ACT Science Conflicting Viewpoints and Evaluating Models

ACT Science conflicting viewpoints questions ask you to compare two or more scientists' explanations for one event. Evaluating models with new evidence questions ask you to judge whether a fresh data point supports or weakens a model. Both skills sit inside the Science section, and both reward the same core move: locate the exact claim before you compare it against another claim or against new evidence.

The Science section runs 40 minutes for 40 questions, with 34 scored and 6 unscored field-test items mixed in, and it sits right after the Reading section, per ACT's 2025-2026 prep guide. No calculator is allowed. Science and Writing are optional add-ons under the current Enhanced ACT format, so neither one changes your Composite score, per ACT.org. This guide covers the Conflicting Viewpoints passage format and the Evaluating Models with New Evidence reporting category, plus where to practice each one for free.

The Three ACT Science Passage Formats

ACT groups every Science passage into one of three formats. Each format presents information a different way, and each carries its own share of the 40 questions. Naming the format before you read tells you what the questions will demand from you. The table below shows each format's share, per the 2025-2026 prep guide.

Conflicting Viewpoints is the smallest of the three formats by question share. The 18-21% range works out to roughly 7 to 8 questions out of 40, computed from the percentage ACT publishes rather than from a published question count. Research Summaries carries the widest share at 50-56%, so it earns the largest block of your practice time. Conflicting Viewpoints still deserves separate drilling, because the reasoning it demands, comparison of alternative viewpoints or hypotheses, differs from the graph reading skills you build in our data representation guide.

How to Compare Multiple Viewpoints in a Passage

Every Conflicting Viewpoints passage opens with a shared setup describing one phenomenon. Two or more explanations follow, and labels such as Student 1 or Scientist A mark where one explanation ends and the next begins. ACT describes these explanations as inconsistent with one another because they rest on differing premises or incomplete data, per the 2025-2026 prep guide. Track what each viewpoint claims instead of deciding which one is right.

Find the Shared Starting Point

Every viewpoint answers the same question, so write down the shared question in your own words before you read a single explanation. The setup paragraph holds the phenomenon under debate, and it is the one part of the passage every speaker accepts. Read one explanation at a time, and pause after each to note its core claim as a short phrase. Two words in the margin beat a full sentence, because you will reread the margin note far more often than the passage.

Find Points of Agreement and Disagreement

Check whether the viewpoints accept any of the same evidence before you compare their conclusions. ACT builds the format on differing premises or incomplete data, so the split between two viewpoints sits in a premise or in a gap, not across every line of the text. Pinning down the exact split turns a comparison question into a lookup. List each point of agreement and disagreement side by side before you touch the questions:

• The shared data or observation each viewpoint accepts.
• The specific variable or mechanism each viewpoint treats differently.
• The conclusion or prediction each viewpoint reaches.

Track Each Viewpoint's Predictions

A question often introduces a new fact and asks which viewpoint it supports. ACT names this move directly, describing questions asking you to determine which explanation for a scientific phenomenon is supported by new findings, per the 2025-2026 prep guide. Underline each viewpoint's prediction as you read, so a new fact matches to the right prediction in seconds. Without those marks you reread every explanation under pressure, and the section allows 40 minutes for all 40 questions.

Evaluating Models with New Evidence

Evaluation of Scientific Arguments and Models with Evidence is a reporting category, not a passage format. It covers 24-38% of the 40 Science questions, per the 2025-2026 prep guide. ACT describes these questions as asking you to judge the validity of scientific information and to form conclusions and predictions from it. Reporting categories cut across the passage formats, so evaluating-models questions appear in Data Representation and Research Summaries passages too, not only in Conflicting Viewpoints ones.

Judging Whether Evidence Supports a Model

These questions hand you a new observation, data point, or experiment result and ask which model it supports. Find the one direct link between the new evidence and a model's core claim before you read the answer choices. A model earns support when the new evidence matches a prediction it already made, not when the evidence merely shares its topic. Here is an original example: one model predicts a lake cools faster at higher altitude, a new reading shows a higher-altitude lake cooling faster, and the reading therefore supports the model.

Judging Whether Evidence Weakens a Model

Some questions instead ask which model the new evidence contradicts or weakens. Check whether the new evidence conflicts with the assumption underlying a viewpoint, not only with its final conclusion. A model built on a wrong premise falls apart even when its conclusion happens to match the new data. Mark the premise and the conclusion of each model separately, so you know which of the two the new evidence hits.

Strategy for the Conflicting Viewpoints Passage

The order you work the passage in decides how much rereading you face later. Build your notes on the first read, then answer from the notes instead of hunting through the text a second time. The section allows 40 minutes for 40 questions, per the 2025-2026 prep guide, so every reread costs you time on another passage. Work the Conflicting Viewpoints passage in this order:

1. Read the shared setup paragraph first, and write the core question in your own words.
2. Read one viewpoint at a time, and write its core claim in the margin as a short phrase.
3. Build a two-column note of agreements and disagreements once you finish every viewpoint.
4. Answer detail questions about a single viewpoint first, since they need no comparison.
5. Answer comparison and new-evidence questions last, using your margin notes to match claims to evidence.

Where to Practice Conflicting Viewpoints and Evaluating Models

Reading strategy alone will not build the speed a real Science section demands. Practice with our free, untimed Conflicting Viewpoints drill to build the compare-and-contrast skill, and our Evaluating Models with New Evidence drill to build the evidence-judging skill. Each drill set gives you instant scoring and answer explanations, and no signup is required. For the section's full format and timing, see our ACT Science section guide, or start a full-length section on our ACT exam page.

Sources

• ACT: The ACT Test Overview
• ACT: Preparing for the ACT Test 2025-2026