<p>
</p>
<p>OK, I see your point with respect to diligent test prep allowing the hardest-working students to improve their position on the SAT. But I think that’s just as true for the ACT, if not more so. My D1’s ACT math and science scores were not particularly strong the first time she took the test, because she was literally not “up to speed”; she just didn’t have enough time to finish those sections, much less to go back and check her work. Through diligent test prep she upped her computational and simple mechanical speed considerably, and substantially improved her ACT scores. Test prep for the SAT is different; it’s more conceptual and strategic, familiarizing yourself with the kinds of questions they ask, the standard little tricks embedded in the questions, and learning to play the odds if you can eliminate some answers. That’s all much more straightforward on the ACT where the questions are generally less tricky and there’s no penalty for guessing wrong. So I still say it takes a certain kind of strategic intelligence to do well on the SAT that simply isn’t a factor on the ACT, which just wants to know what you know and, with respect to math especially, how fast can you do straightforward computations.</p>