The writing section of the ACT is the fifth and optional part of the exam, administered after all four multiple-choice sections. Your essay score won't affect your composite ACT score or any of your other section scores. That said, some colleges and scholarships do require it, so check with the schools you're applying to before deciding to skip it.
What to Expect from the ACT Essay Section
The ACT essay section gives you 40 minutes to respond to one essay prompt. The prompt describes a complex issue and provides three different perspectives on it. Your job is to develop your own perspective and analyze how it relates to the other perspectives given. You can adopt one of the three provided perspectives or come up with your own. The position you take won't influence your score.
What the ACT Writing Section Grades You On
Two graders will evaluate your essay across four categories: Ideas & Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, and Language Use and Conventions. Each grader scores you 1–6 in each category, so each category has a possible total of 12 points. Your overall writing score is the average of those four category totals, ranging from 2 to 12.
This guide focuses specifically on the Ideas & Analysis category and how to maximize your score there.
Mastering Ideas & Analysis Using the ACT Rubric
How to Approach Ideas & Analysis
According to the ACT rubric, a score of 6 in Ideas & Analysis requires four things:
- Engage critically with multiple perspectives on the provided issue
- Include nuance and precision in your thesis's thought and purpose
- Establish and employ an insightful context while analyzing the issue and its perspectives
- Examine implications, complexities, tensions, and/or underlying values and assumptions
Each of these is more manageable than it sounds. Here's what they actually look like in practice.
Engaging Multiple Perspectives
Your goal is to adopt a specific perspective and analyze it in the context of the other two. For time management, it's usually best to use one of the given perspectives rather than constructing an entirely new one. Pick whichever one feels most logically sound to you.
A strong structure is to dedicate your first two body paragraphs to the perspectives you disagree with, and your third body paragraph to the perspective you support. This builds toward your strongest argument and sets up a natural conclusion. (More on this in the Organization guide.)
For each opposing perspective, you should:
- Briefly summarize what that perspective argues.
- Provide an example of what the argument might look like in practice.
- Explain why the argument falls short or proves false.
- Connect it back to your own perspective by analyzing why your viewpoint makes more logical sense.
In your final body paragraph, add depth to your chosen perspective. Go beyond just restating it. Provide a rationale for why your perspective is the strongest of the three, drawing on the weaknesses you've already identified in the other two.
Writing a Nuanced and Precise Thesis
A top-scoring thesis is complex enough to show critical thinking but concise enough to be clear. You need to balance nuance and precision.
Don't bog your thesis down with unnecessary details, but don't gloss over potential limitations of your chosen perspective either. Simply restating the given perspective word-for-word won't earn you a high score.
Your thesis should:
- Directly answer the prompt's central question
- Incorporate wording from the perspective you've chosen (showing you've engaged with the source material)
- Leave room to acknowledge potential weaknesses or counterarguments you'll address in the essay
Employing Insightful Context
One of the easiest ways to boost your Ideas & Analysis score is to bring in knowledge from outside the prompt. Cite examples from history, current events, or literature in your introduction or body paragraphs. Even a single well-placed fact that connects to the issue shows the graders you understand the topic beyond what's printed on the page.
For example, if the prompt is about technology in education, referencing a specific real-world program or historical shift in schooling demonstrates the kind of "insightful context" the rubric rewards.
Analyzing Implications, Limitations, and Tensions
This sounds like a lot of concepts, but you probably already do most of this naturally in persuasive writing.
Implications answer the question "who or what is affected?" For instance, the implications of greater cell phone use could be that people become less communicative in face-to-face settings.
Limitations address what a perspective leaves out or fails to account for. For example, an argument for banning internet access for anyone under 16 has the limitation of cutting off access to online education. You'll typically include limitations near the end of each body paragraph about an opposing perspective.
Tensions refer to contradictions within a perspective. If a perspective argues for both individual freedom and strict regulation, that's an internal tension worth pointing out.
Values and assumptions come into play most in your final body paragraph, where you discuss the perspective you agree with. This means explaining the underlying reasoning and principles that make your perspective the strongest. Why does this viewpoint hold up better than the others? What values does it prioritize, and why do those matter?
Review
To maximize your Ideas & Analysis score, follow these core steps:
- Choose a perspective on the given issue and construct a clear, nuanced thesis that goes beyond restating the prompt.
- Compare and contrast your chosen perspective with the other two perspectives, explaining where they fall short.
- Demonstrate understanding of how the perspectives relate to one another by including facts and context beyond what the prompt provides.
- Analyze the implications, limitations, and potential contradictions of each perspective, and explain the values that make your chosen perspective the strongest.
Wrap-Up
The ACT writing section becomes much more approachable once you know what the graders are actually looking for. Focus on engaging all three perspectives, writing a precise but nuanced thesis, bringing in outside context, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each viewpoint. With practice, these skills will serve you well on the ACT and in any persuasive writing you do beyond it.