<p>How is the ACT essay different from the SAT essay? It seems pretty much the same to me, except you have 30 minutes rather than 25. Can anyone explain?</p>
<p>From a personal opinion, i think ACT essays are more specific than that of the SAT.</p>
<p>act essays focus a lot more on like practical stuff
for example, my essay prompt asked whether or not we should keep the provisional year for teens with licenses (if you have your license and are under 18, you need to wait a year before you can drive other people)</p>
<p>whereas the SAT essay is a lot more philsophical and broad in nature
stuff like do you need to have failures in order to have success, etc etc
it was a lot easier for me to use stuff from literature on the sat essay (for mine i used Death of a Salesman) whereas the ACT essay I kinda just used personal examples</p>
<p>hope this helps!</p>
<p>I prefer the SAT prompts, as previously mentioned the ACT prompts are really practical and thus harder to use examples from history and literature to support your essay.</p>
<p>Personally, I liked my ACT essay prompt much better. It let me give more abstract examples, and was more thoughtful, whereas the SAT essay required me to connect it to specific literary or historical examples. Just IMO.
Also, the ACT is graded on a set of criteria, where the SAT is graded holistically, or how the paper as a whole works.</p>
<p>Act is more related to what you do in school, unlike the sat...</p>
<p>They're essentially the same.</p>
<p>Did studying for the SAT essay adequately prepare you for the ACT essay? Or, do you think the ACT essay requires a different kind of prep?</p>
<p>Thanks for any thoughts! :-)</p>
<p>Buuuuuuuump</p>
<p>D2 has been working with a tutor and she told her to write and write and write some more! Told her to have a great intro and then write her little heart out as there seems to be a trend where length is being rewarded.</p>