2025 ACT Math Update: Fewer Questions, Higher Stakes, Better Prep
Every Tuesday on The Scoreboard, we share practical, high-impact strategies to help teachers integrate ACT prep directly into Tier I instruction. Designed for Alabama educators and beyond, Tuesday Playbook connects strong classroom teaching to ACT College Readiness Benchmarks—turning daily lessons into measurable growth. From grammar warm-ups to critical reading routines, these easy-to-run “plays” help teachers build ACT-ready classrooms where every move counts.
If your students are preparing for the ACT in 2025 or beyond, it’s time to sit up and pay attention because the English section has gotten a makeover. The new 'Enhanced ACT' keeps the same 1-36 scoring scale, but with fewer questions, slightly more time per question, and a stronger emphasis on language usage and rhetorical clarity. In short, time is still tight, but the margin for error just got smaller. In this post, we’ll walk through what’s changed, why it matters, and how you can tweak your instructional and test-prep approach to help your students shine.
The Enhanced ACT Math Section: What’s Changing — and How Teachers Can Prepare Students Through Tier I Instruction
As the enhanced version of the ACT rolls out, many of the most significant updates affect the Math section—and in ways that directly intersect with daily classroom instruction. For math educators, these changes present both a challenge and an opportunity: to align instruction more closely with the advanced reasoning, algebraic thinking, and data literacy skills today’s students most need.
This guide outlines the specific updates coming to the ACT Math section and offers practical, classroom-ready strategies that teachers can use to ensure students are prepared—not just for the test, but for high-level mathematical thinking beyond it.
What’s Changing in ACT Math?
ACT Math has undergone several important shifts that reflect the exam’s growing emphasis on conceptual reasoning, higher-level standards, and real-world problem-solving. These updates impact both test structure and the types of skills being assessed.
1. Fewer Questions: From 60 → 45 Questions
The ACT Math section is decreasing by 15 questions. While this shortens the section, it also increases the value of each question, leaving students less margin for error.
Instructional takeaway: Students must build accuracy and consistency—not just speed—on higher-level math problems.
2. More Time Per Question
Although the total time is decreasing (60 minutes → 50 minutes), the time per item increases from about 60 seconds to about 67 seconds.
Instructional takeaway: Students must spend their time productively: interpreting questions carefully, evaluating function behavior, reading graphs, and showing reasoning. Rushing is less necessary; deep thinking is more valuable.
3. Shift to Four Answer Choices (Not Five)
All ACT sections now include four choices, not five.
Instructional takeaway: The focus is shifting from distractor-heavy quick guessing to reasoning about mathematical relationships. Students will see more conceptual traps and fewer “gotcha” items.
4. Higher-Level Math Will Appear More Frequently
One of the most significant shifts: ACT is decreasing “Integrating Essential Skills” (middle-school level content) and increasing high school standards. The new subscore percentages are as follows:
Integrating Essential Skills: 20%
Number & Quantity: 10-12%
Algebra: 17-20%
Functions: 17-20%
Geometry: 17-20%
Statistics & Probability: 12-15%
This aligns ACT Math more closely with typical Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II course sequences.
Instructional takeaway: This shift mirrors what strong Tier I instruction should do already by focusing on conceptual understanding, multistep reasoning, and flexible problem-solving.
What These Changes Mean for Classroom Instruction
The enhanced ACT is pushing math instruction toward deeper reasoning, stronger algebraic thinking, and greater data literacy. The following are key instructional implications teachers should consider when planning daily lessons, formative assessments, and intervention supports.
1. Emphasize Algebraic Reasoning Across All Courses
Even in Geometry and Precalculus, algebraic reasoning is foundational. ACT’s updated emphasis means students must confidently:
Manipulate expressions
Solve systems
Interpret functions
Apply equations within word problems
Recognize patterns and relationships
Instructional Strategy: Integrate algebraic manipulation as a warm-up or bell ringer in all HS math classes, not just Algebra I. Students should see algebra as a language used everywhere—not a single course.
2. Teach Function Thinking Daily (Not Just in a Unit)
One of the most noticeable increases on ACT Math is questions requiring students to reason about function behavior, including:
Domain and range
Growth rates (linear vs exponential)
Transformations
Intercepts
Graph matching
Composite functions
Instructional Strategy: Use “Which graph matches this function and why?” or “Predict the behavior of this function as x increases” as regular prompts. Even 2–3 minutes of function talk per day builds long-term understanding. (This is especially true for concepts that you are not currently teaching. Retrieval practice is highly beneficial for moving knowledge from short-term to long-term memory.)
3. Increase Exposure to Data, Graphs, and Statistics - Skills that will help Science scores also!
The enhanced ACT better reflects statistical literacy standards. Students must:
Interpret scatterplots
Choose correct measures of center
Compare distributions
Understand simple probability
Reason about trends
Instructional Strategy: Include real-world data sets regularly. Analyze graphs from science, economics, or local datasets. Require students to justify which statistical measure is appropriate and why. This builds cross-curricular readiness and critical thinking.
4. Move Beyond Procedural Fluency to Conceptual Understanding
While fluency matters, the enhanced ACT prioritizes multi-step, conceptual thinking over rote procedures.
For example, instead of “solve for x,” students may need to:
Interpret what x represents
Build an equation from context
Select a model
Evaluate multiple representations
Instructional Strategy: Adopt problems that require “thinking before doing.”
Examples:
“What’s the most efficient strategy to solve this?”
“Estimate the answer before solving—does your result make sense?”
“Identify what the question is really asking.”
These build reflective habits that reduce errors on the exam.
5. Teach Students How to Read Math Problems—Not Just Solve Them
Many ACT errors stem not from math ability, but from misreading, overlooking conditions, or misinterpreting variables.
Instructional Strategy: Model the following during instruction:
Underline key conditions
Identify irrelevant information
Highlight units
Restate the question in their own words
Pick the most appropriate strategy before computing
These literacy-focused habits directly improve ACT outcomes and classroom performance.
6. Build Pacing + Stamina Through Tier I Instruction
With fewer questions but higher cognitive demand, pacing is still critical. Likewise, students must understand how to “triage” their math questions to maximize the time they have to work.
Instructional Strategy:
Use short, consistent timing practice:
5 problems in 6 minutes
10 problems in 12 minutes
15 problems in 20 minutes
Focus on accuracy and efficiency. Students should classify questions they don’t know how to do immediately as “later” questions and return to them if they have time remaining. These micro-drills build stamina and reduce test-day anxiety.
7. Use Formative Assessments to Identify ACT-Linked Skill Gaps
The enhanced ACT aligns tightly to high school math content. Teachers can prepare students by aligning formative assessments to skills such as:
Function transformations
System solving
Geometry modeling
Data interpretation
Equation building
Instructional Strategy: In PLCs, categorize student errors by concept, not by problem.
Example categories:
Wrong operation
Misread condition
Incorrect equation setup
Graph interpretation
Algebraic manipulation
This allows targeted intervention that mirrors what ACT now requires.
8. Embed Productive Struggle in Daily Instruction
The enhanced ACT demands perseverance and reasoning. Students must get comfortable with multi-step tasks.
Instructional Strategy: Design problems that include:
Non-routine application
Multiple representations
Real-world context
Multi-step reasoning
Opportunities to justify thinking
Encourage students to check their answers and reflect on their process—not just seek the right answer.
Final Thoughts: Aligning Strong Tier I Instruction With the Enhanced ACT
At its core, the enhanced ACT Math section reinforces what strong math teachers already aim to build:
Deep understanding
Flexible problem solving
Mathematical reasoning
Data literacy
Conceptual fluency
These shifts aren’t just test changes—they signal what students must know to be successful in college-level math and beyond.
As teachers, you have the most powerful tool to leverage: daily Tier I instruction that builds understanding, confidence, and stamina. By aligning your instruction with the skills emphasized in the enhanced ACT, you equip students not only to perform well on the test but to thrive in advanced coursework, STEM fields, and real-world decision making.
Ready to put these strategies into action?
To support both classroom instruction and student preparation, I’ve created a free resource you can download and use immediately:
Teacher Worksheet: A planning tool that outlines the instructional shifts, focus skills, and classroom practices aligned to the Enhanced ACT Math section.
Use this document in PLCs, tutoring sessions, benchmark cycles, or as part of your ACT prep curriculum.
👉 Download below and start preparing your students for the Enhanced ACT Math section TODAY.
