This page contains professionally-written answer explanations to the freely available, official ACT practice tests floating around on the internet.

Depending on the year, either the ACT or the SAT is the most popular college admissions test in the United States. About 1.3 million students in the graduating class of 2022 took the ACT or an estimated 36% of all graduates in the US.

According to ACT, the best way to improve your score is simply to take the test more than once, which is why we’ve published this guide of free ACT practice tests. Students who took the ACT test multiple times scored an average of nearly 3 points higher than those who took the ACT only one time.

How to Prepare for the ACT Test

Armed with these statistics and over 20 years of experience, we are confident in saying that the best way to prepare for the ACT is:

  1. Review the tested academic concepts (know your stuff)
  2. Take full-length practice ACT tests (increase familiarization)
  3. Stick to timed conditions (build endurance)

Click here to get more tips on how to improve your ACT score.

More Tips for School ACT Prep Teachers

One of the simplest ways to help prepare your students for the ACT is to have them work through the official practice tests on this page—and ensure that they’re learning from their mistakes. But also check out these additional resources:

Click here to learn more about Piqosity for educators or schedule a free info call with us.

Free Official ACT Practice Tests

screenshot showing how to identify ACT practice test form numberIn its infinite generosity, the publisher of the ACT distributes one free, full-length ACT practice test every year in its “Preparing for the ACT Test” student guide. This guide is available as a free PDF download and can easily be printed.

However, the free practice test is not always updated each year; the ACT generally recycles the same test for 2-3 years. You can quickly tell if a test is unique or not by looking at the “Form” number, which is found on the bottom-left corner of each page preceded by the year of publication.

The 2023-2024 “Preparing for the ACT Test” is the newest and most current edition of the ACT’s free student prep guide; however the practice test it contains is from 2021, form 2176CPRE.

Note that we have removed the links to download the PDFs below; but you can easily find them by Googling the Form Name. In September of 2022, ACT started sending us and Google nasty-grams about sharing these freely available tests.

The 3, free full-length official ACT practice test PDFs available for downloading and printing:

  1. ACT Practice Test 2023-2024 (Form 2176 CPRE), which is the same as
    1. 2022-2023
    2. 2021-2022
  2. ACT Practice Test 2020-2021 (Form 74FPRE), which is the same test as
    1. 2019-2020
    2. 2018-2019
  3. ACT Practice Test 2015-16 (Form 72CPRE), which is the same as
    1. 2017-2018
    2. 2016-2017

Score these ACT practice tests on Piqosity for free! You can now score these official ACT practice tests on Piqosity to access our timing, analytics, and score tracking tools. Simply download the PDF and input your answer results in your account.

There are an additional 4, full free-length official ACT practice tests that are slightly outdated but still useful. They are slightly outdated because in 2015, ACT redesigned the optional essay portion of the exam (Writing Test) and updated how it categorizes questions through the entire test. So if you decide to use the official practice tests below, do not work the essay, and just be aware that official question categorizations are now different.

The 4, slightly outdated official ACT practice test PDFs:

  1. ACT Practice Test 2014-15 (Form 67C)
  2. ACT Practice Test 2011-12 (Form 64E), which is the same as
    1. 2010-2011
    2. 2009-2010
  3. ACT Practice Test 2008-09 (Form 61C), which is the same as
    1. 2007-2008
    2. 2006-2007
  4. ACT Practice Test 2005-06 (Form 59F)

Free Piqosity Answer Explanations

Although ACT provides free practice tests, they do not provide answer explanations. As such we’ve asked some of our brilliant tutors to write detailed step-by-step answer explanations for the following practice tests. Click through the link below to access the free answer explanations:

  1. ACT Practice Test 2021-2022 (Form 2176CPRE) Answer Explanations
    1. English Answer Explanations from 2021 ACT Practice Test
    2. Math Answer Explanations from 2021 ACT Practice Test
    3. Reading Answer Explanations from 2021 ACT Practice Test
    4. Science Answer Explanations from 2021 ACT Practice Test
    5. Writing Test Sample Essays from 2021 ACT Practice Test
  2. ACT Practice Test 2018-2019 (Form 74FPRE) Answer Explanations
    1. English Answer Explanations from 2020 ACT Practice Test
    2. Math Answer Explanations from 2020 ACT Practice Test
    3. Reading Answer Explanations from 2020 ACT Practice Test
    4. Science Answer Explanations from 2020 ACT Practice Test
    5. Writing Test Sample Essays from 2020 ACT Practice Test
  3. ACT Practice Test 2015-18 (Form 72CPRE) Answer Explanations
    1. English Answer Explanations from 2015-2018 ACT Practice Test
    2. Math Answer Explanations from 2015-2018 ACT Practice Test
    3. Reading Answer Explanations from 2015-2018 ACT Practice Test
    4. Science Answer Explanations from 2015-2018 ACT Practice Test
    5. Writing Answer Explanations from 2015-2018 ACT Practice Test

Piqosity Free ACT Practice Tests & Concept Review

iPad loaded with Piqosity 2 student dashboard for ACT courseWhen you’re finished reviewing these official practice ACT tests, continue practicing with our own 12 full-length practice ACT tests. With Piqosity, you’ll get access to great content and features to help you do your best on test day:

  • 1 Mini Diagnostic ACT practice test to quickly gauge your starting point
  • 12 full-length (2 free) ACT practice tests which closely mimic the official exam
  • 15 hour video course + 70 concept review lessons
  • Estimated test day score
  • Strengths and weakness analysis
  • Step-by-step answer explanations and a community of helpful educators

ACT® is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. Piqosity is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by ACT.