Editing ACT (test) (section)

===Writing===
The optional writing section, which is always administered at the end of the test, is 40 minutes (increasing from the original 30-minute time limit on the September 2015 test). While no particular '''essay structure''' is required, the essays must be in response to a given prompt; the prompts are about broad social issues (changing from the old prompts which were directly applicable to teenagers), and students must analyze three different perspectives given and show how their opinion relates to these perspectives. The essay does not affect the composite score or the English section score; it is only given as a separate writing score and is included in the ELA score. Two trained readers assign each essay subscores between 1 and 6 in four different categories: Ideas and Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, Language Use and Conventions. Scores of 0 are reserved for essays that are blank, off-topic, non-English, not written with a no. 2 pencil, or considered illegible after several attempts at reading. The subscores from the two different readers are summed to produce final domain scores from 2 to 12 (or 0) in each of the four categories. If the two readers' subscores differ by more than one point, then a senior third reader makes the final decision on the score. The four domain scores are combined through a process that has not been described to create a writing section score between 1 and 36. Note that the domain scores are not added to create the writing section score.<ref name="actstudent.org"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.actstudent.org/writing/|title=The ACT Test for Students|website=ACT|access-date=July 27, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150809072145/http://www.actstudent.org/writing/|archive-date=August 9, 2015|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
 
Although the writing section is optional, many colleges require an essay score and will factor it into the admissions decision (but fewer than half of all colleges have this requirement).<ref>{{cite web |first=Brian |last=Cavner |url=http://acceptedtocollege.com/tests/satoract/ |title=Comparison Between the SAT and ACT: Requirements differences between the two college admissions standardized tests |access-date=February 3, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215071919/http://acceptedtocollege.com/tests/satoract/ |archive-date=February 15, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref>