Using and Interpreting Your PreACT Results

Scores | Compare Your Scores | Readiness Action Plan | Education and Career | Building Your Skills | Code of Fair Practices

Understanding Your PreACT Scores

Your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Student Report contains a lot of information about your skills, interests, plans, and goals. Use this guide, along with your report, to get a better sense of where you are, where you might want to go, and how to get there.

Student Report: The PreACT^® and PreACT^® 8/9 Student Report includes your composite, subject, and STEM scores; predictedACT score ranges, the indicator of Progress Toward ACT^® NationalCareer Readiness Certificate^® (NCRC^®); US Rank, Detailed Results,and Item Response Analysis.

How Am I Doing So Far?

Your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Student Report shows your relative strengths and weaknesses in four subject areas important for success in college: English, math, reading, and science. Ask your counselor how you can improve in areas where you are not as strong.

What Are My Plans and Goals After High School?

When you took PreACT or PreACT 8/9, you answered questions about the courses you are taking or plan to take in high school, your career interests, and your plans after high school. This information will help you see if you need to change your educational plans in order for you to meet your goals.

Am I on Target for College?

Your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Student Report shows you how well you are learning the skills you’ll need to be ready for college. Most likely, you have learned some of these skills better than others.

Use your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Student Report to help you strengthen those skills that you still need to work on. Get more information on how to continue your College and Career planning.

What Your Scores Mean

For PreACT, your scores are between 1 (the lowest score you can receive) and 35 (the highest score you can receive). PreACT takes the number of questions you got right on each test and translates it into a number between 1 and 35 (called a “scale score”).

For PreACT 8/9, your scores are between 1 (the lowest score you can receive) and 30 (the highest score you can receive). Similarly, PreACT 8/9 takes the number of questions you got right, of the items that count toward your scores, in each test and translates it into a number between 1 and 30. Just like grades, your scores tell you how well you did on each test.

Score Ranges

Because no test can measure educational development with absolute precision, it’s best to think of each of your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 scores as a range rather than as a precise point. Your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 score ranges are shown on your Student Report by the colored boxes on the graph below your scores.

The heavy line within the colored boxes is your calculated scale score. The graph also includes light gray lines with a number next to it. These are the PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Readiness Benchmarks.

Composite Scores

Your Composite score is simply the average of the English, math, reading, and science test scores (rounded to a whole number). In the same way your overall grade point average in school shows how well you are doing across all your different classes, your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Composite score shows how well you did across the entire PreACT or PreACT 8/9 test.

STEM Score

Your STEM score is the average of the math and science test scores. You can compare your STEM score to the PreACT or PreACT 8/9 STEM Readiness Benchmark to see if you are on target to be ready for firstyear college courses in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Your Predicted ACT Score Ranges

Your Predicted ACT Score Ranges PreACT 8/9, PreACT, and the ACT® test cover the same subject areas. PreACT 8/9 is designed for 8th and 9th graders, PreACT is designed for 10th graders, and the ACT is designed for 11th and 12th graders.

Together, the three assessments measure your college readiness skills as you progress through school. Your PreACT 8/9 and PreACT scores can be used to predict how you are likely to do if you take the ACT as an 11th grader.

You can use these predicted score ranges to see if you are on target to achieve the scores you want by the time you take the ACT later in high school. PreACT or PreACT 8/9 can help you determine if there are subject areas where taking additional courses or gaining additional skills might improve your preparation for college.

Progress Toward a Certificate

Progress Toward the ACT^® National Career Readiness Certificate^® (NCRC^®) provides information about your level of career readiness based on your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 composite score. More specifically, this indicator provides an estimate of the ACT NCRC that students with your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Composite score are likely to obtain at 11th grade. The ACT NCRC is an assessment- based credential that documents foundational work skills important for job success across industries and occupations. Learn more.

How Do You Compare with Other Students Who Tested?

Next to Progress Toward the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate, you will find the percentile ranks of your scores (US Rank). The percentile ranks can help you understand how your scores compare to the scores of other students in the United States who tested. The percentile ranks are the percentage of students who earned a score equal to or lower than your score. In the example above, the percentile rank for English is 70%. This means that the student scored as high or higher than 70% of students in the United States who took the PreACT test. The same comparisons are made in the PreACT 8/9 Student Report.

Your Detailed Results

Below your predicted ACT score ranges, you will find a list of topics― also known as reporting categories―that were covered on each of the four test sections: English, math, reading, and science. Next to each topic is the number of questions you answered correctly and the total number of questions related to that topic. The report also shows the percentage of the questions you answered correctly for each topic. The bar graph helps you see your topics with the highest and lowest percent correct, and can help you understand your areas of strength and weakness.

Your Plans for High School and Beyond

When thinking about what courses you should take, consider not only the number of courses you take, but also the content, level, and challenge of those courses.

Compare Your Courses to Core

Core is a suggested minimum set of college preparatory courses to be taken in high school.

So, what courses should you be taking as part of the core? Following, are the minimum number of courses as recommended by A Nation at Risk, the prominent report on American education from the National Commission on Excellence in Education:

4 years of English
3 years of math
3 years of laboratory science
3 years of social studies

When you took PreACT or PreACT 8/9, you were asked about the courses you plan to take in high school. This section of your Student Report compares your plans to Core recommendations. In the example below, this student should plan to take at least one more year of math, social studies, and science to meet Core. Talk to your counselor if your high school course plans fall short of Core.

Successfully completing additional courses like speech, trigonometry, calculus, physics, and advanced history can result in higher ACT scores. This means you’re more likely to do well in typical first-year college courses.

Compare Your Scores to College and Readiness Benchmarks

A college education can open many doors for you. In fact, most jobs (and almost all high-paying jobs) require some education or technical training after high school. While college may seem a long way off, you can be preparing now by taking (and working hard in) challenging core courses in high school. This way, you’ll have the best chance to learn the skills you need to be ready for college.

PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Readiness Benchmarks

How can you tell if you’re on target for college? Your PreACT or PreACT 8/9 results give you an early indication of how likely you are to be ready for college-level work if your academics continue at the current pace. ACT has identified benchmark scores that reflect the foundation you are developing for the skills you will need by the time you finish high school.

Look again at the graph on the first page of your Student Report that shows your scores for each test. Compare your score ranges (the colored boxes) to the PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Readiness Benchmarks (the gray lines with numbers).

Students that score at or above the PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Readiness Benchmarks in English, math, and science are likely to be ready to do well in entry-level college courses in these subjects when they graduate from high school.

Students scoring at or above the reading benchmark are likely to be developing the level of reading skills they will need in all of their college courses. Of course, this assumes students will continue to work hard and take challenging courses throughout high school.

Your College Readiness Action Plan

Remember, you still have time to improve your skills before you graduate from high school, but you need to be sure you have a plan for your remaining high school years:

Look at how your score ranges compare to the PreACT or PreACT 8/9 Readiness Benchmarks on your Student Report.
- Are your score ranges at or above the benchmark scores? If so, you are doing well, but keep working hard. There is still a lot you need to learn.
- Are your score ranges below the benchmark scores? It’s important to start taking action now. Talk to your teachers or counselor about how you can improve in these areas.
- Remember, there is still time to get on target. Review the suggestions for improving your skills on the back of your report.
Make sure you are taking the recommended number and level of core courses.
Begin thinking about what you would like to study in college.

Did you know you can take the ACT test as early as your sophomore year? Learn more about when to take the ACT.

Your Education and Career Journey

It’s not too soon to begin exploring possible careers, but there are thousands of occupations in the work world. With so many to explore, where do you begin? Your Student Report helps you start by focusing on a few Career Areas (groups of similar occupations) related to your interests. Take a look at the Your Education and Career Journey section of your score report.

The Career Map

Exploring careers is easier if you have a good map. The Career Map can give you a sense of direction. The Map shows how Career Areas differ in their involvement with four basic work tasks:

People: People you help, serve, care for, or sell things to
Data: Facts, numbers, files, and business procedures
Things: Machines, tools, living things, and materials (like food, wood, or metal)
Ideas: Knowledge, insights, and new ways of expressing something (using words, music, etc.)

These four work tasks are the four “compass points” of the Map. For example, occupations in Career Area C (Management) mostly involve working with people and data, so it is located in the upper left part of the Map, as are other Career Areas involving people and data. On the other side of the Map, Career Area P (Natural Science & Technologies) mostly involves working with ideas and things.

Your Interests

Interest inventory: Take a look at your career map. Seeing the similarities and differences between Career Areas can help you think about where to start exploring, but the Map does even more. As part of PreACT or PreACT 8/9, you were asked to complete an interest inventory. If you completed it, your results are shown on the Career Map. The shaded parts of the Map show Career Areas that align with your preferred work tasks.
Career areas: Find the Career Areas in the shaded parts of the Map. Which basic work tasks do they involve? Select some Career Areas that look good to you now. Information (such as work tasks, salary, growth, and entry).
Region 99: What does it mean if your interest inventory results are in Region 99? Your pattern of interest scores does not suggest a clear direction at this time. Think about your preferences for the four basic work tasks (people, data, things, and ideas). This can help you select Career Areas to explore.

On Target for Your Career Area?

One way to see if you will be ready for college is to compare yourself to successful college students. The Profile for Success can help you do this. The Profile for Success shows a range of ACT Composite scores typical of successful college sophomores—those having a B grade average or higher.

When you completed PreACT or PreACT 8/9 you were asked to choose one of 26 Career Areas containing occupations you like best. We used your answer to make the Profile for Success relevant to you. The Profile for Success score range on your report is based on successful college sophomores in majors related to the Career Area you chose. (No Profile for Success score range is reported if you did not choose a Career Area.) By comparing your predicted ACT Composite score range to the Profile for Success score range, you can see how you are measuring up. If your score range overlaps or exceeds the Profile for Success, you are on track. If your score range falls short of the Profile for Success, it’s a good time to look more closely at the occupations in your preferred Career Area and learn more about the type of work and preparation needed. This can help you build a plan for improving your readiness to undertake that preparation.

Your Interest-Career Fit

As noted previously, when you completed PreACT or PreACT 8/9 you were asked to complete an interest inventory and choose one of 26 Career Areas containing occupations you like best. Your Interest-Career Fit shows the level of agreement between your interests right now and the Career Area you chose.

Do you think your interests fit this Career Area? Your interests can change as you have more experiences and learn more about what you like and dislike. It is good to know, though, that people are usually more satisfied and successful when they are interested in the kinds of work they do. Exploring occupations in Career Areas that fit you well is an important part of planning for your future.

Exploring Careers

When you think about how important work will be in your life, it makes sense to start planning early. Counselors, teachers, and parents can make suggestions, but it’s up to you to put it all together. Here are some good ideas to get you moving in the right direction:

1. Search

Research information about occupations that sound good to you. Get more resources on college planning.

2. Gather

Pull together firsthand information about careers you are considering, if possible. Talk with people who work in careers on your list. Ask them what a typical day is like, how they prepared for their career, and what they like and dislike about their job.

3. Find Out

Learn more about how to prepare for your future. Learn about the entry requirements for an occupation you are thinking about. Are they in line with your plans for education after high school? Will you need to adjust your educational plans to prepare for this career? Talk to your counselor or teacher if you have questions.

Building Your Skills

The back of your Student Report describes the skills and knowledge you have probably already developed. You’ll also see some ideas for building your skills and knowledge even further in the different subject areas. The descriptions and suggestions are based on your own scores and are intended to help you strengthen your skills and understanding in important ways in each subject area.

Checking Item Responses

You will definitely want to discuss these ideas with your counselors, teachers, and parents so that you can work together to get the most from your courses and reach the goal of being “college ready.” You can also review the answers you gave to each of the questions on PreACT or PreACT 8/9. Refer back to your test booklet to check on those questions you answered incorrectly and which response was correct. If you are reviewing a PreACT 8/9 score report, a small number of questions were included on the test for developmental purposes. These questions did not count toward your score and are noted as N/A in the tables in the Item Response Analysis section of your report.

Using Test Prep

ACT offers a free official ACT practice test. Each subject can be taken individually with an overall score and links to free resources provided. Examinees can find the free practice test and other resources at act.org/testprep

Code of Fair Testing Practices

ACT endorses the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education and the Code of Professional Responsibilities in Educational Measurement, which guide the conduct of those involved in educational testing. ACT is committed to ensuring that each of its testing programs upholds the guidelines in each code. You may locate copies of these codes through the following organizations:

Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education: American Psychological Association (www.apa.org)
Code of Professional Responsibilities in Educational Measurement: National Council on Measurement in Education (http://www.ncme.org/)