<p>My child has been invited to participate in the Duke TIP talent search program and needs to take the ACT or SAT as a seventh grader. Does anyone know if one of these formats might best for a seventh grader or are they both about the same? Thank you.</p>
<p>Why don’t you have him take a practice ACT and a practice SAT and see which one he does better in before deciding?</p>
<p>^Good idea. </p>
<p>In general, the ACT is more straightforward, which might better suit a younger test taker.</p>
<p>We went with the ACT because there is no penalty for guessing as there is on the SAT.</p>
<p>Good luck to your dc! My son has taken Duke TIP summer classes the last two years and loved them.</p>
<p>Why not take one this year and the other next year? You can take these for practice through grade 8.</p>
<p>The guessing penalty is kind of a silly reason to pick a test; if there are a lot of questions you’re unable to narrow down to at most 4 options, then you’re going to do poorly anyway.</p>
<p>The ACT writing is optional, but the SAT writing is not. The ACT has the science section and the SAT doesn’t. The SAT has more but shorter sections, while the ACT has four long sections of the test. My sister and I both took the ACT in 5th grade for talent search & advanced placement. It was the right one for us to take first. Either is fine, but students usually prefer one over the other. Just talk it over with your son, which test sounds better to him.</p>
<p>My daughter took the ACT in 7th grade ( because the essay was not required) along with some classmates. Others opted for the SAT. Her view was that a lot of kids could not finish the ACT and did not realize the science was really more like analytical, technical reading comprehension. She felt overall it wasn’t hard but she had no trigonometry so only scored a 25 on the math section and a 28 composite. She then tried the SAT for the Johns Hopkins Talent Search in 8th grade with several months of Geometry under her belt and having finished a year of Algebra honors 1. She scored a 2010 and a 10/12 on the essay. Her view on it is that now she has experienced both tests and is fully aware of the formats and is ready when it comes time for the real thing. She only read through the booklet practice test they sent her when she registered and did no other prep. She did prefer the SAT because she felt she had more time.</p>