machine