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?
S26 thought it was easier than the June ACT he took (I hope he’s right, because it’s his last attempt 
)
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.
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.
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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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!
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
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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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..
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.
Reviving this thread. S27 got ACT results of 34 (Math 35, Sci 33, Eng 35, and Reading 33, which is almost identical to July ACT (Math 35, Sci 33, Eng 33, and Reading 35).
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My son’s math score was a big jump (+6) from his April test. That improvement was partly the result of more dedicated preparation, but I do wonder now if the questions he thought were really difficult might have been the experimental questions.
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Still waiting on scores here! I am more eager than my kid - lol.
that is incredible increase - congrats!
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that superscore though!!
Yeah, he did have a superscore of 35, which is great for almost any schools.
But his goal was one sitting 35 (if he get one more point from either Math, Eng or Reading). He aimed at BS/MD program, and our local MS school requirement does not allow superscore.
We will see what he plans to do with that.
My S27 got 35 (math 34, Sci 29, Eng 36, Reading 36). We are surprised but looks like the difficult questions were probably experimental. However bcuz of thinking math was difficult, my S27 gave up during the test on Sci and ended up with 29 
My S27 is planning to apply to stem major. I am wondering if Stem (math + Sci) score should be increased as some Universities may not like a low score in STEM(math + sci is 32) there although composite is 35. Thoughts?
We are still navigating the process.
I think high stem score would help more for stem major. Also it would be easy to enhance from 29. If your S27 can improve science to 33-35 from ACT practice, that would be a very good indicator.