<p>if your son is completing precalc now, he might consider Math 2 in June instead of Math 1. The Math 2 scaling is much more generous. Depending on the test, a student can miss ~8 and still receive an ‘800’. Miss one in Math 1 = 770, miss two = 740…</p>
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<p>Could be any or a combination of reasons.</p>
<p>SAT M covers only algebra I & Geom, plus ~4 Alg II problems. If your son is advanced in math, its possible he just forgot all those early Alg I rules. (When posted, the score report will show the types of problems that he missed.) ACT math includes trig (which is typically precalc), so some of the material is more current.</p>
<p>Could have done poorly on the Grid-Ins – plug and check can’t be done with grid-ins.</p>
<p>SAT M includes a lot more ‘reasoning’ or logic (or whatever term) than the ACT-M. Even with CB’s most “difficult” problems, there is an easy way to solve if one can immediately visualize a way to rearrange the problem, etc. If one can visualize a way to solve, then a difficult problem can be solved in ~30 seconds; otherwise, the solution could take minutes. Every SAT test has a rate problem or two (‘a train leaves Chicago while another one leaves NY’), and these can take forever to solve if one doesn’t remember the average rate of speed formula (see Xiggi method for test prep). The problems in ACT-M are typically more straightforward, so the ACT folks require more time constraints.</p>
<p>A comment about Stanford…word on the street is that more Subject Tests are better.</p>