Paper ACT 9/6 - How was it?

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
1

My kid tells me Math & Science was way more difficult than the practice tests from previous years.

Did anyone else find it difficult?

Any suggestions on best way to prepare?

2

S26 thought it was easier than the June ACT he took (I hope he’s right, because it’s his last attempt :wink: )

3

My S27 thought it was hard too, but different sections. He did not have time to finish Eng and Sci.

9/6 is the new format of ACT, and S27 may need time to adjust. He took July ACT, and it was hard too.

4

Thread on one of my Facebook groups linking to thread on Reddit complaining that the math section was way harder than any of the practice tests.

5

My son said that a couple of the math problems were harder than anything he’d seen on the practice tests (he used the official ACT practice book). I don’t recall that he said the same thing about science.

Fingers crossed those were some of the experimental questions (if everyone’s noticing they were inconsistent with what was expected)?

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6

My ‘27 took it 9/6, on paper. They said it was about what they expected. (It was their first official taking).

We shall see when scores come out!

7

Curious How did ‘27 prepare? The official ACT practice book and past practice tests are clearly not preparing right. Any suggestions you can offer would be helpful

8

Hope so those are experimental questions! I see that June/July ACT were hard too. Not sure if ACT became more harder than how it was 2-3 years ago when my older one took the test.

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9

They have a private tutor and have been using Test Innovator’s practice tests with the tutor.

That said, the tutor says the materials for enhanced ACT aren’t great (yet).

I think enhanced has fewer easy questions and more hard ones (or at least I heard that?), but that range of difficulty is meant to be the same. At least that is what I heard..

10

My S27 told me many parts of official ACT prep 2025-2026 (4 tests) appeared in the official ACT prep 2024-2025, so there are a lot of duplication. Thus it makes sense the practice materials for new ACT are not preparing right if this is true.