<p>The SAT writing score combines an essay and multiple choice section, so I think the ACT provides a combined score so schools can easily compare SAT & ACT writing. </p>
<p>It generally does change the score. I received a 32 on English, 9 on writing, and 30 on combined. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if this holds water on other scores, but I tried it with mine and the math worked out. Since the writing score is out of 12 and everything else was out of 36, I multipled my writing score by 3 (to get 27) and then averaged my English and new Writing score, and got 29.5 which would be rounded to 30. </p>
<p>So not sure if multiplying writing by 3 and averaging with English score is the formula they use, or if it just happened to work out on mine, but you can try it with your score!</p>