Almost all high school students know that most colleges require you to take at least one standardized test. The two major standardized tests are the SAT and the ACT. They are fundamentally the same but have several major differences.
The SAT is the more well-known of the two. It had ten sections. The first section gives you a writing prompt and you have 25 minutes to write an essay. The other nine sections are math, English (grammar), and reading. You are given between ten and twenty-five minutes to finish each section. A perfect score on the SAT is a 2400 total, but the writing is often left out of the score, so if someone says they have a 1200 on the SAT, they are probably not including the writing part of the score and mean that they have a 1200 out of a possible 1600 points. Many East Coast colleges require the SAT, although some allow the SAT or the ACT.
One of the most interesting things about the SAT is that you can take the test as many times as you want and the testing company will create a “superscore” for you. A superscore takes the best scores in each section and combines them to form one idealized test score. For example, if you scored higher on the math the first time you took the test and scored higher on the English the second time, the superscore will give you the better math and the better English.
Less well known is the ACT. People who aren’t very good at math are historically better at the ACT. It consists of five sections, known as “tests.” The sections are reading, math, English, science, and writing (writing is optional). The writing prompt is essentially the same as the SAT’s writing part, but you get 30 minutes to write the essay. The science part is not especially hard as long as you can read graphs (warning: some of the graphs get pretty complicated). Many West Coast colleges tend to prefer the ACT.
The major difference between the two is that the ACT does not take off for guessing. I repeat; if you don’t know the answer to a question on the ACT, guess. In contrast, the SAT takes off .25 points for each wrong answer. The reason that they pick that number is that if purely statistical. Theoretically, if someone takes the SAT, has no clue what they’re doing, and guesses “C” for every answer, they will get four answers wrong for every answer they get right and the point values will cancel out, giving the person a total score of 600 (you get 600 points for writing your name on the test. Don’t you wish your teachers graded the same way?).
The SAT is the more well-known of the two. It had ten sections. The first section gives you a writing prompt and you have 25 minutes to write an essay. The other nine sections are math, English (grammar), and reading. You are given between ten and twenty-five minutes to finish each section. A perfect score on the SAT is a 2400 total, but the writing is often left out of the score, so if someone says they have a 1200 on the SAT, they are probably not including the writing part of the score and mean that they have a 1200 out of a possible 1600 points. Many East Coast colleges require the SAT, although some allow the SAT or the ACT.
One of the most interesting things about the SAT is that you can take the test as many times as you want and the testing company will create a “superscore” for you. A superscore takes the best scores in each section and combines them to form one idealized test score. For example, if you scored higher on the math the first time you took the test and scored higher on the English the second time, the superscore will give you the better math and the better English.
Less well known is the ACT. People who aren’t very good at math are historically better at the ACT. It consists of five sections, known as “tests.” The sections are reading, math, English, science, and writing (writing is optional). The writing prompt is essentially the same as the SAT’s writing part, but you get 30 minutes to write the essay. The science part is not especially hard as long as you can read graphs (warning: some of the graphs get pretty complicated). Many West Coast colleges tend to prefer the ACT.
The major difference between the two is that the ACT does not take off for guessing. I repeat; if you don’t know the answer to a question on the ACT, guess. In contrast, the SAT takes off .25 points for each wrong answer. The reason that they pick that number is that if purely statistical. Theoretically, if someone takes the SAT, has no clue what they’re doing, and guesses “C” for every answer, they will get four answers wrong for every answer they get right and the point values will cancel out, giving the person a total score of 600 (you get 600 points for writing your name on the test. Don’t you wish your teachers graded the same way?).
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