Administrators of the ACT recently released the class of 2005 results. According to the report, “average scores on the ACT college entrance exam held steady across all subjects for the high school class of 2005 compared with last year’s seniors, an indication that schools are treading water in their efforts to prepare students for college-level work.”

The ACT is used as an admissions test for about half the states, mostly in the middle part of the country, while the SAT is more popular on the East and West Coasts. Most colleges accept either exam.

Nearly 1.2 million 2005 graduates, or 40 percent of the entire graduating class, took the ACT last year. The scores range from 1 to 36. Of those who took the ACT, almost three in four test-takers failed to reach a benchmark indicating they are likely to succeed in a college biology course, and only 41 percent hit a similar benchmark in math. Barely one in five hit the benchmark in all four measured subject areas: math, science, English and social science.

State Governors are currently pushing to get high school students to take a more demanding core curriculum that prepares them for college. Research indicates students who take the core do better in college, the ACT said. So far, that fact has not translated into more students taking advanced classes. In fact, the number has held steady for the past decade at 56 percent.

Other important results from the ACT are:
* The number of Hispanic test-takers is up 40 percent since 2001, to 83,447, and minorities comprise 27 percent of all ACT test-takers, up from 24 percent in 2001.
* Average scores for Asian-Americans rose 0.2 points to 22.1, while white students’ scores rose 0.1 to 21.9. Hispanics’ scores rose 0.1 to 18.7, while blacks’ fell 0.1 to 17.0.
* Girls accounted for 56 percent of test-takers, unchanged for four years. Average boys’ scores rose 0.1 from last year to 21.1; girls’ scores were unchanged at 20.9.