ACT Enhancements

The ACT has made major structural changes to the exam that will be implemented in the coming months. The ACT will now have 44 fewer questions and students will receive more time to answer each question. The length of the test in total will be reduced to 125 minutes rather than 195 minutes as in previous years. Students will also have the option to opt out of the science section unlike previous years.

Math and English portions of the exam will be adjusted slightly. For math questions, the ACT will be eliminating a response option from each question. Options that are rarely chosen or of poor quality will be removed from the exam, leaving four potential answers rather than five. Additionally, when questions contain a graphic, answer options that can be easily eliminated by looking at the image will be removed from the test. This is designed to match the format of other assessments and improve the test-taking experience for students.

During the English section, students will be provided with clear instructions for each question. Previously, portions of text would be underlined or numbered to denote which phrases pertain to each grammar and language question. However, no instructions were given for each individual question, so students needed to reference the instructions at the beginning of the section. This will no longer be the case, as the ACT will provide instructions for each question such as “which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?” followed by the answer choices. Additionally, the “No Change” options will be bolded so they are easier to see. These changes are being introduced to promote clarity for all students.

ACT enhancements will begin going into effect starting in April of 2025 for students taking the exam online. By September of 2025, all students taking the exam on paper or online will receive these benefits as well. The adjustments will be reflected in all schools and districts by spring of 2026.

Kayley Horton, Tutoring Coordinator
kayley@testprepchicago.com
(312) 848-1266

Changes announced for the ACT

This week, ACT announced some significant changes to their test.

One of the major changes is that the science section will now be optional, giving students the choice to include on their test, similar to the optional writing test. Additionally, the new ACT will be significantly shorter. The core test, consisting of English, reading, and math, will be just 2 hours long and will have 44 fewer questions than the current version. The English and reading sections will feature shorter passages, making the test more streamlined, and students will have more time to answer each question.

Some aspects of the ACT will remain the same. The ACT will continue to be scored on a scale of 1–36, and students will receive a composite score (the average of the English, reading, and math scores) in addition to section scores. The test will still be available in both paper and online formats, and the optional writing section will still be offered.

The new version of the ACT will be introduced in Spring 2025 for students taking the online ACT on standard national test dates. Students taking the ACT during school-day testing will experience the new version in Spring 2026.

TPC will be updating our ACT practice materials to reflect these changes and ensure student's are well-prepared for the new test.

Illinois Potentially Switching from SAT to ACT

Within the next year, Illinois may be switching from the SAT to ACT as it’s mandated state test. In the state of Illinois, all public high school students are required to pass a standardized college entrance exam to graduate. The Board of Education’s current contract with College Board requires 11th grade students to take the SAT and 9th and 10th grade students to take the PSAT. As this contract expires in June, it is likely the Board of Education will make the switch to the ACT for the 2024-2025 school year.

The state has begun negotiating a deal with ACT Inc. that will award the company a $53 million contract over the course of three years. If this deal is successful, it will be the first time the ACT is mandated for Illinois public school students since 2016. While the state is developing these contracts, the Chicago Board of Education recently renewed its contract with College Board for another two years. Therefore, Chicago public school students can expect to continue taking the SAT until 2026.

Some are dismayed by these potential changes, claiming the ACT does not align with current Illinois educational standards. Matthew Raimondi, a district employee, stated “that high school assessment is ultimately going to guide how teachers teach. Teachers are going to teach to the test you select. I urge you as board members to make sure you make the best decision to move to Illinois forward and not back to a test from the last century.” The state superintendent responded to this by assuring educators that whatever test is selected will align with the requisite learning standards.

Kayley Horton, Tutoring Coordinator

kayley@testprepchicago.com

312-848-1266

Digital SAT Updates

In the 2024 school year, College Board has officially switched to an all-digital model for the SAT. This comes as a significant change from the former paper and pencil model that was utilized for the past several decades. College Board representative Priscilla Rodriguez stated that based on information gleaned from focus groups, students found digital testing to be less complicated and more natural than other alternatives. Students expressed feelings of anxiety when taking the physical SAT and had more confidence when it was administered digitally. This comes as no surprise considering the amount of technology that has been integrated into modern education structures. Because of this, 2024 is the first year that the SAT will be fully adapted to a digital format for all students.

In practice, this means students must take the SAT on their own electronic devices or devices provided by their schools. The digital exam will be administered through an app called Bluebook. This app requires access to an internet connection though College Board claims that the exam takes up very little bandwidth. As an added precaution, the app will automatically save all progress within the exam so that students do not risk losing their work due to internet outages.

College Board is confident in their digital SAT infrastructure as this is not the first time they’ve offered the exam digitally. Throughout 2023 international students took the digital SAT and many high school students took the digital PSAT in the fall of the same year. Thus, College Board believes that the digital SAT will be a successful step towards modernizing the exam for students in the years to come.

Kayley Horton, Tutoring Coordinator

kayley@testprepchicago.com

607-848-1266

Test Score Requirements at Dartmouth

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, most universities including Ivy League schools opted to make SAT and ACT scores optional rather than required upon application. This measure was taken to ensure a more equitable application process for students. However, in 2024, Dartmouth will be the first Ivy League school to reverse this decision by once again requiring students to submit either their SAT or ACT scores for its newest class of students. While many are outraged by this decision, Dartmouth claims its ultimate goal is to increase diversity.

A study conducted by Dartmouth suggests that making test scores optional has actually harmed their goal of inclusion. Students from disadvantaged families and low socioeconomic backgrounds submitted test scores less frequently than advantaged students. However, disadvantaged and/or marginalized students who did submit their test scores frequently achieved higher scores than students without these disadvantages. Thus, if SAT or ACT scores had been required, it is believed that more diverse students would have been admitted.

In addition, Dartmouth administrators believe that reinstating their test score requirement is necessary to predict student performance. Test scores considered in conjunction with high school grades are the best indicator of a student’s success according to research conducted at the college. This study also claims that test score requirements tend to attract students from schools that do not frequently send students to Dartmouth. Thus, if proven correct, the mandate would lead to a more inclusive student body. Still, it remains to be seen if other colleges and universities will follow in Dartmouth’s wake and once again require SAT and ACT scores.

Kayley Horton, Tutoring Coordinator

kayley@testprepchicago.com

312-848-1266

Using GPTZero to Combat Plagiarism with ChatGPT

The use of ChatGPT for plagiaristic purposes has been the fear of many educators since the AI tool was released in November of 2022. To combat this issue, Princeton University student Edward Tian has created software he believes to be the solution. Tian’s app, GPTZero, was developed in December of 2022 when the coder took it upon himself to create an app that can determine if a body of text has been created by a human or AI. Tian created the app to protect individuals in the midst of a changing technological landscape stating, “I think it is important for people to bet on independent parties to build the safeguards for their technologies.”

The technology works by measuring two factors: perplexity and burstiness. Perplexity refers to the degree of randomness present in a text. Human-created work often uses language in a more chaotic, disorganized way than AI. Hence, the more random a body of text is, the more likely it is to be human-generated. Burstiness is the second factor that refers to the complexity and diversity of sentence and language structure within a text. AI-generated material is much more uniform in style than human-created text. When individuals write, they vary their structure which creates natural “bursts” throughout the writing. AI has not been able to effectively emulate this ability. Thus, using these mechanisms in tandem, GPTZero is able to effectively determine if a text is AI generated with 98% accuracy.

While 98% effective, many have criticized GPTZero for its inability to distinguish texts that are a mix of human and AI-created. Tian emphasizes the limitations of his app stating that he doesn’t want anyone “making definitive decisions” in regard to the app’s ability to predict AI-generated work. Tian simply seeks to preserve the integrity of authentic composition by thwarting ChatGPT’s potential misuse.

 Kayley Horton, Tutoring Coordinator
kayley@testprepchicago.com
(312) 848-1266

Overview of the Digital SAT

In the near future, students will only be able to take the SAT via a digital format. Last November, a select portion of SAT students were offered the chance to test out this format by taking the digital SAT. Among this group, 80% of students found the new test taking process to be less stressful than the paper version which was previously the standard. The College Board began offering the digital SAT to international students in March of 2023 and plans to fully implement it in March of 2024 for class of 2025 juniors (current sophomores).

The digital SAT boasts a number of benefits. Among these, the digital interface allows the test to adapt to each student. With an adaptive test model, each section independently adapts to the student’s level of ability, making the resulting score more reliable. Additional benefits include shortening the test-taking time period from 3 hours to 2 hours and making scores available to students just days after they take the exam. The digital SAT will also offer a range of online tools students may use at their disposal. These tools include an on-screen timer, elimination tools which allow students to cross out incorrect answers, and the ability to flag questions for review so that students can go back to check them.

The content of the test will remain essentially the same with minor format changes. For the math section, students will have 44 questions to complete in 70 minutes. Students will have access to a graphic calculator on the screen during this portion of the test. During the reading and writing section, students will have 64 minutes to answer 54 questions regarding reading comprehension and grammar. The digital SAT will make reading questions shorter and reinstitute sentence completion questions. Each section of the test will still be worth 800 points and students will continue to have access to a reference sheet for formulas. Altogether, the digital SAT looks to streamline the test taking process while adapting to the changing landscape of technology based assessments.

Kayley Horton, Tutoring Coordinator
kayley@testprepchicago.com
(312) 848-1266