SAT or ACT: Which One is Right for You?

When I asked a potential student if he had considered taking the ACT rather than the SAT, he replied, ”Colleges prefer the SAT - that’s what all my friends say.”  At one time, that may have been true, but times have changed and students’ perceptions of college requirements should change with them.

Students and their parents in the northeast are not as familiar with the ACT as they are with the SAT.  Many have never even heard of the ACT.  However this test, whose popularity increased as a direct result of the “new” SAT in 2005, is just as widely accepted as an admissions criterion as the SAT.  Last year, more students took the ACT than took the SAT.  According to a New York Times article from August 2013, Tamar Lewin writes, “the ACT has pulled ahead for the first time: 1,666,017 students took the ACT last year; 1,664,479 took the SAT.” It is not that students have stopped taking the SAT; they are also taking the ACT.

The SAT is a test of reasoning skills – not a test of what one knows, but how to apply that knowledge.  The ACT is more of a curriculum-based test.  They both examine the same concepts of grammar, math, and reading; however, the ACT includes, what it calls a “Science Section” (and I consider a data section), whereas no such beast exists on the SAT.  There are no open-ended math questions and no sentence completions on the ACT.

The SAT at 3 hours and 45 minutes is twenty minutes longer than the ACT with writing. Each test is organized differently. An essay concerning the human condition is the first section challenging the students on the SAT exam. The essay for the ACT is optional, occurs last in the test, allows the student five more minutes to write it, and addresses the concerns of today’s students. Students are not penalized, as they are on the SAT, for incorrect questions on the ACT; although, students are required to answer more questions in shorter time periods. The math section of the ACT, as an example, has students answer sixty math questions in as many minutes. The math section of the ACT is the only one with five answer choices, all the rest have four.  All multiple-choice questions on the SAT have five possible answer selections. Questions in the English (writing), math and science sections of the ACT are not in order of difficulty.  Unlike the SAT, questions in the reading section of the ACT are neither in order of appearance nor do they contain many line references. Rather than having three reading sections, three math sections, three (the essay is one) writing sections, and one experimental sections in random order; the ACT consolidates the subject areas:  one English (or writing) section, one math section, one reading section, and one science section in that order – always.

I suggest that my students try both tests to see whether they perform better on one, but they do not have to “officially” sign up for either.  Each testing organization has a free practice test available online:  an SAT can be found on www.collegeboard.org and an ACT practice test at www.act.org.  Sometimes a hardcopy may be obtained from the guidance office of your high school.  Students should time themselves while taking the test in a quiet location.  Score sheets and directions on how to score the test are included with each practice test.  There are correlation charts at either website that will relate the SAT and ACT scores to each other for comparison. If a student scores similarly on both tests, have that student concentrate on taking the test that was the most comfortable to endure.