<p>"For more than 80 years, the SAT has been the nations dominant, standardized college admissions exam. This year for the first time as many students in the high school class of 2010 sat for the rival ACT as took the SAT." Bob Schaeffer of FairTest comments.</p>
<p>The</a> Answer Sheet - How the ACT caught up with the SAT</p>
<p>That’s a surprise, I didn’t know the ACT was nipping at the SAT’s heels. Is there a published overlap percentage, i.e., how many students take both? At my old local high school the SAT was the preferred test but students who didn’t do as well as expected on the SAT were urged to take the ACT due to its different methodology.</p>
<p>Not sure if ACT has actually reached the same test numbers as SAT yet but ACT has been getting close for a number of years. There was a significant jump in numbers for ACT after SAT began including a writing section, indicating that the perceived problems with that test – significantly extending the test time for the SAT and no clear guidance as to how the writing portion would be graded or how it would be used by colleges – likely caused many who took the SAT to take the ACT either as an additonal test or as an alternative. Also helping the ACT is the growing number of states that now require all juniors to take it; orginally, starting in the early 2000’s, there was Illinois and then Colorado, and now also Michigan, Kentucky and Wyoming with North Carolina currently seriously considering it. Other factors include that there is no longer any “preference” for SAT at colleges (the last hold-out, Princeton, dropped any preference over two years ago), except that the Cal Poly’s recently went from no preference to preferring the ACT.</p>
<p>I think because it seems students do better on one test over the other, most of my kids peers are taking both and then retaking the one they performed best on. ie- both my S & D took both tests and then S retook SAT and D retook ACT based on their “trial” scores.</p>
<p>My S only took the ACT, but he had to take some SAT subject tests. I know the subject tests measure knowledge of a subject, but he felt that the SAT was easier, and his scores were significantly better, according to the ACT/SAT equivalency table. By the way, does anyone have an opinion on SAT/ACT score equivalence?</p>
<p>drusba wrote: “Also helping the ACT is the growing number of states that now require all juniors to take it; orginally, starting in the early 2000’s, there was Illinois and then Colorado, and now also Michigan, Kentucky and Wyoming with North Carolina currently seriously considering it.”</p>
<p>Are there other states that require all high school juniors (or seniors) to take the SAT? I vaguely recall that Maine had implemented such a program.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to judge how well our local students are doing year-to-year or over time because of the significant fluctuation in the number of kids who take the test from year to year. At my daughter’s school, for example, anywhere from 70% to 85% of a given class will take the SAT and/or ACT. At other area schools the number taking standardized tests can range between <50% and 90%. </p>
<p>Avoidance of standardized tests is a major problem in some of our poorer school districts because it pretty much limits college choice to the local CC. That may well be the wisest choice for many students, but there are a sizeable number who could benefit from going to a SUNY technical or 4-year college who take themselves out of the running by failing to register to take the SAT or ACT. So the idea of requiring all students take one test or the other has some appeal to me. I’d also like to hear arguments against this policy, particularly from residents of states such as Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, Kentucky, etc.</p>
<p>The ACT is more of an achievement test with a time gun. Time is an important factor in how well you do. If you get a time extension for any reason, you have a definite advantage on the ACT. I think part of the blip in students taking the ACT, is their parents knowledge of this big advantage. </p>
<p>Because the SAT is much more of an aptitude test, a time extension does not help nearly as much.</p>
<p>One nice advantage of state mandated testing - the mandated tests are given as a separate test date. Last year in Illinois, my S was able to take the national ACT exam in early April and the Illinois test the last week of April. He was able to concentrate his test prep. He had good scores, but was able to improve one point.</p>
<p>“Are there other states that require all high school juniors (or seniors) to take the SAT? I vaguely recall that Maine had implemented such a program.”</p>
<p>Maine is the only state that does so. Also, I left one out, Tennessee also requires juniors to take the ACT. States that have adopted the ACT as a mandatory test view it as an acheivement test that measures what students have learned in their courses and thus can be included in analyzing a school’s level of acheivement. The SAT is generally not viewed as a test that can measure acheivement for purpose of evaluating schools’ success in educating students. North Carolina, which is currently considering requiring the ACT, has already rejected in that process any such use of the SAT for that reason. College Board is likely anorexic about NC because that would be the first state where most students have historically taken the SAT to become an ACT state by law, and would mean it could spread to other eastern states where the SAT currently dominates.</p>
<p>Also, I checked the annual reports on the College Board and ACT sites: 1.59 million of the high school class of 2010 took the SAT and 1.57 million the ACT. Actual numbers of those who took both tests are not available.</p>
<p>The ACT is more closely tied to subjects that are covered in the classroom, and it is much easier for states to contract with the parent company to use it as a state-mandated graduation exam under NCLB. Some states don’t use the ACT proper for this purpose, but instead contract with the parent company for a ACT-style exam specific for that state. A student who has a score of X on his/her state semi-ACT knows how well he/she is likely to score on the real ACT.</p>
<p>Another advantage for the ACT is that some colleges/universities will now accept the ACT instead of the SAT plus SAT Subject tests. This saves the student time, effort, and money. Something that almost all of us can appreciate!</p>
<p>My D took the SAT and ACT each once and did significantly better on the ACT. According to the College Board’s score concordance page, her combined ACT score was 160 points higher than her combined SAT score. She re-took the ACT and got the same score. </p>
<p>I think different kids do better on different tests. We found the ACT to be more straightforward and less coachable. Either you know the stuff or you don’t. It actually requires higher math skills than the SAT. For the ACT math, they ask a question and you answer it. In the SAT math, they ask a question, then you figure out what they’re really asking, then you figure out how to answer it. In the reading sections, the ACT asks questions as you go thru the reading. The SAT has you read the section and then answer the questions, so the coached kids read the questions FIRST and then the section. </p>
<p>I feel like the SAT is more of a “brainteaser.” It’s also kind of out-of-touch. They added the writing section to keep up with the ACT. And its so coachable, kids whose parents can afford to pay big bucks for SAT classes have a clear advantage.</p>
<p>With the ACT, I don’t think there’s a lot that preparation will do to help you, other than to learn the format of the test so you know what to expect, and to learn to budget your time.</p>
<p>The ACT also doesn’t play games with wrong answers, unlike the SAT which deducts 1/4 point for every wrong answer, meaning you have to figure out your odds of knowing the answer to a question before deciding whether to answer it.</p>
<p>Overall, I much prefer the ACT. I’m glad to see the word is getting out. I think the College Board is a bit too full of itself and the SAT has become a money-making machine for the CB, Princeton Review, Kaplan and the rest.</p>
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<p>No, the questions appear at the end of the passage as on the SAT.</p>
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<p>“higher math”? Yes. Harder math? Certainly not. </p>
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<p>In what way?</p>
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<p>Your perspective is quite surprising. I actually have the opposite impression!</p>
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<p>Could you be more specific?</p>
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<p>Those companies (except CB) make quite a lot on the ACT as well.</p>
<p>I know silverturtle will respond to this one,and he really appears, hah</p>
<p>On another note, I very much doubt CB is a “not-for-profit” organization while I don’t believe ACT makes any such pretenses.</p>
<p>ACT: $10/test/date…just spent a small bundle to sent scores from two tests to schools on D’s list…and, yes, her schools superscore so, no, couldn’t save $$…I think it was $8/test/school 3 years ago…</p>
<p>There are sections of the ACT in which the student responds to an underlined portion of a reading, next to the reading, as they go along. </p>
<p>The math skills on the SAT are quite basic. They just ask you to figure out how to figure out a problem (ie to create the steps to solve a problem), but the actual skills used are very basic. It’s a brainteaser. Can you read our awkwardly worded math question and figure out what we want? </p>
<p>I am convinced that the main thing the SAT measures is the ability to take the SAT. Figure out what CB wants, and give it to them. That’s why it’s so coachable. ACT asks CONTENT. Do you know how to solve this math problem? Either you do or you don’t. That’s probably why there are so many more books and courses focusing on coaching kids on how to take the SAT. Because its all about figuring out the SAT’s little mind games. </p>
<p>My sister in law tutors SAT prep. She will tell you the test is a crock and means very little in terms of intelligence. She can coach almost any reasonably intelligent high school student to raise their score by several hundred points, but she’ll be the first to tell you it doesn’t mean they’re any smarter when she’s done. It just means they have memorized strategies to handle the SAT. </p>
<p>I’m really glad to see the ACT give the SAT a run for its money.</p>
<p>The CB has been charging a ridiculous amount of money and giving crappy customer service for years. Remember a couple of years ago when it rained - can you believe it, it rained? - on the day of the SAT and hundreds or thousands of SATs were misread and mis-scored because the paper was damp? Kids had years of work go down the tubes when they were turned down at top colleges because the CB couldn’t manage to grade bubble sheets correctly. Try contacting CB to get a question answered (good luck). Yet to the best of my knowledge, the SAT has never been proven to predict anything other than to have a slight correlation to freshman year grades. There are 2 reasons colleges haven’t abandoned the SAT:
<p>If the ACT can give colleges something standardized between high schools, and show that it actually tests content that colleges want kids to know, why shouldn’t it replace the SAT? </p>
<p>(No sour grapes here. I took the SAT once in hs with no coaching and got a 1350, in those days that was good enough for Princeton to call and ask if I was interested in applying. My son got a 2150 on the SAT, with no prep. My husband and daughter, on the other hand, didn’t do well on it at all. S and I aren’t smarter than they are, or more prepared for college - we’re just good at playing the CB’s mind games.)</p>
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<p>I am not aware of this; that certainly was not the case on the ACT that I took.</p>
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<p>The SAT’s math is indeed known by more of the test-takers, unlike some of the ACT’s math questions, whose higher-level nature disadvantages those who have not reached the same level of achievement as other students but who nonetheless are quite talented at math.</p>
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<p>All tests most directly measure one’s ability to take that test. </p>
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<p>In my experience, the fact that the ACT is more content-based contributes to its being more coachable: I much more often see students who increase almost without limit on the ACT. Many of my peers have taken the ACT five or more times, each time going up one or two points; they reported that their efforts to prepare for the SAT seemed less fruitful. </p>
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<p>Though I admit the sample isn’t very good on the whole, the CB’s customer service has been better than those of most whom I’ve spoken with.</p>
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<p>I would consider “slight” to be a misleading characterization. The SAT is about as predictive as high school GPA, and (based on my recollection) more predictive than the ACT. Those facts aside, however, what does the ACT predict that the SAT fails to, as is implied by your sentence?</p>
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<p>Nor here. :)</p>
<p>Well when D took the ACT last year it had sections in the verbal where the excerpt she was reading was on the left, and the questions were on the right, alongside the excerpt. Not sure when you took the ACT Silverturtle, but D took it in 2009.</p>
<p>As for the SAT being as predictive as the high school GPA - it’s not.
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<p>So I take back what I said about the ACT being less coachable.</p>
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<p>I took it in April of 2010.</p>
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<p>I am indeed referring to the College Board’s data.</p>
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<p>The SAT claims to test skills, as per the back cover of the Official SAT Study Guide.</p>
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<p>Where did you learn of this motivation?</p>