You are not the only person confused about an ACT writing score – I’ve seen it come up on a few other threads in other CC forums. I’ve seen several examples of essay scores in the low 20s while composites were in the mid-30s. I just did a quick search on the SAT forum, and there seem to be several threads with similar issues.
One poster wrote: “I spoke to ACT reps about the writing scores. Apparently, in preparation for the new essay, the ACT established composite scores that were very low historically - for example, if you got 11 on each writing rubric, your composite would be a 31, whereas for previous tests as well as the ACT sample test, that would have gotten you a composite of 34. I have no idea why they did this, or what they were thinking, but I am assuming that schools will discount the writing composites and will just look at the raw scores if they look at anything.”