North Star

Studying for her ACT, senior Phoebe Primeau does the English section of her ACT. “I think that the new ACT policy
could benefit students that do not do well with taking each section one after another, however I do feel that
separating the tests could affect students who do well on lengthened tests,” Primeau said. (Photo by Salam
Abouchleih)
STUDENTS’
TAKE:
How do you feel about
people being able to retake
the ACT in sections?
“I think it’s good. You
can focus on the areas that
you need to fix but at the
same time I don’t like the ACT
because a student shouldn’t
be judged by one test.”
Grace Moseley, 11
“I think it gives kids a
chance to improve in certain
areas at different times.”
CHANGING RETAKES
Students retaking ACTs will soon have the opportunity to retake sections of
the ACT rather than retake the entire test all over again
by Liy Taliaferro
liytaliaferro@gmail.com | @liy.leee
The American College Testing (ACT) organization
announced a new change to the ACT that will be put
into place at the end of next year.
In the past, students wanting to retake the ACT
would have to retake the entire test. This means if a
student were to do poorly in one section of the ACT
in contrast to how they performed on the other three
sections, they would still have to
retake four sections math, science,
reading and writing - in order to
improve their grade on that one
section.
“From what I understand is that
students are allowed to retake
certain subjects,” Patty Bartell, a
math teacher at FHN, said. “They
can retake math or they can retake
the English part of the ACT [and so
on].”
Some sophomores were allowed
to take the ACT in seventh grade
because of their Measures of
Academic Progress (MAP) Test scores from that year.
Some underclassmen who have taken the ACT for
JBA and Missouri Scholars are planning on retaking
it. With underclassmen aware of this change, some
may feel more hopeful towards having to take the
Upcoming
ACT Dates
December 14, 2019
February 8, 2020
April 4, 2020
June 13, 2020
July 18, 2020
ACT next September when the change is put into
play.
“I feel like it’s a really good system because if you
don’t fail the whole test you shouldn’t have to retake
the whole test- there’s no purpose for it,” sophomore
Kaylie O’Dell said. “It’s time. It’s a four-hour test, so
if you only failed one section and you have to take
the test again, that’s four hours of wasted time and
if you get a worse score for a different section that
doesn’t make any sense because
you already got your score.”
The ACT is $68 including the
written portion. Although it is not
yet confirmed, some believe that
having to retake individual sections
is going to be significantly cheaper
than having to pay $136 combining
the cost of the first ACT attempt and
the retake when only one section
needed to be retaken. In some cases
it is too great of a financial strain
on some families, especially when
students have to pull that money
out of their own pockets. This
can also be stressful for students receiving private
tutoring.
“Instead of paying $60 I would hope that it would
be cheaper to just take the one part,” junior Olivia
Neunaber said.
Joey Wallace, 11
“It would give kids a
break to switch gears to the
next subject first.”
Jeremiah Meador, 12
“It makes it easier
to take more time on the
sections that affect their
future career goals.”
Madi Molle , 11
“I think it’s a really,
really good thing. It gives you
the whole time to just focus
on just one section and [do]
a lot better on just that one
section.”
Caroline Mitchell, 11
PAGE BY LIY TALIAFERRO
NEWS | 11.20.19 | FHNTODAY. COM
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