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<p>There’s very little room for errors and they have to be in exactly the right places to remain “hidden.” With the ACT you will generally have a one-question tolerance in Reading, which is reasonable since there are often one or two ambiguous questions where one needs to try and pick the least-worst answer. Math, English and Science will almost always require a perfect score to earn a section-36. Of course, some tests turn out to be harder than others, so a one-point adjustment may be made in any given subject (though I’ve never seen one in English) to norm the test to others taken the same year. Sometimes, however, a given test is easier and a single wrong answer in, say, Science will earn you a 34.</p>
<p>So I think both the ACT and SAT have a 2-3 questions wrong tolerance in 200+ questions, but the ACT, due to rounding up from 35.5, gives you latitude on exactly where those mistakes are made and the SAT doesn’t. The percentile for a 36 composite ACT (i.e., 35.5 or better) is 99.96% and for a 2400 SAT around 99.98%.</p>