***APRIL 2015 ACT DISCUSSION THREAD***

Thank you so much!

My S said from easiest to hardest

English(Very easy) 33-35
Reading(Easy, especially dual passages) 32-34
Math 30-32
Science(difficult, especially the back end) 29-32

Writing section he said was a good topic to work with 10-12

You guys. If something came from/lay at the heart of…say a memoir. Would it be the heart?

I’m surprised to hear the athlete comment. It’s kind of offensive.

@mary25 http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/paper-trail/2008/12/30/athletes-show-huge-gaps-in-sat-scores

LOOOL

@balrog29 The problem with the article listed is that it mainly focuses on football players, and briefly mentions basketball players. People have to realize that although this may be true for football and basketball, it isn’t neccesarily true for sports such as swimming, tennis, cross country, and many other sports.

@balrog29 Exactly what I was thinking. My daughter played 4 years of varsity lacrosse and was all academic US Lacrosse and top 10% in her class. They practiced 6 days a week during the season with numerous away games. Pre- season they had “unofficial” practice maybe 3-4 days a week. The majority, if not all of those girls on the team were in the top 30% of their class. They worked academically hard & played hard. It really is all what you put into it.

@hina123 So are we just not going to include football and basketball players as athletes? I said athletes generally have lower test scores; the fact that people in “sports such as swimming, tennis, [and] cross country” don’t struggle on standardized tests does not change anything. If the people in those sports are average, it still doesn’t change the fact that athletes as a whole have lower test scores than non-athletes. The only way that it would change anything is if people in those sports are superior(superior to the extent that it balances out the dismal scores of the football and basketball players, who make up a significant portion of all athletes) to non-athletes on standardized tests.

@shemcreek So if one McDonald’s worked scores a 36 on the ACT, is it safe to assume that McDonald’s workers are generally amazing at standardized tests? Your daughter does not change the fact that athletes generally do worse on standardized tests, your daughter is simply an outlier. I never said that every single athlete on the face of the planet struggles on standardized tests. Just because one athlete does not struggle on standardized tests does not mean that athletes in general to not struggle on standardized tests. I am a football player and I scored above a 210 on the PSAT(this is a fairly good score). Does this change the fact that football players in general struggle on standardized tests? No, it doesn’t.

@hina123 Based on the article the average football player scores about a 940 on the SAT. The average score nationally on the SAT is a 1010. Lets use x school as an example. At x school there are about 400 students in 2015’s graduating class. Of those 400 students, there are about 30 football players and 10 men’s basketball players. So 10% of 2015’s graduating class plays basketball or football(I think there are one or two people who play both, but this doesn’t make a big difference). 2015’s graduating class has 120 athletes including the football/basketball players. So that means that there are 80 athletes that are not football/basketball players. Lets assume that the non-football/basketball athletes are average at the SAT. That would make the average SAT score among all athletes 986.67, 23.33 points lower than the average student.

I made an error, it’s supposed to say there may be one or two playing both.

how many people’s scores will be available on April 28?

Did anyone get an “answer cannot be determined” on the math section?

Also how were everyones previous act scores compared to how you think you did

@mithuun15 Most of them will be

I honestly felt that the ACT was MUCH harder this time around in math and science. Hopefully the curve will take this into account.

My predictions:

34-35: English (-2)
36: Math (-0)
36: Reading (-0)
35-36: Science (-1)

Honestly, though I kind of liked the science because it tests more knowledge than intuition. Last passage was somewhat confusing but it clicked for me before it was too late

Was “answer cannot be determined” on the math section right?

@16jpatel That’s what I got. How can you determine a ratio with a diagram that’s “not to scale” and has no number given

Can someone predict my score?
English: -0, -1
Math: -1, -2
Reading: -1, -2
Science: -0, -1

@smeds97
Ok I put that too. There was no way to determine it, but I was hesitant at first because people usually say that “answer can’t be determined” is never right.