Hey folks, hope everyone's doing okay. I recently got my ACT results and there's something called a scale score. What exactly does that mean? It's all quite confusing, would appreciate any help.
Hey there! Don't worry, standardized test scores can be a bit baffling. In the context of the ACT, a scaled score is what you receive for each of the four sections: English, Math, Reading, and Science. Each of these individual sections is scored on a scale of 1 to 36.
Here's how it works: firstly, the number of questions you answer correctly in each section is your 'raw' score. But, the ACT doesn't directly involve the raw score in their final report. Instead, the raw score is translated into a 'scale' score. This conversion ensures that scores are consistent across different versions of the ACT test, which might vary slightly in difficulty.
So, a scale score is basically a standardized score that allows for a fair comparison of test results.
The ACT then computes your composite score, which is the average of your scaled scores for the four sections, rounded to the nearest whole number. The composite score also falls between 1 and 36, and it's the number most colleges primarily look at during the admissions process.
I hope that clears things up for you! Do ask if you have any more questions.
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