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While Wisconsin's Class of 2014 posted scores good enough to maintain the state's No. 2 national ranking on the ACT college readiness test, the results released Wednesday suggest about half would struggle to succeed in a typical first-year college course in reading, math and science.

The ACT is a curriculum-based achievement test that measures skills deemed important for success in first-year college courses. It's one of several measures used by colleges and universities to compare applicants, though the weight placed on ACT scores varies from school to school.

Many schools consider the SAT — more of an aptitude test of reasoning and verbal abilities — their predominant college entrance exam.

Seventy-three percent of Wisconsin students in the Class of 2014 took the exam. Next year, the ACT will become a standard assessment for all 11th-graders in Wisconsin public high schools.

ACT composite scores in Wisconsin and the nation as a whole did not change substantively from last year's results, and neither did the gap between college aspirations and college readiness.

Wisconsin's average ACT composite of 22.2 out of a possible 36 for the Class of 2014 put the state in sole possession of the No. 2 national ranking among states where more than 50% of students took the test. Wisconsin is behind Minnesota, which posted a 22.9 average. Last year, Wisconsin tied with Iowa, which slipped this year to No. 3 in a tie with Ohio and Kansas.

The national average ACT composite was 21.0, up by 0.1 point compared with last year. Wisconsin's average composite also nudged up 0.1 point.

Results by school district can be searched on the Department of Public Instruction's data website beginning early Wednesday.

The ACT sets benchmarks of minimum scores students must earn in each of the four subject tests to have about a 75% chance of earning a grade of C or higher and a 50% chance of earning a B or higher in a typical credit-bearing first-year college course in that subject area.

ACT research shows that students who meet those benchmarks are more likely to persist in college and earn a degree than those who don't.

One in five 2014 grads in Wisconsin who took the ACT met none of the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks that predict success in first-year core subject classes.

Three of four (75%) state grads met or surpassed the benchmark in English (a score of 18 on the test), 51% did so in reading (a score of 22), 54% in math (a score of 22) and 49% in science (a score of 23).

Wisconsin has an opportunity to improve college and career readiness, though, especially in reading and science, where at least 10% of students were just one or two points below the benchmarks, according to the results posted by ACT.

As a nation, well under half — 39% — of ACT-tested graduates met three or more of the four subject area benchmarks — an indicator suggesting that most who took the test are not well prepared for first-year college coursework.

The percentage of high school students taking the ACT nationwide continues to grow.

More than 1.84 million 2014 graduates — a record 57% of the national graduating class — took the ACT. That's a 3% increase from 2013, despite a smaller total number of U.S. graduates nationally due to shifting demographics.

Compared with the Class of 2010, 18% more grads in the class of 2014 took the ACT last year.

While that's encouraging, it doesn't necessarily mean a higher percentage of students are enrolling in college.

Among the Class of 2014 grads who took the ACT nationwide, 92% indicated they aspired to postsecondary education — the same percentage as the Class of 2013.

But while 92% aspired to college in the Class of 2013, 77% actually enrolled. That means 7,071 of the 2013 ACT-tested grads from Wisconsin who said they wanted to go to college did not enroll right out of high school.