ACT Advantages on Paper in 2025
Is the Paper ACT Still the Better Choice in 2025?
Exploring the benefits of sticking with the paper ACT in a digital age.
By: Mark Greenstein & Aaron Ventresca
The decision to take the ACT on paper or online in 2025 reveals clear advantages for students who opt for paper-based testing. Across all four multiple-choice sections, the traditional paper format makes test-taking more efficient and less distracting. Ivy Bound’s ACT Prep encourages students to test on paper for the following reasons:
Section Overview
1. The ACT English Section
In the English section, the passages provided often span multiple pages, or “screens” in the digital version of the exam. Taking the test on paper affords students an easier time answering questions, as they can avoid scrolling and clicking back and forth between screens. Having the paper test allows students to flip pages back and forth with greater ease.
2. The ACT Math Section
While students taking online tests are offered scratch paper for calculations, the advantage of writing on a test problem, which is only available on paper, is tangible. This advantage proves most acute when annotating a geometry problem, where students can insert angle measures, draw an additional line, or even “build” a cylinder or rectangular solid off a given plane, with a circular or rectangular base. On arithmetic and algebra questions, students who are properly coached to “write out each step” have one less piece of writing when starting with the original problem instead of transcribing it onto a separate page. Moreover, students can rank figures in a table without having to redraw it separately.
3. The ACT Reading Section
On many questions, the digital version provides a highlight that focuses students on a small segment of a longer passage. This is a benefit to all students, for whom the question is easier to answer. The paper version, with no highlights, provides a relative benefit to the students who are coached well. These students know how to quickly find the relevant detail, while other students will take more time and be pressed to finish the section
🔗 External Reference: ACT Reading Test Overview (ACT.org)
4. The ACT Science Section
The paper version still places all science questions in multiple-question blocks. This allows some students to easily check their answers to one question against those of others. Well-coached students do not often need a backstop, but it’s here, staring at them if necessary. Digital testers can use the “previous” button to compare their answers from one question to another, but there is no alert to remind them to make the prior comparison. Some students will also find the paper ACT better for keeping a good pace. There are four sections on the paper, and all practicing students know how to time themselves to complete them. The digital version has one question showing at a time. It’s an extra calculation for a student on number 22 of 38 questions to appreciate where things stand in a fast-paced section.
📖 Related: Should You Take the ACT Science Section?
Other Advantages
A final advantage, for many, is the ubiquity of paper test offerings. To our knowledge, all test sites from 2024 still offer the ACT on paper for 2025, but in some states, very few test centers are set up for digital testing. Too few schools have either large rooms of desktop machines or reliable wifi for a large number of laptops. We anticipate that this should improve shortly, but our advice is to wait until a school has shown multiple test administrations with no online glitches before signing up for a digitally administered ACT. Eschewing the digital test is wise. We see no advantage to online testing, and for well-coached students, the multiple small advantages of paper testing should result in higher ACT section scores and thus a higher composite score.
New ACT Format:
| Section | No. Questions | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| English | 50 | 35 min. |
| Math | 45 | 50 min. |
| Reading | 36 (4 passages) | 40 min. |
| Science (optional) | 40 (7 experiments) | 40 min. |
| Writing (optional) | 1 (essay) | 40 min. |
| Total | 131 | 2 hours 5 minutes |
| With Optional Sections | 171 + 1 Essay | 3 hours 25 minutes |
Final Takeaways
In 2025, students will have the choice between taking the ACT on paper or digitally. While digital testing may expand in future years, the advantages of paper are clear right now. On paper, students can navigate English passages more easily, annotate directly on math problems, manage pacing with a full view of each section, and cross-check questions more effectively in Reading and Science.
For well-prepared students, these small but significant benefits add up to higher section scores and a stronger composite score. Just as important, paper testing remains widely available at nearly all testing sites, while digital access is still limited and subject to technical glitches. For most students in 2025, choosing the paper ACT is the wiser path.
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