ACT® · Reading: Pace, Scoring, and Text Complexity
Embedded Field-Test Items
Of the 36 reading questions, 27 count and 9 are unscored field-test items being tried out for future forms, but they look exactly like real questions, so you must treat every question as if it counts.
The reading section gives four passage sets of nine questions each, 36 total. Three of those sets are scored, worth 27 questions. One full set of nine is a field-test set: new material being quietly tried out before it gets used on a future scored form. It sits among the others, same format, same look, same forty-minute clock, with no label marking it as practice for the test-makers rather than for you.
That design is deliberate. If the unscored set were identifiable, people would rush it or skip it, which would wreck the data the test-makers need on how real students perform on those questions. So the field-test set is built to be indistinguishable: same passage types, same question styles, same difficulty range as the scored sets. Any hunch about which set is the fake one is just a guess, and acting on it risks blowing off questions that actually count.
This used to work differently. Older versions of the test ran field-testing as a separate fifth section, tacked on after the scored ones and lasting around twenty minutes. Because it came last and was clearly extra, students knew it didn't count and could pace it however they liked, or skip it. Embedding the field-test set inside the regular four sections erased that tell. Now every passage gets the same attention, which is exactly why pace and section strategy matter so much: you're always budgeting time as if all 36 questions count, because for all you know, they might.
Key terms
- Field-test item
- An unscored question included to gather performance data for future test forms.
- Embedded field-testing
- The current method of hiding unscored questions inside the regular scored sections rather than in a separate section.
- Passage set
- A group of nine questions tied to one reading passage.
- Scored question
- One of the 27 reading questions that actually counts toward the score.
Watch it explained
Check yourself
End of topic.