As of July 2026, every ACT administration is the Enhanced ACT. It’s a genuinely different test — and a lot of prep material still describes the old one. Here’s what changed, without the alarm bells.
The 1–36 Composite is now the rounded average of English, Math, and Reading only. Science is an opt-in section with its own 1–36 score, reported separately — if you take it, it feeds a STEM score (the average of Math and Science), never the Composite.
Some colleges still require or recommend Science, especially for STEM applicants — check the schools on your list. Ribbit asks once at onboarding, mirroring real registration, and never shows a four-section composite.
The whole test is now uniformly four-option multiple choice. That sounds small, but it isn’t: distractor design changes, the odds on an educated guess move from 20% to 25%, and every five-option Math item in a legacy prep book is now format-invalid practice.
Every section got roomier. The core test (English, Math, Reading) runs 125 minutes; Science adds 40 more if you opt in. Old pacing drills teach a rhythm the new test no longer rewards — our in-session pacing notes use these targets.
| Section | Questions | Minutes | Time per question | Legacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | 50 | 35 | ~42s | was ~36s |
| Math | 45 | 50 | ~67s | was ~60s |
| Reading | 36 | 40 | ~67s | was ~52.5s |
| Science (optional) | 40 | 40 | ~60s | was ~52.5s |
Every section now embeds unscored field-test questions: 10 in English, 4 in Math, 9 in Reading, 6 in Science. The scored blueprint is 40 English, 41 Math, 27 Reading, and 34 Science questions — and that’s the blueprint Ribbit weights practice against, not the raw counts.
Math’s reporting weights were rebalanced hardest: Integrating Essential Skills fell from roughly 40% of the section to about 20%, while Preparing for Higher Mathematics rose to about 80% — with Algebra, Functions, and Geometry each landing at 17–20%. A book built on the legacy mix quietly over-drills the wrong skills.
The items themselves changed too: shorter English and Reading passages, an explicit question stem on every English item, no more NOT/LEAST questions, and a new Reading passage type that pairs prose with a graph or table.
Yes. Science is an opt-in section with its own 1–36 score, reported separately. If you take it, it feeds a STEM score — the average of Math and Science — but never the Composite. Some colleges still require or recommend it, especially for STEM applicants, so check the schools on your list.
The 1–36 Composite is the rounded average of English, Math, and Reading. Science no longer counts toward it.
The core test runs 125 minutes: 35 for English, 50 for Math, 40 for Reading. Opting into Science adds another 40.
131 in the core sections — 50 English, 45 Math, 36 Reading — plus 40 more if you opt into Science. Not all of them count: every section embeds unscored field-test questions (10 in English, 4 in Math, 9 in Reading, 6 in Science).
No. Every question on the Enhanced ACT has four options, Math included. An educated guess is worth 25% now instead of 20%, and five-choice Math items in older prep books no longer match the test's format.
Yes. As of July 2026, every ACT administration is the Enhanced ACT.
Much of it describes the old test: five-choice Math items, the legacy pacing rhythm, and a blueprint where Integrating Essential Skills carried roughly 40% of the Math section — it now carries about 20%. Practice built on those assumptions rehearses the wrong test.
Four-choice Math, the new weights, the new pacing, Science kept separate. Every question in the bank follows the Enhanced rules.