Background Research
I haven't found any studies comparing ACT scores specifically for males and females, but I have found some relevant studies.Science Alert has an article that describes a study conducted by three researchers comparing undergraduate male and female students' intelligence. They were given a Catell Culture Fair Intelligence Test. Multiple significance tests were undertaken so they used t-tests to analyze the data and found that there wasn't a difference in mean scores on the basis of gender. ED.gov conducted a study on elementry school students since 2000 and found that even though males were doing worse than the females, that educational gap has shrunk since then and they started to do about the same as they grew older. Education Stats used the National Assessment of Educational Progress test across three grades and the results showed that females had higher reading scores, but males had higher math scores. Unlike ED.gov, they still found that there's a gap in educational achievent between males and females as they entered high school. Education.com had an aptitude test administered to fourth graders in 35 countries. Females outscored males on reading literacy, they were about the same in math, but males scores higher in science. Some of the researchers argued that it's biologically driven, some think sociocultural factors may have influenced the way they did. Questia had a study conducted by East Carolina University that had survey just highschool students and found that females scored a lot higher.