I am not sure if I should take the SAT or ACT. Could someone please assist me?

Test Preparation
1

Hello, I will try to make this as brief as I can.

I took the SAT in April 2017 (School SAT) and BOMBED it. Unfortunately, I am an incoming senior so I’ve basically got 2 more shots at this.

April SAT score: 1060 (540 M+520 CR/W)
Unofficial PSAT (October 2016): 1180 (540 M + 640 CR/W)

Yeah, I am in a bad spot. I have a pretty good idea what happened to me that day. I am a slow test taker so when I kept seeing that time was running out, I kept having panic attacks throughout the whole test. I had to guess on at least 20-30 questions because of the time. Would I benefit from extra time? Absolutely. Will I get it? Absolutely not.

GPA: 3.85/4.00
Class Rank: School Doesn’t Rank

Why is your GPA so high and your test scores so low?

I heard many kids speak about their SAT scores. I did notice some deflation, but it would be something like a kid with a 4.0 getting a 1450 instead of the 34 he got on the ACT. I think the test anxiety killed me that day.

Why don’t I have this problem in school?

I do. I have been trying really hard to work around it and I have made a lot of progress. It’s just that sometimes, no matter what I do, it comes back. My tests in school are also formatted a lot different. I can’t even tell you how many free responses I have had to answer, diagrams I have had to draw and explain, situations I have had to analyze and apply content to, etc. I could probably count how many multiple choice tests I had this year on one hand.

Some of my Courseload over my high school carer: Honors Algebra 1/2, Honors Geometry, Precalc, Honors Chem, Honors Physics, Honors American/World Lit, Spanish 1/2/3/4, AP World History, AP Biology… I have handled these classes with little to no stress. I will have 4 AP’s next year.

Favorite subjects: Biology, Physics, Astronomy, and Government.
I want to go into Biomedical Engineering or Microbiology.

I don’t intend on going to an ivy league. I live in Michigan and would be happy to attend MSU with some merit aid. I want to also get this score up so I can at least put an app into UofM.

I’ve tried prep books, but this hasn’t been enough. I was thinking of doing a combination of tutoring and prep books.

2

The ACT is more time intensive than SAT but it tends to be a more concrete test where the SAT is more abstract. The only way to answer your sat/act is for you to take a practice ACT and see how you do. You have to take the whole test at once, not divide the sections up, so you get a feel for the test. If home doesn’t work, go to the library and reserve a meeting room if your library has it. Based on that, you can meet with a tutor but you don’t have much time, since you want to use the summer for test prep.

3

I’m really sorry to hear that you experienced bad anxiety like that. It sounds like you’re a great student and that your scores don’t fully reflect your smarts!

Here’s my advice. Take a bunch of practice SAT/ACTs, like as many as you can find online. Time yourself with the time allotted for the sections on the real test, and take them in a quiet place to replicate the actual testing environment. Taking one section per day like this is probably enough- don’t burn yourself out.

When you’re working on a practice section and start to feel panic rising up and taking over, remind yourself of three things.
One- This is not the real test.
Two- You have time. Unless you have 0 seconds left, you still have time. 3 minutes is still time! 1 minute 43 seconds is still time! 17 seconds is still time! Do the best that you can in that time, and fight to keep you brain open and unfrozen until your time is absolutely up.
Three- If you meet a question that your brain just glosses over and says “nope, can’t even comprehend that”, move on. Leave the question unanswered and go, go, go until you find one that you CAN answer. When you run out of questions that you can answer, go back and repeat the process again. Spend a couple more seconds looking at it again, and move along if you still can’t grasp it.

I really think the last point is key- my friends who consistently run out of time on the SAT and end up guessing always say that they can’t imagine moving back and forth through the test booklet and always answer the questions one after the other. I love skipping through the test booklet and I always end up with time left over- I bet this approach will help you as well.

Let me know if you want more help or insight! I hope that “fake testing” yourself and experimenting with different answering strategies helps to lessen your anxiety.

4

Man I would love to know where that 640 CR/W came from! That unofficial Practice SAT I took was structured almost exactly like the real thing. The only thing that was off about it was the portion of questions which seems to vary anyway. My practice ACT’s are a bit higher than my real SAT at least.

@newkidnewtrix I will totally keep on doing this! It is a great way to prep, but do you have any tips on how to better simulate the testing environment? I feel too relaxed in my own home. I can’t make to any library. Thank you for your help so far.

5

Try a school campus during summer- typically those are quiet and empty. You’d have to practice outside, though.

You could also try taking it at a friend’s house, taking it in your garage, or driving to an empty parking lot and taking it in the car. If you go to church, see if there’s a classroom or something similar that you could utilize. If you have access to any building “after hours”, take advantage of that as well.

You might want to experiment with taking it in weird places in your house. Set up a desk and chair in a sibling’s room, in a hallway, or right next to your front door. The weird locations may allow you to feel a little more foreign in your own home!

6

Take a practice ACT and see how you do! I took the PSAT and practice ACT and got about the same score on both, but choose to take the ACT because I felt brain dead after taking the PSAT.

I ended up taking the ACT 3 times, got the same score all 3 times, and decided to leave the score as is rather than taking it a fourth time, which is something I kind of regret. I got a 29 but was really aiming for a 30.

My suggestion is to take a practice ACT and see how you feel after it. If you get a higher score, than obviously take the ACT. But if you get about the same, do what I did and compare how difficulty each test was to get through and complete. Also, check with some local college prep companies, usually most of them will offer a practice ACT for free!