ACT
announced yesterday the launch of PreACT™,
a 10th grade multiple-choice assessment designed to help students prepare for
the ACT® and provide early feedback on their potential
performance on the exam. The paper-based test will be available to schools,
districts and states starting in fall 2016 and appears to be filling a gap left
with the 2014 departure
of the PLAN test from among the suite of ACT products targeted to college
planning.
“We
developed PreACT to meet a need for a 10th grade measurement and guidance tool
that can be administered easily and affordably and that offers fast, helpful
results,” said Suzana Delanghe, ACT chief commercial officer. “The introduction
of this new assessment is a direct result of ACT listening to what our
customers are telling us and taking action on their feedback.”
While
obviously hoping to offer better competition for the College Board’s new
suite of assessments than the more problematic ACT Aspire, PreACT is patterned after the
ACT—only shorter and with fewer questions. Unlike the PSAT, there will be no “national”
test dates and it can be administered any time during the school year.
“We are
still completing research to determine the exact length of PreACT, but testing
time will likely be in the neighborhood of 2 hours,” wrote Edward Colby, ACT’s
senior director for media and public relations in an email response to
questions.
Like the
ACT PLAN, the PreACT will cover the same four subjects that appear on the ACT:
English/language arts, math, reading and science. It will not include a writing
section, which is optional on the ACT. The format and 1-36 scoring scale will
be the same as the ACT in order to give students some idea what the test is
like while suggesting how well they are likely to do the following year on a
complete ACT.
“PreACT
questions will come from retired ACT tests, so students who take it will
experience actual ACT test questions,” added Colby. “Questions will be selected
to predict ACT test performance.”
Similar
to ACT
reports, PreACT score reports will offer a broad view of students’ college
and career readiness, identifying academic strengths and areas for improvement.
They also potentially may be used by ACT to generate a data
file on the individual test-taker starting in the 10th grade, which could
in turn be sold to colleges always in the market for this kind of information.
Priced
at $12, the Pre-ACT undercuts the per-test cost of the PSAT by 20 percent and
offers a much more economical alternative to ACT Aspire. According to ACT, fee waivers are not offered
this year, but are being considered for the future.
With the
College Board anxious for an earlier entrance in the market by offering the
PSAT 10 and the PSAT 8/9 in addition to the PSAT/NMSQT, the emergence of a yet
another competing test targeted to high school sophomores has got to be a bit
of an annoyance. High schools are now faced with the decision whether to stick
with one product line or offer opportunities for students to experiment with
both products by administering the PreACT in 10th grade and the PSAT/NMSQT in
the 11th grade.
But the
PSAT still has the advantage of being linked to the National
Merit® Scholarship Program, and this is a powerful incentive for schools to
offer the test to juniors hoping to qualify for this opportunity.
And what
becomes of the ACT Aspire,
which a number of schools and school districts have already scheduled for this
fall?
According
to ACT, Aspire is not going anywhere. A computer-based test, Aspire was
designed for schools and states that want to assess and track student readiness
starting in elementary school and moving up to high school, while PreACT is
designed “only to help prepare 10th grade students for the ACT and get them
thinking about what careers they might like to pursue.”
Colby
explains, “PreACT is not a replacement for ACT Aspire. These are two very
different assessments designed for different purposes.”
In other
words, schools and school districts are welcome to pay for and administer both.
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