On Tuesday, February 27, 2024 all Apex High Juniors will take the American College Testing (ACT) exam. The ACT is a commonly used college admissions test. The state of North Carolina requires all juniors to take the ACT during the spring semester of their junior year. The test will be offered during the school day at no cost whereas the exam usually costs between $68 and $93. 

Aside from the fact that this exam is required by the state, this exam is used for college admissions. In recent years, colleges and universities have negated the test requirement for applications. Due to the pandemic, it became very difficult for students to take the ACT and its similar counterpart the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), causing schools to adopt the test-optional policy. This policy allowed students applying for undergraduate admissions to choose whether or not they wanted to submit test scores. Many schools told applicants that choosing not to submit scores cannot hurt your applications. Additionally, students who did submit scores could only be helped; if their scores were not impressive to the university, the school would not consider their scores at all when reviewing their application and students with scores that impressed the university would have them considered when the university reviewed their application. However, for the high school class of 2025 (current juniors), many universities plan to return to their previous policy of requiring test scores and always considering them when reviewing applications, notably, all schools in the UNC System, the sixteen public universities in the state of North Carolina. This means students planning to apply to Appalachian State University (ASU), East Carolina University (ECU), Elizabeth City State University (ECSU), Fayetteville State University (FSU), North Carolina A&T University (NC A&T), North Carolina Central University (NCCU), North Carolina State University (NCSU), University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP), University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW), Western Carolina University (WCU), and/or Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) will be required to submit an ACT or SAT test score with their application. Some universities across the country will remain test optional for the 2025 application cycle, such as the University of Virginia (UVA). Some private universities have adopted the test optional policy permanently, including Wake Forest University (WFU). A full list of universities and their test policies can be found here.

There are four multiple choice sections and one optional writing section. The writing section will not be administered at the testing at Apex High and is not required by most universities. The first section is English, which will have seventy-five questions in forty-five minutes; students will assess writing and language and edit text for grammatical errors. The second section is mathematics, which will have sixty questions in sixty minutes; students are permitted to use an approved calculator and will be assessed in pre-algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and more. The third section is reading, which will have forty questions in thirty-five minutes; students will be assessed in reading comprehension and reasoning skills using evidence from the text. The fourth and final section is science, which has forty questions in thirty-five minutes; students will be assessed by reading about scientific studies and analyzing trends in data as presented in tables, graphs, and diagrams. 

Each section is scored out of thirty-six, and all four section scores are averaged to receive a Composite Score, which is also out of thirty-six. Students who take the exam more than once will also have a SuperScore, which is the average of the highest section scores they received over each test they took. Some universities consider SuperScores, such as NCSU and UNC, and others only consider Composite Scores, such as UNCW and UNCA. A full list of schools that accept SuperScores can be found here.

The English section is based on grammar rules. Common rules that students will be tested on are subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, adjectives and adverbs, comparisons and superlatives, punctuation, and conjunctions. The math section covers many different math levels and skills. Always complete the questions you are confident in first and save more difficult ones for later. The reading section has four passages in the following order: prose fiction, social science, humanities, and natural science. It is recommended that students complete the passage they are strongest in first, then their second strongest, and so on. Similarly, the science section has roughly six to seven passages in biology, chemistry, physics, or earth and space science. It is recommended that students prioritize the passages they feel most confident in. 

Free ACT practice can be found through Kaplan and the ACT. Students can also purchase The Official ACT Prep Guide, which is made by the makers of the ACT and similar preparation books, such as The Princeton Review’s ACT Prep, 2024 are relatively inexpensive (under $30) and provide students with practice questions and answer explanations. For the last several years Apex has also offered an ACT course, with a limited number of spots, taught by Apex teachers for a few hours on several Saturdays in the weeks leading up to the exam, however registration for the 2024 class has closed.  Juniors who are absent on the day of the ACT will be required to make it up at a later date. Students will receive an email closer to the test date with their testing location. Students should create an account on ACT.org, where students will be able to access their scores ten to twenty-four days after the test is complete. Apex Legacy wishes good luck to all Juniors taking the ACT this year!