<p>I have been preparing mainly for the SAT but decided to take the Febrauary ACT. I was wondering if there is anything different to prepare for the SAT vs the ACT. Are writing, reading, and math generally the same? Are they any harder or easier? Any advice on the science section or any other section would be great too. Thanks!</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, the allotted time per problem on the SAT is a little longer compared to the ACT. So, when taking the ACT test, remember that time is of the essence (especially on the Reading and Science sections). Take a few practice tests to develop your pace, though, and you should be good. Also, don’t forget that, unlike the SAT, the ACT will not penalize you for wrong answers, which means you should never leave an answer blank on the ACT. </p>
<p>Other than that, if you’re well prepared for the SAT, the ACT won’t give you too much problem.</p>
<p>On the science section, look at the question and then find the answer in the information. Do not read the information before reading the question! It wastes a lot of time. </p>
<p>The math you need to know for the ACT is a bit tougher than the math on the SAT. I think ACT math actually tests what you know as opposed to the SAT, which tests if you can read and not get tricked. I don’t think the ACT tries to trick you as much as the SAT does.</p>
<p>I would take a practice test or two for the ACT, just to see what the test is like, so you’re not going in blind.</p>
<p>I would say all of the sections are different.
English – relevance is the key issue when choosing the right answer. The answer that is less wordy and straight to the point is the right answer. You’ll be given some passages and the sentences will be incorporated into it. You’ll also have rhetoric questions, asking you where so and so paragraph should go.
Reading – much more straightforward than the SAT. All answers will be found in the passage. You won’t have to analyze stuff like tone and such.
Math – easier, I would say. They don’t try to “trick” you with hard sounding questions. Most questions are as simple as giving you a triangle and you need to find the sin of a certain angle.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help. So you would say that it is harder to get a 36 on the Math ACT than an 800 on the Math SAT?</p>
<p>I would say it’s easier to get a 36 on the Math ACT.</p>
<p>Three times as many people get an 800 on the SAT math than a 36 on the ACT math.</p>
<p>That’s cause statistically more people take the SAT than the ACT…</p>
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<p>Approximately 1,600,000 people took the SAT in '11 and approximately 1,600,000 people took the ACT in '11.</p>
<p>I say it’s easier to score an 800 on the SAT math instead of a 36. Thought the ACT won’t be trying to trick you, it does have 6 more question (60 vs 54) and gives you only one minute per problem. The SAT gives 54 questions to 70 minutes I believe.</p>
<p>Alright. Thanks! Do you guys see the reading and writing as pretty similar in the format when compared to the SAT?</p>
<p>The Essays are almost essentially the same, except you get 5 minutes more to write your ACT essay.</p>
<p>In terms of SAT Writing multiple choice questions, you will only see Improving Sentence and Improving Paragraph type questions on the ACT. There will not be any Identifying Sentence Error questions which are usually seen to be trickier.</p>
<p>The ACT Reading, in my opinion, is much more straightforward. You get four passages of equal length and have to answer 10 questions about each of them. There are no compare/contrast questions, and there is are fewer inference questions. The only problem is that you only have about 8.5 minutes to read each passage and answer its 10 questions, but if you remind yourself to read quickly and not get mired in details, it should be no problem.</p>
<p>There are no sentence completions in the reading section, right?</p>
<p>There are no sentence completion questions either.</p>