It's pretty scary to walk into a room on ACT test day and with no idea what the essay question you're about to answer is about. Luckily, you don't need to know—the ACT essay prompts only ask about a teensy, tiny category of ideas. And the best part is, you already know all about the topics!
Keep reading to see sample ACT Writing prompts you can practice with. More importantly, we also teach you how to gather evidence before the test so you can walk in 100% prepared to answer any prompt they give you.
5 Sample ACT Essay Prompts
The idea behind the ACT essay is that it's a fair test of everyone's writing ability because nobody knows the topic or question before the test. In order for this to be true, the ACT actually has to choose from a pretty small sliver of questions (since the topics must be broad enough that all test takers can write about them).
ACT Inc. only offers one example prompt, on intelligent machines, though you can see others included with the official ACT practice tests.
Here are four other sample prompts that I've constructed, based on the core question and core perspectives extracted from the official prompts. What common features do you notice between all the prompts?
Globalization
Many of the goods and services we depend on daily have global sources. Where once you might speak with a customer service representative from across the country about your computer problems, your call now would most likely be routed across the world. In one grocery store, it can be possible to find a mixture of foods from multiple continents. Various pieces of culture can be instantaneously broadcast around the world via the Internet, enabling shared experiences among people of disparate geographic origins. Globalization is generally seen as a sign of progress, but what happens when we replace local interactions with global ones? Given the accelerating rate of globalization, it is worth examining the implications and meaning of its presence in our lives.
Perspective One: Globalization requires a shift in the way we think about other people, other societies, and the world. This is good, because it will push humanity towards previously unimaginable possibilities and achievements.
Perspective Two: Removing geographic boundaries from commerce means that the right people can be chosen for the right jobs at the right price. This efficiency leads to a more prosperous and progressive world for everyone.
Perspective Three: The flourishing of a new, global society comes at the cost of local cultures. Less diversity leads to deficits in empathy and creativity, two of the most defining characteristics of humanity.
Write a unified, coherent essay about the increasing presence of globalization.
Information Accessibility
At this moment in time, there is more information more readily available to more people than ever before. Smartphones can instantly provide directions to your destination, when even 10 years ago you had to look up directions before you left and/or bring along a map. Researchers from all over the world are able to pool their knowledge to advance their fields more quickly. Many libraries have broadened their collections to include subscriptions to online/electronic databases as well as printed works. Greater access to information is generally seen as a positive advance, but what are the consequences of making so much knowledge available to so many people? Based upon the ever-increasing amount of information in the world and the ever-broader access to it, it is worth examining the implications and meaning of easy access to information in our lives.
Perspective One: With increased ease of access to information, we lose the incentive to gain knowledge ourselves. By outsourcing our memories of facts and other information, we are becoming less intelligent.
Perspective Two: Greater access to information allows us to avoid memorizing facts and, instead, use our brains for higher-level thinking. This efficiency leads to a more prosperous and progressive world for everyone.
Perspective Three: The more people who have access to more information, the greater the chances of collaboration and thus further advances in human knowledge. This is good because it pushes us toward new, unimagined possibilities.
Write a unified, coherent essay about the increasing accessibility of information.
Novelty
In the world today, newness is highly valued. Social media apps constantly update to make sure you’re shown the newest information or posts from those you follow. Many of the products we purchase today are purposefully created with short lifespans to encourage consumers to continue to get the newest, up-to-date versions. Subscription services for music and video make it possible to continuously listen to and watch new media. Novelty is generally seen as a positive characteristic, but what are we losing by constantly focusing on the new? Given its increasing prevalence, it is worth examining the implications and meaning of the growing emphasis on novelty in our lives.
Perspective One: Change is the only constant in life, and to ignore this is to grow rigid and stagnate. More exposure to new ideas and ways of thinking can only lead to progress for society and for humanity as a whole.
Perspective Two: By exclusively focusing on the new, we lose sight of what we already know. Instead of ignoring the old, we should be focusing more on past accomplishments and errors. The only way to move forward is to heed the lessons of the past.
Perspective Three: Information, products, and ways of thinking should only be valued if they are useful and reliable, not just because they are new and exciting. New does not automatically equal improved.
Write a unified, coherent essay about the increasing value assigned to novelty.
Job Changes
Fewer and fewer people are staying with the same job their entire lives. In the United States, the average person will switch jobs more than 10 times in over the course of his/her life. Some workers will make lateral, or even downward, moves in order to increase personal fulfillment. Others switch jobs in an effort to obtain the highest possible salary. Increasing personal autonomy is generally seen as a sign of progress, but what happens when length of experience is replaced with variety of experience? As the number of jobs people will hold over the course of their lives continues to climb, it is important to examine the implications and meaning of this trend for our lives.
Perspective One: Because jobs are no longer a lifetime commitment, people will feel freer to accept a greater variety of positions. This increase in breadth of experience will in turn make job applicants more attractive to future employers.
Perspective Two: As the frequency with which people change jobs increases, the loyalty of people to their employers will decrease. This in turn will lead to more fractured company cultures, as employees will only care about what’s best for them.
Perspective Three: The disappearance of the stigma associated with frequent job switching will allow employees more leeway with employment decisions. Increased autonomy will lead to increased happiness and job satisfaction.
Write a unified, coherent essay about the increasing frequency with which people switch jobs.
For additional Writing Prompts to practice with, you also might want to consider purchasing the most recent Official ACT Prep Guide, which includes five additional official essay prompts.
While you'll see many different topics asked about on the ACT essay section, there is in fact only one ACT Writing Prompt (and three types of perspectives) you have to know. We call these the Core Question and Core Perspectives. This question (and these perspectives) will run through each and every ACT Essay prompt you'll get.
The Reasoning Behind The Core Question
As you can see, all the ACT writing prompts are about how the world (and the people in it) is (are) changing. All of them boil down to the following question:
"What are your views on how humans are changing the world?"
or, even more broadly,
"What do you think about the way the world is changing?"
The ACT frames its prompts this way because ACT, Inc. wants to choose essay topics that all students can have an opinion on, rather than asking about something extremely specific for which some students are more prepared than others.
First Global Image from VIIRS by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, used under CC BY 2.0/Resized from original.
Read through the official prompts again (above). Rather than asking about high school life (as the old ACT Writing prompts did), the current ACT essay prompts ask students to consider how changes in the world today affect all humanity, forcing the students to place the issue in a broader context.
While the topics may appear to be highly specific at first glance (e.g. "intelligent machines"), the explanatory paragraphs for each prompt make it clear that the topics can be parlayed in a number of different directions (and be accessible to most people).
There won't be prompts about issues that mainly affect urban dwellers (e.g. subways), or only affect certain geographic areas (e.g. snow preparedness). Similarly, something like "smartphones," for instance, would never be a topic on its own; rather, it would be an example that could be used for the topic (as with the "intelligent machines" prompt).
When writing the ACT essay, it really helps to have strong opinions about the core question ("What do you think about the way humans are changing the world?"), but if you don't, no problem: it's easy to develop opinions! And we're here to give you a head start.
In the next section, we're going to give you three basic opinions related to the core ACT essay question. We'll show you how to apply these perspectives to specific prompts and tell you where you can find examples to support them.
The Reasoning Behind The Core Perspectives
The new ACT prompt has three different perspectives that you need to discuss during the course of your essay. To figure out the three core perspectives, I read and re-read the perspectives for all three of the official prompts, considering them in light of the informational paragraphs that preceded them. I ended up with these three basic opinions:
Core Perspective A: The changes caused by [Prompt topic] are not good and have negative results.
This perspective maps onto Perspective 1 of the first official ACT sample prompt above, Perspective 2 of the second and fourth official sample prompts, and Perspective 1 of the third official sample prompt. My nickname for this position is "conservatism," since this perspective wishes to be conservative and not change things.
Core Perspective B: The changes caused by [Prompt topic] will lead to greater (in)efficiency.
This perspective maps onto Perspective 2 of the first and third official ACT sample prompts above, Perspective 1 of the second official sample prompt, and Perspective 3 of the fourth official sample prompt. My nickname for this position is "utilitarianism," since this perspective is all about what will be more practical and lead to the greatest good for the greatest number of people (this is even explicitly spelled out in Perspective 1 of the second official sample prompt).
Core Perspective C: The changes caused by [Prompt topic] will yield positive future results because it will lead to improvements for all humanity.
This perspective maps onto Perspective 3 of the first and second official ACT sample prompts, Perspective 1 of the third official sample prompt, and Perspective 2 of the fourth official sample prompt. My nickname for this position is "progressivism," since this perspective argues that change = progress = good.
Building a Support Bank
Now you know that the ACT essay will only ever ask you to discuss one question: "How is the world changing?" If you prepare for this question with diverse evidence before the test, you'll be ready to answer the prompt no matter what it is.
To give yourself the most time to write and organize your argument, your thesis should match up with one of the three perspectives given (or at least take elements from one)—that way, you won't have to take the time to come up with a fourth, completely new perspective and compare it to at least one other perspective.
But it gets better! The internet (and society in general) is chock-full of theories and arguments about how the world is changing, and whether or not that's a good thing. All you have to do is read up on some of them and develop your own opinions.
Opinions on the World
Your ACT essay thesis should basically be one of the three perspectives, but you have to support that opinion with evidence—the answer to the question "why?" (or "why not"?). Look over these sets of three opinions and try to think of reasons or examples to support each.
The world is changing to be worse than it was before. (because...)
The world is changing to be better than it was before. (because...)
The world is changing to be more (in)efficient than ever before. (because...)
Research and Brainstorming Ideas
Unlike with the SAT essay, you can use abstract reasoning to develop your point on the ACT. This means that you don't necessarily have to come to the test pre-loaded with specific examples: if you can't think of a concrete example that will support your point, you can make one up as you go along while constructing your argument.
Below are a few sample internet resources that could serve as support (or brainstorming assistance) for the opinions above. You can use the general ideas from these resources, but you may also find some useful specific examples for when you face your real ACT Writing prompt.
News sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Al Jazeera, Time, The Atlantic, Slate, The Economist, Wired, New York Magazine, Popular Science, Psychology Today, Vox, Mic, and even Buzzfeed News will have information about current events that you can use.
If you prefer listening/watching the news, you can always try that as a source of current events information as well watching or listening to television, radio, or podcasts.
How Do I Use This Article?
Just knowing what the ACT Writing prompts are likely to be about may lead you to think about the way you interact with the world somewhat differently. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for anything that could be fodder to answer a question about the way the world is changing—anything you learn about in history/social studies, read/hear about in the news, or even encounter in a futuristic novel can be added to your support bank.
But, of course, the more effective way to use the information in this article is to practice both planning and writing ACT essays. We have another article with ACT essay tips, which can give you more information on how to practice the actual writing process, but knowing about the prompt types can get you thinking about your own opinions on how the world is changing. After all, you're being asked about this because you have a lot of experience with it, living in the world as you do.
So, using the prompts at the beginning of this article, or another group of questions about issues having to do with change (some items on this list of debate topics, for example), start planning hypothetical writing ACT essay responses. Try reading our step-by-step ACT essay example if you're stumped about where to begin.
For each issue, planning involves picking a side, supporting it with one to two reasons or examples, and deciding how to discuss at least one other perspective in relation to the one you've picked (including arguments both for and against that other perspective).
If you really want to max out your ACT essay score, you should practice planning essays about how the world is changing until you can do it in 8-10 minutes reliably. If you're curious about where that 8-10 minute estimate comes from, check out our ACT essay tips article.
What's Next?
Check out our comprehensive collection of ACT Writing guides, including a detailed analysis of the ACT Writing Rubric that includes explanations and strategies and our explanation of the differences between the old and new ACT Writing Test.
Find out how to get a perfect score on ACT Writing.
Follow along as I construct a top-scoring essay step-by-step, or check out our list of tips to raise your ACT Writing score.
