Does the Digital ACT Put Students at a Disadvantage?
Evidence from three controlled ACT administrations suggests paper holds a small but consistent scoring edge, especially in Reading and Science. Here's what families need to know before choosing a format.
Imagine you’re registering your student for the ACT, trying to decide between paper and digital testing. A friend swears that the digital exam scored her daughter more harshly than the paper tests she’d been practicing with. A tutor told you to take the test on paper, with no exceptions. ACT's own website tells you that the two formats produce perfectly comparable scores with no inherent advantage either way. So which is right? Is the digital ACT actually a tougher test, or is this just folklore? Answering this tricky question requires looking carefully at what the public evidence actually suggests.
The Short Answer
Paper is probably the safer default for most students right now, but not because the digital ACT is catastrophically unfair. The current public evidence suggests a small paper edge, especially in Reading and Science. More importantly, the paper format gives students practical advantages: easier annotation, direct work on the page, and more official practice materials.
But the scoring curve is only part of the decision. For most students, the bigger question is which format allows them to perform most consistently on test day. Digital can still be the right choice for some students. But families should choose it for a specific reason, not because they assume the two formats are interchangeable in practice.
What ACT Says About Format Equivalence
ACT's public position is that paper and digital scores are unproblematically comparable. Colleges receive the same score report regardless of format, and ACT continues to state that “there are no expected benefits or disadvantages in terms of 1–36 scale scores when taking the ACT online.”
It’s worth knowing how that equivalence is produced. Note that ACT never claims that the two formats are equally difficult. Its 2020 research, conducted on three national test dates with randomly equivalent groups of students, found that students testing online scored slightly higher than those testing by paper by about 0.10–0.13 standard deviations in English, 0.16–0.22 in Reading, and 0.39 in the optional Writing section. Effects on the Math score were near zero, while those for Science were small and inconsistent. To prevent those effects from advantaging online testers in college reporting, ACT applies format-adjusted raw-to-scale score conversion tables. In other words, ACT engineers the equivalence of the reported score across formats through its own equating. It doesn’t assume equivalence at the level of raw performance; rather, in some but not all cases, it assigns slightly lower scaled scores to a raw score on a digital exam than it would to the same raw score from a paper exam.
A few caveats about this study are worth noting. First, it used the older TAO Unity platform, not the current TestNav-based system the Enhanced ACT runs on. Indeed, this study predates the Enhanced ACT format entirely. Moreover, the direction of the effect, with digital scoring slightly higher in raw terms, is the opposite of what current public scale comparisons show for the Enhanced ACT, where paper appears to hold a small edge in Reading and Science. So the 2020 work tells us that ACT has historically detected and corrected for format-driven effects, but it does not directly answer the question facing today's students.
What Recent Score Comparisons Show
The most direct public evidence available right now comes from paired comparisons published by tutoring firms, in which paper and digital tests used the same scored questions. The October 2025 administration paired paper form J08 with digital form A1H, while the April 2026 administration paired paper form J01 with digital form R4A. While the patterns are not dramatic, they are they are consistent enough to matter:
Reading shows the clearest paper advantage. On both administrations, paper outscored digital by one to two points across most of the scale, with two-point gaps clustered at raw scores of 19 to 22 out of 27, exactly where many test-takers land. For instance, a student scoring 22/27 in the digitally administered Reading section was given a scaled score of 30, while a student scoring identically in the paper-based format was given a scaled score of 32. And it’s worth emphasizing that this gap in scaled score existed even when students missed the same 5 questions.
Science shows a similar, though less slightly stable, pattern across both administrations. Paper holds a one-to-two-point edge across most of the upper-middle range, with two-point gaps in the high 20s out of 34 raw points. The lower portion of the April Science scale flattened to identical between formats, so the paper edge for Science appears slightly smaller on the most recent form than it did in October. In both cases, though, a score of 28/34 yielded a scaled score of 31 in the paper-based administration and a 29 in the digital version.
English and Math are less conclusive. Here, the two administrations diverge. In October 2025, the English scales were nearly identical, and Math was close to a wash overall. By April 2026, though, paper held a one-point advantage at most raw scores in both sections, representing a substantially broader paper edge than the October data alone showed. Whether April represents a new normal or a single-form fluctuation is impossible to say from just two data points.
These patterns aren’t isolated to the Enhanced ACT. A similar pattern emerged after the September 2024 administration, when paper form H11 and digital form D26 shared identical questions but produced scoring scales that diverged in ways similar to the Enhanced tests we’ve just discussed. In Science, for instance, a student missing five questions on Form H11 earned a 30, while a student missing the same five questions on Form D26 earned a 28.
It’s important to note here that ACT conversion scales differ between any two forms: that's simply how equating works. The relevant question, then, is not whether paper and digital scales are identical, but whether a systematic pattern emerges across multiple administrations. Across the three controlled comparisons publicly available so far (September 2024, October 2025, and April 2026), the consistent direction is a small edge given to students taking the paper-based test, with Reading and Science showing the most stable pattern.
Why the Digital Experience May Affect Performance
Set the conversion scales aside for a moment, since scaled scores are only part of the issue. Even if the two formats were thoroughly equivalent, several features of the digital experience could plausibly nudge a student’s underlying performance downward.
For many students, the most consequential difference is that all highlights and annotations on TestNav disappear after each question. That's unusually punishing for a test built around long Reading and Science passages, where students routinely work back across multiple questions on the same passage. The digital test also prevents students from writing directly on Math or Science problems. Every calculation, diagram, or line of best fit has to be moved to separate scratch paper. That context-switching can slow students down. Furthermore, many test centers administer the digital ACT on school-issued Chromebooks with small screens. And these disadvantages go beyond the testing experience itself. Only two official Enhanced ACT digital practice tests are currently available, compared to six Enhanced ACT paper tests, meaning that preparing effectively for the digital test is far more difficult than it is for the paper test.
On the other hand, ACT added a Desmos graphing calculator to the digital Math section beginning with the December 2025 administration, which is a genuine benefit for students who know how to use it strategically. But Desmos is most useful on a minority of Math questions, and it remains completely irrelevant to the English, Reading, and Science sections. Notably, the April 2026 Math scale comparison (the first such comparison conducted after Desmos became available) still showed a paper edge across most raw scores.
These factors don't directly produce the scale differences described above; equating handles raw-to-scaled conversion. But they're plausible reasons students may perform somewhat differently on the two formats in the first place.
Where the Evidence Is Thin
At this point, it would be easy to conclude that students should simply avoid the digital ACT, since it appears to systematically disadvantage students versus those taking the paper equivalent. However, the evidence does not quite justify that conclusion. Here are three points that should qualify that conclusion:
Public data is thin. The strongest comparisons available come from a small number of tutoring firms, not independent studies with a large sample size. The score-curve differences of one or two scaled points we’ve discussed fall within the range of ordinary form-to-form equating variance, meaning the magnitude of the gap could shift on future forms. Anecdotal "I took the digital test and dropped five points" reports are heavily confounded by other factors: test-day variability, fatigue, prep maturity, and selection effects.
ACT itself has not released post-Enhanced equating data comparing the two formats, so the strongest claims about a current paper advantage rely on private analysis published by tutoring firms. That analysis is careful and the data is real, but three controlled comparisons are not the same as a published meta-analysis.
A recent scoring issue with the online ACT underscores why families are paying close attention to this question. In May 2026, ACT notified school-day online testers that some recent scores would be removed and reissued after ACT identified a scoring issue. According to ACT, affected students’ scores would either remain the same or increase slightly; no revised scores would be lower. That episode does not prove that the digital ACT is systematically harder, and ACT described the problem as a scoring-process issue rather than a test-difficulty issue. But it does reinforce a practical point: the digital rollout is still new enough that families should pay close attention to format, score reporting, and official updates.
The most defensible reading of current evidence is that those taking the paper ACT enjoy a small but consistent edge in Reading and Science, with English and Math showing a less convincing edge, even though it grew between October 2025 and April 2026. The magnitude is modest — typically one scaled point, occasionally two. The stability across future forms, especially as ACT continues refining the digital experience, is unknown.
How to Decide
Several practical implications follow.
The single most predictive variable for your student's score will not be format choice, but how closely their preparation matches the format they sit for on test day. A student who has spent months on paper practice tests and walks into a digital administration is giving up more to interface friction than they could ever recover from a marginally easier curve. The reverse is also true. Pick a format early, prep in that format consistently, and don't switch late in the cycle hoping to gain a one-point edge.
If your student has no strong preference, paper is the safer default. It offers easier annotation, on-page work, and more official practice materials.
If your student has a clear reason to choose digital testing, that choice can still make sense. Some students work faster on screens, some accommodations pair more naturally with digital delivery, and strong familiarity with Desmos can help on the Math section. In some school-day administrations, paper testing may not be available at all.
If your student is already committed to a digital administration, don't panic. The differences in current data are real but modest, and strong preparation still matters far more than format.
The Bottom Line
The best available public evidence suggests a small paper advantage on the Enhanced ACT, especially in Reading and Science. But the advantage is modest, and the public data is still limited.
For most students, the stronger case for paper is practical. The paper test allows for easier annotation, on-page work, and more official practice materials. Still, the right choice depends on the student. Pick the format early, prepare in that format consistently, and make the decision based on fit—not fear.
Choosing between paper and digital ACT testing is not just a registration detail—it is part of your student’s broader testing strategy. If you want help deciding which format makes the most sense, building a preparation plan around that format, or interpreting recent ACT score trends, North Avenue can help. Schedule a free consultation today!
