The ACT Writing Section Is Changing

Colleges complain that students can’t write in a sophisticated manner, so the ACT Writing section is being redesigned to more accurately assess writing skills.

With these changes, colleges will have access to new information about a student’s strengths, allowing students to demonstrate their “analytical writing ability” through their scores in the 4 domains.

Prompts are longer, more complex and focus on “contemporary issues” rather than school-themed issues. Also, instead of asking a question, students are now instructed to “examine” a statement.

Three different viewpoints on the statement are provided, all of which must be addressed in the essay as well as compared to the viewpoint chosen by the student as the main focus of the essay. Students must discuss the relationship between all of the perspectives.

The area provided for planning the essay now provides guiding questions students should consider when writing.

The Writing score will be out of 36. Students will also receive scores between 2 and 12 in 4 separate domains: Ideas and Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, and Language Use and Conventions, based on the complexity of the essay. These scores do not add up to the overall Writing score, but are intended to give students and schools more information on the writer’s strengths.