Insight into ACT scoring?

Just a bit stressed with ACT prep. Does anyone have a general sense of how the ACT scoring system works? I'm not getting the 2023 score chart on the official website. Can someone give me a basic rundown? Thanks, peeps.

The ACT is an exam that measures the educational development of high school students and their capability to complete college-level work. The exam is scored in the range of 1 to 36, which represents the average of the test taker's four section scores, rounded to the nearest whole number.

There are four main sections: English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science. Each of these sections is also scored within the 1 to 36 range.

Scoring is based directly on the number of questions you answer correctly; there's no penalty for guessing. Here's how that happens: each correct answer contributes to what ACT calls your 'raw score.' Your raw score, in turn, is converted into a 'scale score.'

This conversion to scale scores is where things can get slightly trickier. The ACT uses a process called 'equating' to account for small differences in difficulty between test dates. So, while you might answer a few more questions correctly on a 'easier' test date than on a 'harder' one, your scaled scores on those two dates could turn out the same. The conversion chart you're referring to contains the relationship between raw and scale scores.

Let's say you correctly answer 55 questions on the Math section. According to a typical raw-to-scale score conversion chart (which may vary slightly from test to test), a raw score of 55 might correspond to a scale score of 26.

In the end, your final composite score would be the average of all your section scores. For instance, if you scored 28 in English, 30 in Mathematics, 27 in Reading, and 29 in Science, your composite score would be (28+30+27+29)/4 = 28.5, rounded to the nearest whole number, which is 29.

So, in summary, while you'll want to do as well as you can in each section, don't stress out if one area isn't your strength. Your final score will be an average of all four sections, with the final rounded value typically favoring the test-taker. Do your best, and best of luck!