I’m a rising junior and planning on starting to study for one of these tests after I’ve finished my summer homework. I want to know people’s opinions about these tests, and how they choose one over the other. I also wanted to know how do you know which test is better for you, and how you studied for each. For some reason, I’m considering the ACT, but I’ve never really even tried a practice test for it before.
Help please.
I am also the rising Junior. The ACT is probably a better bet in that it’s not changing for us this year. However, the best way to figure out which test to take is to take a practice test for each (available online) and decide which one is easier for you/which one you like more.
@helpless2017 Okay, thanks! I am taking the practice test for the English section and it seems to be easier than the SAT’s English section
ACT is achievement; SAT is reasoning.
My suggestion: Take both. From everything you hear on these forums, I would have expected my daughter to do much better on the SAT, but she actually did slightly (but meaningfully, for a bunch of schools’ merit aid cutoffs) better on the ACT. Also, they have their differences, but the differences are slight enough that prepping for one will help you do well on the other.
Princeton Review offices give a “free” test that is supposed to tell you which you’d be better at. Does anyone have experience with that? I’m sure the “free” test comes with the hard sell on their test prep services.
You would think so (the “hard sell”), but we actually had very good experiences with them. When my S and D took their practice exams through the school, they followed up with a information evening to give scores and explain the college admissions process. Very informative, and the only “sell” was to give us their contact number if we had further questions. When they took the free sessions (which you can sign up for on their website, we got the results in the mail with no “hard sell” either — not even a phone call.
I highly recommend doing these practice tests because they give you the “whole experience” (sitting in a testing environment on a Saturday morning).
The have both ACT and SAT practice tests and the PRA (Prince Review Assessment) which is a hybrid of the two and suppose to help you decide which you might do better on.
Edit: BTW, these practice exams were the only prep my kids did…it was enough for them.
Whatever score you get on SAT tests is tantamount to the score you get on ACT tests.
I’m not too familiar with the ACTs, but a friend of mine scored in the 1900s on the SATs and got a 35 on his ACT exam (an almost perfect score). I would take official practice tests from both (not a test from Kaplan or another test prep company), under timed conditions. See where you score higher and which structure you personally prefer. I found the SAT simpler but trickier, while the ACT seemed to be more straightforward but testing more difficult concepts. I would pick one test early on and focus on it rather than trying to score high on both tests. I think that’s a smarter strategy.
Good luck!
Thank you all for advice!