ACT vs. SAT

Parents Forum
1

<p>We live in SAT-country, so the ACT is not the traditional test everyone takes. It occurred to us, however, that our daughter might possibly do better on the ACT. We thought she was a pretty sure shoe-in for strong SAT scores given her excellent 7th grade SAT scores. However, as a 10th grader on the New PSAT, she didn't do very well. She's doing some test prep, some on her own and some with a tutor. The tutor asked her to consider the ACT as an alternative. She's a rising junior. Here are my questions:</p>

<p>Has anyones child taken both and were the scores very different?</p>

<p>What kind of kid does better on which test? My daughter tends to do better on intuitive than algorithmical math and on reading comprehension over vocabulary or usage questions. She's in a strong school so has had pretty solid academics.</p>

<p>Is is a bother to study for both tests? My daughter worries that having started prepping for the SAT she'd be getting into a whole different prep routine and mentality to take a different test. Is the prep required quite different?</p>

<p>I heard something about not having to take as many SAT-II's and AP tests if one takes the ACT. At this point, she will probably be taking 7 tests next spring (SAT II's in Biology, U.S. History and English something, AP's in the same plus the SAT I). Any reduction of this testing schedule would be nice, but maybe that's just the way junior year is?</p>

<p>Thank you very much for any guidance on this issue.</p>

2

<p>The kids at my son's high school are ALL encouarged to take both SAT & ACT and most kids here do take both (though most apply to schools who mostly require the ACT. For my son, his scores were comparable on both tests. He had 98-99%tile on both--800V & 760M (old test), 770V, 760M, 700W (new test) & 34 ACT composite. For PSAT, he's "on the bubble" for National Merit with about a 215 or so--will be commended but not sure if he'll get anything more.
Other folks I've known who took both types of tests had results that mostly were similar. One friend's daughter did MUCH better on ACT than SAT, so she's going to use those scores instead. There's not any easy way to predict who will do better on either test, except if your child does a LOT better on science (since there's no science portion on the SAT). That's one of the reasons son's school recommends all kids take both tests.
Son did some prep for all tests. In junior year, he took PSAT test, old SAT test 2x, new SAT test, ACT test, 4 AP exams & 3 SATII exams (you can only take 3 at one sitting--if you want more, you need to take them in separate months, e.g. May & June). It didn't seem to bother him terribly to take so many exams; in his AP classes, once the kids took the AP exam they had no more class for the year. They all had their final exams before the AP tests. They said their final exam was MUCH harder than the AP test, but that's the kind of school they attend.
My niece (at different high school) didn't take the ACT as junior & will be taking it as a senior this fall instead. She's done well on the SAT & will likely also be a NM commended scholar. She may apply to schools who have a slight preference for ACT.
Good luck--perhaps daughters' counselor could make suggestions.</p>

3

<p>Buy a 10 Real SATs book, and an ACT prep book that contains actual test sections, and have her try out each.</p>

<p>My daughter had almost the exact composite score on each, but her major subsection scores were flipped - significantly higher SAT Verbal than math, significantly higher ACT Math than Eng. Your child may do better overall on one than the other.</p>

<p>The beauty of the ACT is that it still has score choice - if she bombs the test, it can become an irrelevant memory. I do not have any direct experience with the NewSAT, but my understanding is that eliminating the analogies, and adding grammar, has made the Writing a little more like the ACT Eng, and the critical reading/ reading comprehension sections were always somewhat similar.
ACT is still more content based, one reason my daughter did not do as well on the ACT English is that her school does not formally teach grammar after about 7th grade, so some of those more obscure points were rusty. Also, the science is a combo of basic science knowledge, and interpreting graphs and charts, it helps to have had biology and chemistry, and to practice reading the graphs - some kids look at the graphs and think you need to understand the science behind them, but mostly the questions are testing reasoning ability, not actual factual knowledge about what the graph is measuring.</p>

<p>My daughter had testing on virtually every available date during junior spring, but that was because she had conflicts with the June date, and wanted to be finished with all her tests after Oct senior year.</p>

<p>If she has any notion about what colleges she's interested in, you can help by drawing up a chart of these schools' testing requirements, keeping in mind that the situation is really in flux right now. PReview's Book of 35X Top Colleges, has a spot in each college's review that lists other schools with cross applications. This will give you other colleges that most kids think overlap with her favorites, you can add their testing requirements to the spreadsheet.</p>

<p>Finally, again it is an experience of one, but, my daughter did not do significantly better on the verbal PSAT soph year than she did on the SAT in the 7th grade. ON the NMSQT (junior PSAT), she did OK, but not great, she was sick, and had struggled with the writing each time, thank heaven she graduated in 05. But then her SAT score was great, she only took it once. The PSAT is a different test. Xiggi (resident SAT guru) says it has funky questions. Us lab people would say the test has not been properly validated, to many experimental questions.</p>

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<p>It is hard to predict whether someone, even if you knowtheir profile, will do better on one test than the other although more often than not one's percentile rankings on both tests end up being close to the same. The ACT is more geared to what you actually learn in school and its questions tend to be less tricky than the SAT but its time pressure is more severe. The science section is not so much science as it is an exercise in being able to interpret graphs and data provided. It is a section that many who have had no prep do somewhat poorly on the first time taking it because it is not something they have seen before on any test like the SAT. Having a prep course or at least getting a prep book is a good thing to do.</p>

<p>Note, as to not doing well on the PSAT, be aware that there are a huge number who do poorly on that test and then do fine on the SAT (and ACT) when they take it end of junior year or senior year so it may not be a portent of the future. As to being able to escape SAT II's with the ACT, that is only partly correct. First, vast majority of schools do not require II's; however, the 50 or so that do include many of the high ranked schools. Second, some of those that usually require II's will take the ACT in lieu of both the SAT and SAT II's but then there are still a number who will require the II's regardless of whether you rely on the SAT or ACT. You should check with particular colleges to see actual rules. Among those accepting the ACT in lieu of both the SAT and SAT II's are Yale, Brown, and Penn (but rest of ivies still require II's), Duke, Amherst, Tufts, Boston College, Johns Hopkins, Pomona, Wesleyan, Vassar. There is to my knowledge no college that actually requires AP courses or tests for admission. It is simply considered a good thing to have as part of your application to the high ranked schools and thus you should not look at the ACT as an option to replace those.</p>

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<p>The advice offered in the prior posts is excellent.</p>

<p>With the recent changes, the differences between the ACT and SAT have become blurried. Some pundits like to call one an aptitude test and the other an achievement test. In my eyes, there is a reason why the ACT and SAT are no longer acronyms. They simply are what they are. </p>

<p>I do not think that there ought to be much difference between the preparation for the tests and the key would be to explore the different formats. </p>

<p>I would also highly suggest to try both tests. Speed plays a slightly different factor, and we know that the ACT does not have a guessing penalty. In the end, it all comes to individual infinity. Because there is so more available information about the SAT, it is easier to become familiar with all the nuances of the SAT. I also find the questions on the SAT to be more ... dependable. I have encountered very few questions -if any- that did not have a CLEAR and CONCLUSIVE answer. Some say that the ACT is more straightforward, but I would have to disagree. I've found the ACT to contain quite a bit of questionable questions; some answers become clearer upon extensive scrutiny but some are just plain ambiguous. I guess that is what prompted some students to say it is more like high school, where the teaching of English is often ... subjective, ambiguous, and nebulous. This is not much different from my take on the PSAT. However, the PSAT is still a lot clearer than the ACT. While it is true that the SAT requires good reasoning skills, mental agility, and focus, I never found the SAT to be as tricky as others. However, I have to admit that my love for puzzles plays a role in my opinion. :) </p>

<p>Please understand that my comments are coming from someone who tries to "get into the head" of the test writers. Since I have seen many more SAT than ACT tests, my opinion may reflect my higher familiarity with the Princeton boys! </p>

<p>In the end, the ACT does offer a number of good options and strategies, and astute parents and families should explore ways to use the options to their benefit.</p>

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<p>I want to echo one of Xiggi's points - when my daughter was taking practice tests for the ACT, we went over some of the answers together, some of the hardest Eng questions were rather ambivalent - "Which best completes the sentence" type of stuff, where one could make a good argument for more than one answer, and the explanation of the "correct" answer was less than clear. Daughter reported that those questions were quite rare on the actual test, but there were a few of them (part of the source of her Eng subscore).</p>

7

<p>Around here most kids take the SAT but my D's score was actually was lower than her PSAT so we decided to try the ACT. The only downside was that we had to drive out of town to a testing center while the SAT was administered at the local H.S.</p>

<p>There wasn't a HUGE difference in her scores but it was enough. She is attending one of the Cal States and her ACT score exempted her from any placement testing. It didn't seem like that big a deal at the time but a few of her friends didn't do well on their placement tests and are finding that they can't enroll in college level english/math classes without taking some remedial courses first.</p>

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<p>I've posted to this before but my S was one of the ones who did great on the PSAT and the ACT but not the SAT(1340, 2 tries). His ACT was 98-99%. He studied for the SAT and never studied for the ACT, go figure. Some students do significantly better on the ACT. It is definitely worth taking. Many students do pretty similarly on both.</p>

9

<p>One addition to the advice given so far. Cangel points out the important factor of score choice, but to really retain score choice, you need to omit your high school information from the registration. My daughter's high school puts all testing data on the transcript, so even if you don't have a particular set of scores sent, they are available to the university via the high school transcript if you have indicated the high school. Best way to do this is to have scores sent to your home and nowhere else; then, pay the additional $$$ for a score report when you want to share that info.
BTW, we live in the upper South and D did significantly better on the ACT than on the SAT. S had no significant difference.</p>