<p>I'm interested in getting insight from experienced parents regarding taking both of these tests OR deciding which one works best for a particular type of student. It is my understanding that the SAT tests one's 'ability' to learn and the ACT tests what one already knows and includes science, which is not covered in the SAT. More and more colleges are accepting both and I'm wondering who does better on each type. I thought it might be discussed in the archives, but a search of the topic turned up no replies. Thanks in advance for the help.</p>
<p>My own (very personal) opinion is that the distinction you've mentioned is not as great as many people think. They are quite different tests, but the notion of the ACT being "curriculum driven" doesn't really work for me. In particular the science portion of the ACT really isn't a science test in any way, shape or form -- it's primarily just a different kid of logic test using graphs, data analysis, etc. It's hard to describe in words, but take a look through some old ACT science tests and you'll see what I mean. The ACT Reading and English sections have more similarities with SAT CR than differences. Math, however, does (at least to my eyes) look somewhat different on the SAT and the ACT. I'm not sure this is really part of the whole "curriculum driven" argument or just a different way of testing the same general concepts. </p>
<p>It is discussed in the archives (quite a bit) so you may want to take a peek. My S will be doing what a number of people's children are doing -- take both at least once, and then see which test he feels more comfortable with and/or does significantly better on and focus on that one for another go. </p>
<p>Please note that there are a handful of SAT-only and ACT-only schools. A recent thread listed these out, and a search on either "SAT only" or "ACT only" should find it. </p>
<p>And welcome!</p>
<p>Here's some links that talk about this in various ways</p>
<p>in the midwest, seems like the ACT is more prevalent. few kids at my d's school even take the SAT. </p>
<p>d took both. she felt like the SAT was more difficult. ultimately, her scores on each of the tests, were very similar although a little less on the SAT than the ACT.</p>
<p>I will say that my research is limited to one little high school in Texas, but do I have an opinion? Absolutely. Sure I do. </p>
<p>Our GC prides herself on guessing which test fits which student the best. Texas is a mixed state with SAT being more popular in some parts of the state, but every surrounding state is ACT all the way. So.....how does she do it? And she is pretty darn good at it. Well, she uses the ol' right brain-left brain thinking to decide. If the kid is ordered and structured and wants to find the right answer more than care what it looks like-ACT it is. (Not talking about plodders, but more like scientists) If the kid is the creative off the wall free thinking type who is more comfortable in the abstract than the concrete, the SAT is the one. (Not saying only poet-philosophers but those that are more comfortable when untethered by mundane facts.)</p>
<p>She felt strongly that D would be better on the ACT than the SAT and she was correct. 35 as opposed to 1470/2160. I think she thinks she's right about 65-75% of the time. I think she is , too - based on her predictions of the kids I've heard about.</p>
<p>Luckily for my D, she can make a living in both worlds . YMMV.</p>
<p>The differences in the SAT and ACT are somewhat less than 2 years ago, before the SAT was changed. The only way to truly know - outside of the "old hand" GC is to get a copy of Real SATs and a good ACT book, and have a crack at both tests. If the student has never taken either, practice will make some improvement.</p>
<p>I would modify Curmudgeon's assessment a little - the math section on the ACT is more work out the problem, get the right answer. Math on SAT used to be more like a logic puzzle, you didn't necessarily need to use numbers (although plugging in #s might aid in checking an answer) - I'm not sure what it is like now. SAT also had that dreadful section where you sort of wrote in your answer, I think that gave some people fits because they just wrote the answer in improperly.
The science on the ACT gave people fits because many of the harder questions did not require any underlying special knowledge of the science, the point was reading a graph. Kids would try to "over read" the question, make it into something it was not. 90% of the other science questions were basic chem, bio and physics content questions.
English on the ACT demands practice, too, even for able verbal kids, because it is a best answer situation, where you can make a very plausible argument for answer B over answer C - need to get a feel for what "they" think is correct.</p>
<p>Finally, my DD's feeling was that the diffculty of the subsections on the ACT varied greatly from test to test - overall one sitting was easier than the other, and her scores reflected that. Take that with a grain of salt, by the time she took the test the second time, she had gotten scores for both ACT and SAT, and had decided to use those scores (repeated ACT because she had already paid), don't think she was 100% on her game.</p>
<p>For most kids, the test results will be comparable but for some kids there could be a major difference. My d took SAT only once. She absolutely hated the test. It made "her brain numb". It wasn't just the test environment. She was taking the Kaplan course and when she came out of the practice tests- she was white as a ghost, very quiet and her head was always "pounding". The SAT seemed to zap her of all her energy. She took her first ACT with hardly any practice. She immediately did about 70 points better and the test didn't seem to bother her as much as the SAT. We decided that she would not take the SAT anymore and she took the ACT 2 more times. Her last ACT score went up and she did get about 140 point difference between the ACT and SAT. My d is more of the average type student so we did expect an SAT score of 1000-1150. Her SAT was below that expectation but the ACT score was within that mid-range. I really do think that kids with certain learning styles may do better in one type of test than another. All I can say is that my d wanted the SAT test to be over as quickly as possible. She wanted to do the test and get outta there. Many people say that there is not enough time to do the ACT- but that is what my d likes. Go through the test-give an answer-don't think about it too much. Maybe her brain felt numb from the SAT because you have to analyze things too much. Anyway- if you are not happy with the score from one of the tests- I'd suggest you take the other as you have nothing to lose. Also remember- you do not have to report ACT scores to the college or HS. You can take the test-see the results and then decide whether you want to send it out. I definitely think for some kids there is a major difference- but you may not know it unless you subject yourself to both tests. Good luck.</p>
<p>IMO, I did much better on the ACT compared to the SAT (33 vs. 1280/1980) because I am relatively analytic and I have trouble with SAT answers because I can never "decide" on one - I can be indecisive and get caught in the "tricks" of the SAT too easily. Despite the fact that I took the SAT in 7th grade, PSAT in 9th, 10th, and 11th, and my one and only real SAT in June (my score went up only 170 points from 7th grade! ouch!), with a few hours of practice and practice tests thrown in, I did better on the ACT with literally 2 hours of preparation. I never took either test again.</p>
<p>My son took the ACT in October at my urging. I thought he might do a lot better on it than on SAT. He didn't. His score was 30 (no prep) and his SAT was 1410/2060. Both are fine, but he thought the ACT science was really hard and that there wasn't enough time. He actually did OK on the science. He is a pretty fast worker, but thought the whole thing about ACT was the time problem.</p>
<p>MOWC -- The time thing is one I've heard on this board a lot, and it was an issue with S. He makes good math grades in advanced classes, but he's methodical about it. The math on this month's ACT ate him up -- he didn't come close to completing it, and because he was finishing up a question that he knew he could get right, he didn't have time to frantically bubble in the remaining questions--even though he knows there is no penalty for guessing on the ACT. It will be interesting to see how he scores.</p>
<p>panhandlegal, I'll relate my D's story here, because it worked for her. Her sole preparation for standardized testing was to take ONE practice SAT (timed) at home and ONE practice ACT (timed). She scored better on the practice ACT, so this is the only one she took...and walked out with a 35 composite, all subscores 35 except Math which was 36. Declared she wouldn't take the SAT for college admission and didn't. She had signed up to take it in December (took her SAT IIs on the other fall SAT dates) since that was the last date to take it to be considered as NMF. However, was accepted to our state's regional honor's choir which happened to be on the December SAT date...so never took it (and, consequently, can't be a NMF even though she spent a great deal of time on their essay). Oh well.</p>
<p>So, I strongly recommend that each kid take one practice SAT and one practice ACT...then take whichever they did best on "for real". There are STILL a very few colleges that want the SAT (Princeton still prefers it over ACT, though heaven knows why), so the kid MUST check the website of each college on their list to make sure. Another upside of the ACT with writing was that some schools did not require SAT IIs with the ACT, but did with the SAT!</p>
<p>I want to add a caveat to my post - my DD's scores were almost exactly the same on both tests, but the subscores were flipflopped - higher in math on one, higher in verbal on the other - who knows if that was important.</p>
<p>I have no data, but I think that there are not many students who do significantly better on one test vs the other - it is probably much more important that the student does some degree of prep. My kid, like Quiltguru's did a little prep, a few practice tests, not timed, checked the answers, and, based on those results, some review of math and grammar - all accomplished in the week before the test.
The important point about taking both tests, is that SOME kids can do much better on one than the other, and you have to try them to know, secondly, ACT doesn't penalize you for taking the test a couple of times, which may make the difference for some people.</p>