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The ACT® Science Section: A Complete Guide

The Science section is now optional. The first decision is whether to take it at all. The rest of this guide assumes you have made that decision and want to do well.

Forty questions. Forty minutes. Six or seven short passages. Scored 1 to 36, separately from the composite. This guide covers the take-it-or-skip-it decision, what changed in 2025, what to study, and how to study it.

Should my child take the Science section?

A few honest categories. Most parents land in one of them quickly.

Take it if:

Your child is applying as a STEM major — engineering, math, hard sciences, computer science. Many programs still want to see a Science score.
Your child is applying to highly selective colleges. Even when not required, a strong Science score signals capability.
You want the STEM score reported — the average of Math and Science.
A target scholarship or honors program looks at the Science score specifically.

Skip it if:

Your child is clearly headed for humanities, arts, or social sciences, and none of the target colleges require or strongly recommend Science.
Your child finds the section a real weakness and there is no upside to a low Science score appearing on the score report alongside the composite.

Default for everyone else: when in doubt, take it once. Better to have a Science score and not need it than to need one and not have it. Once a student hits a target Science score, they can stop taking the section on future test dates. The Common App allows reporting only the highest Science score, or none at all.

What changed in 2025

The Enhanced ACT® made Science optional and gave students five more minutes — 40 minutes instead of 35 for the same 40 questions.

Five changes worth knowing:

Science no longer factors into the composite score. The composite is now the average of English, Math, and Reading.
A separate 1-to-36 Science score is still reported if the student takes the section.
Science still counts toward the STEM score — the average of Math and Science.
At least one Science passage now features an engineering or design topic.
Same skills, same passage types, same approach. The section is longer in time and shorter in everything else.

How the section works

Six or seven short passages, each followed by five to seven questions. Forty questions total. Three passage types:

Data Representation — charts, graphs, and tables. Read the data, answer questions about it.
Research Summaries — descriptions of experiments. Read the setup, answer questions about the methods and the results.
Conflicting Viewpoints — two or three scientists giving different explanations for the same phenomenon. Read each viewpoint, answer questions about each one and how they relate.

The Science section is mostly a reading-and-data test, not a science knowledge test. Outside science knowledge appears on roughly one or two questions per test, and the content is basic — what temperature water freezes at in Celsius, what makes something a solution. Knowing more high school chemistry does not move your Science score much. Knowing how to read a graph quickly does.

What is actually tested

The Science section tests seven core skills, grouped into three clusters. Each topic below links to a full guide.

1. Reading data from charts and tables

The bulk of the section. Most questions can be answered by finding a specific value in a figure or comparing values across figures.

Analyze data — finding values, identifying trends, comparing across figures
Interpolate and extrapolate — reading between or beyond data points
Reason mathematically — basic arithmetic, percentages, and ratios applied to the data

2. Understanding experiments

The Research Summaries and Conflicting Viewpoints passages test how scientists work, not how much science you have memorized.

Experiment design — what was the experiment trying to find out, what variables were controlled
Conclusions and predictions — what does the data support, what would happen next
Validity of scientific information — when is a conclusion well-supported, when is it not

3. Outside science knowledge

A small but real category. One or two questions per test ask about content not in the passage.

Outside science knowledge — the short list of facts that actually appear on the test

Strategy on test day

The Science section rewards a specific habit: spending less time on the passage text than students think they should.

Look at the figures before reading the passage. A glance at the axes, the units, and the trend in the data is usually enough to answer the first few questions.
Use the passage only when a question forces you to. Many data questions need nothing more than the chart.
For Conflicting Viewpoints, read both viewpoints before going to the questions. The Q&A jumps between them, and re-orienting mid-question costs time.
Skip outside-knowledge questions if you do not know the answer. Take an educated guess. Do not spend time hunting in the passage; it is not there.
Eliminate wildly wrong answers first. The ACT® often gives one or two choices that contradict the figure itself — those are free eliminations.

How to study

Science responds well to practice volume. The skill is largely pattern recognition — once a student has worked through ten Data Representation passages, the eleventh feels familiar.

Take a real ACT® Science section under timed conditions.
Mark every missed question and identify what type it was: data, experiment, outside knowledge, or rushed.
Read the article above for each missed type and redo the missed questions cold.
Take more sections under time. The fastest gains on Science come from increasing the number of passages a student has actually worked through.

Most students who do focused work on Science pick up three to five points in a month. Improvement curves are steep at the start and flatten as the student approaches their ceiling. A student who has read every figure twice and still cannot find the trend in 60 seconds is hitting a comprehension wall, not a content wall.

Frequently asked questions

Is the ACT® Science section still required?

No. As of the Enhanced ACT®, Science is optional. It is reported as a separate 1-to-36 score and does not factor into the composite.

Does taking Science hurt my child's composite score?

No. The composite is now the average of English, Math, and Reading only. A Science score is reported separately and cannot drag down the composite.

Should my child take Science if they want to major in a STEM field?

Yes. Many STEM programs still want to see a Science score, and a strong one strengthens the application. The STEM score — the average of Math and Science — is also still reported.

Should my child take Science if they want to study humanities or social sciences?

Probably not, unless target colleges require it or your child's Science score would actually help their application. Check each college's published requirements. Most do not require Science for non-STEM applicants.

How many questions are on the ACT® Science section?

Forty multiple-choice questions across six or seven passages, with forty minutes to complete the section.

How much science knowledge is required?

Very little. The section is almost entirely about reading charts, graphs, and tables. Outside science knowledge appears in one or two questions per test, and the content is basic — most students could answer those questions from middle school science.

What are the three ACT® Science passage types?

Data Representation (charts and graphs), Research Summaries (descriptions of experiments), and Conflicting Viewpoints (two or three scientists giving different explanations for the same phenomenon).

Can a student stop taking Science once they hit their target?

Yes. Most colleges accept the highest Science score across multiple test dates, and the Common App allows reporting only the highest Science score or none at all. Once a student hits their target, they can drop Science from future test dates and focus their prep time on the three required sections.

Does the digital ACT® have the same Science section as the paper test?

Yes. Same forty questions, same forty minutes, same passage types, same content. The test is not adaptive.