I was having a conversation about the ACT with my mom earlier, and she said that she got a 24 when she took it in like 1988, but that the ACT has changed the way they score their tests since then so it would be a higher score if they scored it today. I have never heard about that before and it sounds like she’s trying to make herself feel better about her score. She showed me her ACT score report thing and there were different categories than they have now, but I don’t think the ACT would change the way they score the test since you wouldn’t be able to compare scores against each other. Is this true, has the ACT ever changed the way they score the test?
Yes. The maximum ACT score used to be 32. I think it changedto 36 in 1989.
The test even then had a 1-36 possible score but before October 1989, the test had four sections, math, English, social studies (which actually tested knowledge of such things as history), and natural sciences (which actually tested knowledge of science subjects). In October 1989, the social studies section was replaced with the reading section,and the science section which was more a general reasoning section with some science. ACT also recentered the test scores at that time. The result of both the test change and the recentering change is that the middle 50 percentile rank changed from between 17 and 18 to between 20 and 21 and far more scored in the 30s than ever did before 1990. A 24 in 1988 would likely be the equivalent of about a 28 today.