ACT Educational Services reports that the College Readiness Standards are designed to gauge 11th- and 12th-grade students' prior knowledge and ability to move on academically. The standards are also formatted to represent what a student can expect from college level instruction and should be able to indicate how well a student may do in her first year at a college or university. A student's ACT score (between 1 and 36 with 36 being the highest possible score) determines the standards that student has met.
The College Readiness Standards are applied to the four main content areas of the ACT exam, English, mathematics, reading and science. The ACT College Readiness Standards Report indicates that when paired with the EXPLORE and PLAN examinations, student progress can be monitored from grade 8 through 12 in all four academic areas. There are also standards for the optional writing portion of the ACT exam. However, since the writing portion is optional, the standards for this section are not applied to students who opt out of this section.
Having accurate data on student progress can be useful to administrators, teachers and students. The ACT website reports that some Oklahoma schools have used ACT's standards to help determine curriculum changes. Similarly, a northern Illinois school district uses the standards to help place students in classes and keep parents privy to student progress.