<p>I am planning on taking the ACT in February, however, with it being a relatively new version of standardized testing, I'm not quite sure how it works. The questions I ask always seem to get very vague, opinionated answers from different parties, and no one has yet been able to help me.</p>
<p>1) In regards to college application, which is better to have a higher score on, the SAT or ACT? While I know all forums say they are "regarded equal", is this truly the case?</p>
<p>Supposedly, colleges view them as equal. There are differences between the two that colleges know about though. The critical reading section on the SAT includes much vocabulary, while the ACT has none. Likewise, the ACT has a science section while the SAT does not. Ultimately though, these just show your abilities in widely the same areas, and so it is good to have a high score on both. </p>
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<p>The ACT is scored somewhat differently than the SAT. This is because there is no reduction for incorrect answers. This is what is done: The amount of questions that you got correct is tallied up. That is your raw score. This is then adjusted with a curve (a generous curve on hard tests and a harsh curve on easy tests to account for varied difficulty between tests). This adjusted score is your scaled score. Your four scaled scores (English, math, critical reading, and science) are then added up, divided by four, and then rounded. This is your composite score, and is generally regarded as the most important score. </p>
<p>There is also a subscore. This is simply to let you, and others, know where your abilities lie in each subsection. The English subscores are grammatical and rhetorical (making passages better). The math section is divided into elementary algebra, intermediate algebra and plane geometry, and geometry/trigonometry. The reading passage is divided into social sciences and sciences. Science does not have a subscore. (The subscores do not necessarily reflect your actual score. For example, an 18 on both grammatical and rhetoric in English does not mean that you have a 36 on English.)</p>