The American College Test, also known as the ACT, is a well-known college entrance exam taken by juniors and seniors in high schools across the nation to assess the core subjects vital for college. Now, the science section of the ACT is optional, allowing students to choose whether this section would be to their advantage or not.

Beginning in the spring of 2025, the science section of the ACT will be optional for test takers, resulting in the overall length of the test being shortened. The reason for this modification is to give the students a more relevant exam and to reduce the stress for the students; however, I don’t agree with this new rule, and I think they could have made a better choice on which of the core subjects to make optional. In my opinion, the science section is what you can improve the most on and should not be made optional but required for students.

Although English and reading are both essential, I believe the questions from the two sections often bleed into each other and the ACT organization could have made one of the “English” labeled tests optional since science and math differentiate more.

After taking ACT tutoring this past summer, my knowledge of the science section and my overall understanding and score improvement exceeded my expectations. I realized that only little to no questions had to do with actual knowledge and facts of what you learned in past science classes and the majority of the questions were based on your knowledge of reading graphs and tables.

After taking my first ACT this past month, I was shocked to learn that the ACT added a 5th section: writing. At the end of the test I thought it was a strange and unnecessary incorporation to the already lengthy test. Although the writing test wasn’t applied to our final score, we were required to take it. Similar to English and reading, I thought this was once again, another unnecessary addition/change to the ACT. Again, I think this is unneeded, since, now, around 80% of four-year colleges are either test-optional or don’t even consider test scores.

In closing, I think there are additional ways the ACT can be more “relevant” and “less stressful” for students than making the science section optional. Some of those options could have been possibly making one of the English sections optional, keeping all 4 tests, but shortening the overall test time, and for the ACT to stop making alterations to the test since now the majority of colleges are now test optional.