All about the ACT Essay
- makingmathsimple3
- Apr 4, 2021
- 3 min read
Hello everyone! A couple of weeks ago, I published a blog post where I talked about the SAT Essay and what to expect. This week’s topic is the ACT Essay. Read on to learn more!
The ACT Essay is an optional part of the ACT. It isn’t included in your composite score (out of 36), and is graded on a separate scale. By assigning an essay prompt, the ACT essay aims to capture your writing and analytical skills, and help convey that information to colleges through your score. You may find yourself taking this separate section of the ACT if a college requires it for their application.
The essay is a separate section of the test (in addition to reading, English, math and science), and requires for you to stay an extra 45 minutes at the end. You’ll be given an argumentative essay prompt and three different perspectives on that specific argument, and assigned to write an argumentative essay on the prompt. The standard prompt doesn’t change over tests:
“Write a unified, coherent essay about the increasing presence of intelligent machines. In your essay, be sure to:
· clearly state your own perspective on the issue and analyze the relationship between your perspective and at least one other perspective
· develop and support your ideas with reasoning and examples
· organize your ideas clearly and logically
· communicate your ideas effectively in standard written English
Your perspective may be in full agreement with any of those given, in partial agreement, or completely different.”
Essentially, you need to state your perspective on the argument, and connect your perspective to at least one of the three perspectives that the prompt included. The other perspective can either be in agreement with yours, or as a counterclaim. The other bullet points are standard writing information: you need to support your ideas well, include evidence, organize your essay and ideas effectively, and use proper grammar.
That’s all – at least for the format of the essay. It’s not that different from a normal English assignment, and gives you a lot of room to be creative with the prompt, as long as your argument is effective.
While the SAT essay gives you a passage and asks you to analyze the author’s argument and how it’s effective, the ACT essay allows you to write your own argumentative essay. In the past, students took the essay for both tests to see which one they did better on. However, the SAT essay is being discontinued, so there isn’t really another option for students nowadays.
However, the use of the ACT essay in college admissions is dwindling, and not many students end up taking it. Few colleges require it, and other than that, it really isn’t an integral part of college admissions. If a school you’re applying to requires the test, then you should take it. If you feel that you have good writing skills, and want to write it, then take it. If not, don’t feel pressured to take the essay with the ACT test.
Quick Story: I took the ACT in December 2020, and I did register for the ACT essay as well. There were around 50 students in the cafeteria of the school I was taking it at (spaced out due to COVID-19 restrictions), and only about 10 students remained at the end to take the essay. It’s true! Not many people take the essay, so you certainly shouldn’t feel pressured to!
Another quick note: you need to take the entire ACT test (English, math, reading, and science) in order to take the essay, since it’s offered at the end. You can choose to sign up for the essay when registering for the test. If you want to retake the essay, then you need to register for the entire test again, and take all the other sections as well, to get a retake of the essay.
I hope you found this blog post helpful! Feel free to contact me with any questions!
Until next time, bye!
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