Recently, many colleges, parents and educators have been arguing the effectiveness of standardized tests in measuring the intelligence of students; from this controversy, the new policy of superscores arose. Starting next September, students will be able to retake individual sections of the American College Testing (ACT) to improve their scores. The five-part standardized test is a significant part of the college admission process, and this new policy will make it much simpler and less stressful for students.
Previously, students would take all five parts of the test at once within a 215 minute time period, and those scores would be measured on a scale of 1 to 36 and averaged to be reported together. Next fall, however, if students are unhappy with their score on one or more of the sections, they can retake only that section for a higher score. This new combination of scores is called a “superscore”.
Several schools already construct their own superscores in order to portray students in the most favorable light; so, for some, this new policy would not change anything.
The ACT’s research demonstrates that superscores more effectively portray how students will perform in their college courses. They also say that those who take the ACT more than once, perform better in college. Their thought process concluded that the new superscoring policy would intrigue students to retake sections more than once, since they would not have to take the whole test, which would improve college performance.
The policy was only announced two weeks ago, but debates have already arisen over it. Some believe that superscoring will give a significant advantage to students who come from higher class families and have the money to spend on coaching for the ACT. They think that with the new ability to customize test results, test prep will become much more critical; this disadvantages those who cannot afford tutors or other prep materials.
“In the world we live in, it advantages the rich, who have coaches, who have advisers, who are strategically crafting their plan to take them to college,” Akil Bello, a college consultant for underprivileged students, said.
Along with superscoring, the ACT is introducing a less drastic change: an online method of taking the test. This would result in significantly faster feedback on results to students.
Not only would superscoring benefit students, but it could also have many financial perks for the ACT. The ability of students to retake sections would generate lots of extra revenue. These changes will also pressure the ACT’s rival: College Board, who runs the SAT, to make similar alterations to its exam.
Information for this article was found at the following links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/us/act-test-superscore.html
