Using school laptop for ACT

[Anonymous]

My kid’s school offers SAT only so we are registering for the ACT outside of school. We fo not have a home laptop. Does anyone know if the MCPS laptop will accomodate the ACT software app? SAT uses bluebook which they loaded to theor school chromebooks but ACT apparently uses something different.

[Anonymous]

ACT is a paper and pencil exam. There is no laptop necessary.

[Anonymous]

they also offer a digital option. I believe the centers provide the computer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ACT is a paper and pencil exam. There is no laptop necessary.

Starting in February, the ACT now offers the option of taking it either on paper or digital: https://www.act.org/content/act/en/new-act-options/online-testing.html.

If you choose a digital test, you'll use computers provided by the testing center. They specifically say you can't bring your own (under "How will I take an online ACT test?").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACT is a paper and pencil exam. There is no laptop necessary.

Starting in February, the ACT now offers the option of taking it either on paper or digital: https://www.act.org/content/act/en/new-act-options/online-testing.html.

If you choose a digital test, you'll use computers provided by the testing center. They specifically say you can't bring your own (under "How will I take an online ACT test?").

ACT has been promising digital testing in the US for a long time. All the links advertising the Feb 2024 (and after) digital on the ACT site are non-working and have been for a long time. They were promising "rollout to 5000 US students" in the fall of 2023 and wide availability in Feb 2024, but nothing materialized, and there's been radio silence since then.

It's not surprising that the Feb 2024 digital ACT promise went nowhere because digital ACT was described as "identical in length and format to the paper version". There is no earthly reason to take a digital version over a paper/pencil version of the ACT. ACT touted "access to tools" but the tools were pretty crappy and what you can do on paper and pencil remains superior. (This is with the exception of universal typing access for the digital ACT essay, but since no schools require the ACT essay, there's no reason to favor an identical digital format.)

Just recently some students who registered for the June 2024 test got an option to take a "shorter" ACT version in "online rooms". So, it seems ACT is scrambling to switch to a shorter digital version. There is no way to digest June 2024 digital study results for the July test so the earliest digital rollout would be Sept. Their school district promo info for 2024-2025 still promises a discount for "online" testing, so maybe they hope to figure out by then?

ACT was just bought by a private equity company, which probably indicates some kind of financial issues, and who knows how it will help or complicate the online rollout.