ACT practice tests: where the official ones are, how to take one under real conditions, and how to turn the score into an error log by skill and a plan

The ACT is written in timed sections, English, math and reading, with science and an essay as options, and a composite score out of 36. The way to study for it is one full official practice test under the real timing, graded with the official key, and turned into an error log by skill. The test-maker publishes free full-length practice tests on its own site; those are the ones to take. The ACT's own difficulty is pace, so the log has a fourth column the SAT log does not need: whether you reached the question with time to think. Here is how to take the test, read it and study from it. The method underneath is the practice-test method and the error log, applied to this test.

Where the official ACT practice test is

The test-maker's own site offers free full-length practice tests, each with a scoring key. The number on offer and the formats (on screen or a printable booklet) change from year to year, so read its practice page for what is there today. Make sure a form is written for the current, post-2025 test. These are the tests to use for the diagnostic and for every retake.

Released tests from earlier years circulate on other sites. They are the second source, and the only other one worth using: they were real forms once. A test of unknown origin is not. The question style and the timing are the whole point of a practice test, and a test built by someone else teaches that someone else's style.

One warning about the older released tests: the ACT changed in 2025. A form from before the change has more questions, more minutes overall and a science section inside the composite. If you use one, take each section under the new timing and ignore the old composite.

The ACT in one paragraph, in our words

Every figure here was read on the test-maker's own pages on the day this page was last reviewed, and it is described, not reproduced. Since the redesign that reached national test dates in 2025, the ACT has three required sections and two optional ones. English is 50 questions in 35 minutes. Math is 45 questions in 50 minutes. Reading is 36 questions in 40 minutes. Science is optional, 40 questions in 40 minutes, and it is scored on its own, outside the composite. The writing test is an optional 40-minute essay and does not affect the composite either. Each section is scored from 1 to 36, and the composite is the average of English, math and reading, rounded to the nearest whole number. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so nothing is left blank. A calculator is allowed on the math section only. The test is offered on paper and on screen. Scores from different test dates can be combined into a superscore, which the test-maker computes as the average of your best score on each section across the dates you sat. If any of that disagrees with what the test-maker's page says when you read it, the page is right and this paragraph is out of date.

How to take a practice test properly

The first full test is the diagnostic: take it before you drill anything, so the log is built from what you actually know.

1. One sitting, the real timing, the official breaks. The sections in order, each timed to the minute. The last section is where fatigue shows, and you want to see it.
2. The real answer form. If you will write on paper, bubble a sheet; if on screen, use the online test. The transfer from question to bubble costs seconds, and seconds are what this test measures.
3. A watch on the desk. The ACT is a pace test. Write the time you started each section at the top of the page.
4. Morning, after breakfast, if the real test is in the morning.
5. Phone in another room. Not face down; out of reach.
6. No pausing. A paused test is two tests.
7. Mark every question you guessed or rushed. A tick in the margin as you go. The log needs to tell a guess that landed from a skill you own.
8. Score it the same day, while you remember what you were thinking.

What to do with the score: the error log, with a seconds column

For every miss, and every marked guess whether it landed or not, write four things: the skill it tested, the kind of error, the fix, and whether you reached the question with time to think. The first three columns are the hub's log. The fourth is the ACT's own, because on this test "ran out of time" is a kind of error in its own right, and it needs a different fix from "did not know".

The three kinds of error: did not know (the skill is missing), slipped (the skill is there and the hand or the eye failed), ran out of time (you never reached the question, or guessed to move on). A skill you did not know needs a worked example, a cold redo and a sibling problem. A slip needs the step written out slowly, five times. A time problem needs pacing practice, not more content.

Rank the skills by misses times the section's weight in the composite. The three required sections weigh the same, so a skill with three misses outranks one with two. A skill in a section you are not writing counts for nothing: if you have chosen not to take science, a science miss on the practice test is not on your list.

The pacing line

Seconds per question is minutes × 60 ÷ questions, one line per section, from the counts above:

• English: 35 × 60 ÷ 50 = 2,100 ÷ 50 = 42 seconds a question.
• Math: 50 × 60 ÷ 45 = 3,000 ÷ 45 ≈ 66.7 seconds a question.
• Reading: 40 × 60 ÷ 36 = 2,400 ÷ 36 ≈ 66.7 seconds a question, and the reading has to fit inside that.
• Science (if taken): 40 × 60 ÷ 40 = 60 seconds a question.

The rule that falls out: where a section gives about a minute a question, the first pass skips anything that takes more than two reads to understand. Mark it, move on, come back. A student who spends 3 minutes on one math question has spent 180 ÷ 66.7 ≈ 2.7 questions' worth of time on it. One hard question answered right at the cost of nearly three easy ones never reached is a net loss of about two marks.

Worked example: one math log, one science log

Our own rows, never an ACT item.

Section	Skill	Error kind	Fix	Retest
Math	Systems of two linear equations	Slipped: substituted into the wrong equation	Redo five mixed systems tonight, written out	7 days
Math	Trigonometric ratios in a right triangle	Did not know: forgot which ratio is which	A card for the three ratios and six problems	7 days
Math	Last eight questions	Ran out of time	The two-read skip rule on the next sitting	Next test
Science	Reading a two-variable table	Slipped: read the row for the wrong trial	Underline the trial named before reading	7 days
Science	Conflicting viewpoints passage	Ran out of time	Read the question stems first, then the passage	Next test

The systems miss, worked: 3x + 2y = 12 and x − 2y = 4 (ours). The y terms have opposite signs, so add: 4x = 16, so x = 4. Then 4 − 2y = 4, so y = 0. Check in the first equation: 12 + 0 = 12. The student found x = 4 correctly and then substituted it into a line they had rewritten wrongly, and got y = 2. Error kind: slipped. The fix is the written-out redo, with "which equation am I substituting into?" said aloud.

The math time row is the one to read twice. Eight questions never reached is eight marks given away at about 67 seconds each; that is nearly nine minutes, which is the time the student spent on three questions in the middle of the section. The two-read skip rule gives those minutes back.

ACT math: what the drills look like

The math section is procedures, and procedures are learned by worked example first and then cold. Read one worked example slowly, cover it, redo it from the question alone, mark line by line, then do a sibling with different numbers. Sweller and Cooper (1985) found that students who studied worked examples before trying problems learned algebra procedures faster and with fewer errors than students who only solved. How to study math has the marking rule.

Mix the sets. Once two skills are drilled, every practice set shuffles problems from both, because the ACT shuffles them: no question says which skill it tests. Rohrer and Taylor (2007) found that shuffled practice felt worse and tested better than practice blocked by type. Why mixing beats blocking has the research and how to shuffle an exercise set by hand.

Put the calculator down for arithmetic you can do faster by hand. On a 67-second question, the time to key in 15 × 4 is time lost. The content is a precalculus course's: linear and quadratic functions, systems, exponents, basic trigonometry, coordinate geometry, a little statistics. The twelve precalculus ideas names them in the order they are taught.

ACT science: it is reading, with data

The science section tests reading graphs, tables and experimental set-ups more than it tests recalled science. A passage describes an experiment or two, gives the data, and asks what the data show, what changed between trials, which claim the results support. You can answer most of it without remembering the fact the experiment was about.

The drill is one passage a day with the stems read first. Read the questions, then the passage, so you know what to look for in the table. When a log row says "did not know", look at what it was: it is often a graph convention, the axes, the units, a legend, a logarithmic scale, and not a fact of biology. A card for the convention fixes it.

Since 2025 science is optional and its score sits outside the composite. If the programs you are applying to want it, or you are strong at it, take it. If not, the hour is better spent on the three sections that make the composite.

English and reading: the two logs

English is a sentence-fault log. The questions ask whether a sentence is punctuated, agrees, is concise, and whether a transition fits. Log each miss by the rule it broke: comma splices and run-on sentences, subject–verb agreement, pronoun case, apostrophes, transitions, redundancy. The four sentence faults has the rules a card can carry. At 42 seconds a question, the rule has to be automatic, which is what the cards are for.

Reading is a skill log by question type: main idea, detail, inference, vocabulary in context, the function of a paragraph. The drill is the same as for science: stems first, then the passage, and for every answer, the line in the passage that proves it. An answer you cannot point to a line for is a guess, and it goes in the log as one.

How many tests, how far apart

The calendar is the one the SAT page uses, with the test-maker's free official forms as the ceiling. A diagnostic on day one. Then one full test every two to three weeks, with the time between spent drilling the log's top three skills and taking timed single sections for pace. The last full test about a week before the real date, so there is time to act on it and the last two days can be light. Two to four full tests in all.

A second test the next day teaches nothing the first did not: the skills have not changed, so the log will not either. Cepeda and colleagues (2008) found that the best gap between two visits to the same material grows with the time to the test; for a test a few weeks away it is days, not hours. Why the spacing matters has the table. And a full test under the real conditions is itself retrieval, which Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found produced better recall a week later than rereading did, so every test you take under time is doing more than measuring. Chapter 9 of the free playbook is the last seven days as a calendar.

The ACT or the SAT?

Do not decide from the scores. Take one official practice test of each, a week apart, and compare the error logs by kind of miss. A log heavy in "ran out of time" says pacing, which trains in weeks; a log heavy in "did not know" says content, which takes months. SAT vs ACT: the differences, and how to decide has the two logs side by side and the decision rule.

The method, on one screen

1. The official tests first. The free full-length forms on the test-maker's site, written for the current test.
2. One sitting, the real timing, a watch on the desk, guesses marked, scored the same day.
3. Log by skill, with the seconds column: did not know, slipped, or ran out of time.
4. The pacing line: 42 seconds an English question, about 67 for math and reading, 60 for science. Two reads, then skip.
5. Drill the top three for two weeks, cold and mixed. Retake and compare skill by skill.
6. Two to four tests in all, the last a week out.