Enhanced Act Math Test: What’s New and Tips to Know
|
About the author: Jeff McCalla, author of "TI-84 Plus CE Graphing Calculator for Dummies", 2nd ed. (Wiley, 2022) and "TI-Nspire for Dummies", 2nd ed. (Wiley, 2011), teaches math at St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis, Tennessee. McCalla received the Presidential Award of Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 2009. |
The ACT math test has changed, so making sure students are ready for the new test format is key to helping them achieve their best score. This article highlights what’s different with the Enhanced ACT math test versus the legacy format, how the scoring differs, and a few tried and true tips for student success.
Here’s what’s covered:
- Transition to the Enhanced ACT Test
- Full-Length Practice ACT Tests
- What’s New with the Enhanced ACT
- A Big Change: Scoring on the Enhanced ACT
- 3 Tips for Success on the Enhanced ACT
- Prepping for Digital vs. Paper Tests
- Additional Resources
Transition to the Enhanced ACT Test
In October 2024, the Enhanced ACT test was piloted with 8,000 students in the United States, using both paper and digital formats. Since then, the rollout has been gradual. School day tests had the option to use the Legacy ACT through 2025, but all will be the Enhanced ACT by spring 2026.
Going forward, students will have the choice of the Enhanced ACT version they want to take: digital or paper. (Technically, the ACT has offered digital testing since 2018 for their international exams.)
Full-Length Practice ACT Tests
The ACT website offers full-length practice tests online so that you can get a feel of what it’s like to take the exam on the computer. Try it!
You’ll notice there is a “TOOLS” drop-down menu containing:
- Highlighter
- Line reader (focuses your attention on one line at a time)
- Answer eliminator (click on an answer to draw a large X over an answer)
- Answer masking (click on an answer to hide it from view)
- Online calculator
- Magnifying icon
- Timer in the top right corner that counts down from 60 minutes
What’s New with the Enhanced ACT Math Test
For starters, the length of time students have for the new ACT math portion is shorter than before, which is now 50 minutes (down from 60 minutes) as there are 15 fewer questions.
Many of the questions that were removed were in the Integrating Essential Skills category — middle school math problems like ratios, percentages, basic geometry, etc. There were about 25 of these questions on the legacy exam, but only about eight on the new version.
The questions that were removed could also be considered easy to medium in terms of difficulty, so even though students will have about seven extra seconds per question, it’s still going to be difficult for many of them to finish on time.
A Big Change: Scoring on the Enhanced ACT
It usually takes about two weeks for students to get their scores back, and it’s important to note the scoring on the Enhanced ACT is not going to be as reliable.
The Legacy ACT used to contain 60 math questions, but the Enhanced ACT now contains 45 questions and four of those questions are embedded field-test questions that do not count towards, the score. Going from 60 to 41 graded questions is a big change!
I took a closer look at the ACT math scoring to compare the Enhanced ACT with the legacy exam. Using averages from the first six released Enhanced ACT math tests and the final six legacy exams, I compared the percentage of correct answers required. The results were not what I expected — see the chart below.
To get an average score of 21, students need to get about 50% of the answers correct. That’s been true for the math section for quite some time, but it’s with the top scores that things get interesting. To get a score of 30 on the legacy exam (which I consider to be elite), students needed to answer approximately 83% of the questions correctly — but now it’s 73% on the Enhanced ACT. To get a score of 33, students must now answer 80% correctly compared to the previous 90% on the legacy exam. Holy cow!
The Enhanced ACT is more forgiving on percentage scores as you get in the higher score ranges.
However, because there are fewer questions overall, it takes fewer questions to move up or down in score. For example, there’s a difference of about two and a half questions between receiving 30 or 33 on the Enhanced ACT. It used to be that four questions separated 30 from 33 on the legacy exam.
Another observation from the scoring chart is that the February 2025 Enhanced ACT math test is one of the toughest I’ve seen. It’s been a common complaint that the four exams in the Official ACT Prep Guide do not match the difficulty level of the February 2025 exam.
3 Tips for Success on the Enhanced ACT
I’m the Test Prep Coordinator at St. Mary’s Episcopal School, which has high academic standards. That means I’m a part of the team of math, science and English teachers responsible for prepping students for the ACT and SAT exams. Since becoming the coordinator in 2018, our school’s average ACT scores have gone from 28 to 30.
I’m also a math teacher at St. Mary’s. Currently, our school recommends that students take the paper version of the Enhanced ACT. The ability to annotate on Reading/Science passages is hard to give up, but some students still prefer the digital format.
Whether they choose paper or digital, here are some tips students can use to help navigate the math section of the new ACT.
1. Show work
Bring a pencil! Just like solving problems in math class, I recommend students continue putting pencil to paper and write the steps to solve a problem.
If it’s a geometry problem, draw the figure that is described. I foresee geometry problems taking much longer using the digital format, so instead of being able to write directly on the figure the angle or length of a side, students would need to recreate the figure on paper and label it appropriately.
Some digital tools will be provided: magnifier, highlighter, line reader, answer eliminator and answer masking. However, none of those tools will help students label angles or sides on a geometric figure.
2. Use a handheld calculator
An online calculator will be available on the digital ACT — use it sparingly. I use calculator software in my class to teach, and it slows me down.
Remember, time is a big consideration when taking the ACT. In the math section, there are 45 questions in 50 minutes, which is an average of about 1 minute and 7 seconds per question.
Using a mouse to press keys on the screen is painstakingly slow compared to entering equations on a handheld.
Saving time is critical to test success.One advantage to taking the digital ACT is there is an on-screen timer that’s always visible. This visual reminder should help students do a better job of managing their time.
3. Choose the calculator that’s familiar
I caution students from taking the exam with a calculator they rarely use, despite if it’s digital or handheld. They likely will not be able to take advantage of all the tools and functionality available — and there’s certainly not enough time to learn how to use it during the test.
So, if students use a TI-84 Plus CE or TI-Nspire™ CX II graphing calculator for math class, that’s the one to choose for the exam.
Students should use the same calculator they use in math class on the new ACT exam.
As I understand it, the same ACT calculator policy applies to the online testing administrations of the ACT. View ACT’s calculator policy.
Prepping for the Digital vs. Paper Exam
It’s important to note that the online test material is the same as the paper version, so the prep work should be the same. From a math perspective, however, I am concerned that students might try to solve too many problems in their head without writing anything down when testing in the digital format. In my experience, this leads to mistakes.
During the Covid period, my school employed a hybrid model for teaching. That means I had some students who were remote learners. Even for those students, I had them print tests, show their work with pencil and paper, and upload it for me to grade.
Additional Resources
Looking for additional resources to help prepare for the ACT math test? Here are some helpful links:
- Video tips on the ACT website
- Webinar and videos on TI’s YouTube channel
- Additional blog posts on the BulleTIn Board
Best of luck to students taking the Enhanced ACT exam this year, whether online or on paper!
SAT® is a trademark registered by the College Board. ACT is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. Neither are affiliated with, nor endorse, TI products. Policies subject to change. Visit www.collegeboard.org and www.act.org.
