What’s on the SAT®?

So let's talk a little bit about what comes up on the SAT®. SAT® has three main categories as we know, it has the reading comprehension, writing and language, and then the two math sections. The reading comprehension section is all about reading a passage, answering a variety of questions that relate to that passage, and making sure that you can find the supporting information in terms of where it comes up in the passage, of what the author is trying to do, where points that are being emphasized. Writing and language takes into account both grammar skills as if you were editing text, as well as rhetorical skills, which is about structure, word choice that's being used, other things along those lines, two very different styles or types of questions that come up. Math has the no calculator section and the calculator section. It does cover regardless of the section if we're working in algebra, algebra 2, some geometry, or some data analysis around statistics, mean, median, things of that nature.

What’s on the ACT®?

When we take a look at the ACT®, the ACT® also has four sections. We have an English section which is extremely similar to the writing and language section on the SAT® in terms of what concepts are covered, but the way the questions are asked are dramatically different. Next comes the math section. Students do get to use the calculator on the whole entire math section. It's also all multiple choice. We'll talk about that a little bit more. It does cover arithmetic, algebra 1 and 2, and geometry. It also has three to four trig based questions, but for the most part these can be answered using SOHCAHTOA from a student's geometry class and should not be a distinguishing factor between which test happens to be a better fit. Then comes reading, four passages of reading comprehension questions. They tend to be a little bit more straightforward than what students see on the SAT®, but they do cover the same types of categories - main idea, author's purpose, words and context. Then comes a science section. Science on the ACT® is not biology, chemistry, or physics. It's technical reading using charts, graphs, and data as part of that analysis. For the bulk of students their science score and their reading score from the ACT® tend to be very very similar as they're moving through that.

Test Similarities

So then what are some of the things about what the test does have in common versus the differentiators? First and foremost when we're looking at both the SAT® and the ACT® it's important to understand that there is no penalty for incorrect answers. Outside of the math in both tests, and again we'll get more into, that there are four multiple choice answers to each question. Math concepts tend to be very similar. Grammar concepts tend to be very similar. Both are within about the same amount of time by a few minutes, just a little bit over three hours, and both do require interpretation of charts and graphs.

Test Differences

So then how are they different? First foremost like I alluded to is that whole calculator thing. SAT® again has the two sections. Students start math with no calculator before they move into the math with calculator. On the ACT® there's one math section, and the students get to use their calculator the whole entire time. So we do have a difference coming in there that's really important to notice when you're talking about students who have a particular strong feelings either positive or negative with regards to math or their math skills. When we do get into that math a little bit further on the SAT®, there are what we call grid-in questions. These are free form response math questions. There's five of them in section three, the math with no calculator, and eight of them in section four, the math with calculator where the students don't have any multiple choice answers to choose from and they must bubble in or grid in the answer all on its own. ACT® all questions in that section are multiple choice, however they do increase the degree of difficulty over the other sections by now having five answers to choose from rather than just four in the English, reading, and the science.

Test Differences - Vocabulary

We also have vocabulary that comes up a little bit different between the exams. SAT® requires a slightly higher command of vocabulary. and it really gets into multiple meanings or less commonplace uses of the word. ACT® has fewer vocabulary based questions, and they tend to be a little bit more direct – definition, recall, information in terms of what the student needs to know.

Test Differences - Content Types

Charts and graphs get to come up in any and all sections on the SAT®, which means they come up in the reading, they come up in the writing and language, and they come up in the math. So regardless of the competency that's being tested students have to have a great understanding of charts and graphs and their analyzing of data. The ACT® says we're going to put charts and graphs in the math, and we're going to put charts and graphs in the science, however they leave the reading and the English alone or chart free, as we look at that. The SAT® also loves to have historical documents, speeches, or historical types of writing, things that happen in the late 1800s or early 1900s, within the reading passages as they're looking at that. The ACT® very very very occasionally might have an excerpt of something that is a historical document or historical reference, but there's no overall passage as a whole that has any more archaic type of writing in it. The reading passages do tend to be a much more recent, typically something within the past 20 to 30 years if that far on the ACT®.

Test Differences - Essay

There's also the essay. The essay is no longer a part of the SAT®. It's not even something that students can opt into. On the ACT® there is an optional essay. We do encourage students to partake in that essay at least once, because they never know which schools may or may not want to look at it, so it's better safe than sorry. It also shows some increased initiative. The ACT® essay is about perspectives on an issue that's going to be relevant to high school students. Any students that are familiar with the types of writing needed for an AP class are going to excel on an ACT® essay

Calculating Your Score - SAT®

Finally one of the big differences that comes down to the SAT® versus ACT® is around scoring of the tests. The SAT® is a sum which means it takes the reading score at 25 of the total composite, the writing score at 25 of the total composite, to make up a verbal score, that verbal score yeah you guessed it, 50 of the composite, and the two math sections then combine to be the other 50 of the total composite, and again this is a sum, so they're adding up the scores from all of those sections combined.

Calculating Your Score - ACT®

The ACT® is an average which means it takes the English, math, reading, and science adds it all up divides by four to find that average score. It does also follow standard rules of rounding, which means if the student were to come in at a 21.5 that would round up to a 22 in terms of their composite score. When we're looking at the emphasis of content or skill knowledge that's needed to excel on the exam with that math only being 25 of the score, and the science really being technical reading, the ACT® is 75 verbal and only 25 percent math, so we see a dramatic difference in terms of what skill set a student may possess in terms of which one's going to better align for them.

Choosing a Test

Now keep in mind that every single college in the whole entire United States, in-state, out-of-state, public, private, military, does not matter, there is not a single college or university that's going to have a requirement or a preference with regards to which exam the student takes. So we want to make sure that the student is saying yes to the test that is a best fit for them. There's also not a single college that's going to require a student to take both. Say for example a student's going to spend 40 hours working on their SAT® or their ACT® prep and they put 20 hours into the SAT®, and they put 20 hours into the ACT® there's going to be some growth within both of those, but if we can help the student say yes to the right test, the one that plays to the way their brain works in terms of how the questions are phrased, that plays into their strength of content use. Is it heavy on verbal, is it heavier math, and we spend all 40 hours on one test or the other. The student's going to have a stronger growth for the amount of time that we spend investing on that. It's also important to keep in mind when a student is saying yes to the right test to keep the superscore in mind within the testing timeline. So what is a superscore? A superscore on the SAT® means that you can take a high verbal section from one exam, say March, a high math section from another exam, say June, and combine the two of them together in order to show that superscore. The two different sections or the two different content areas combined. The students don't have to hit their high verbal and their high math on the same exam. Within the ACT® a student gets to separate all four sections as they're going through that so they can get a high English, a high math, a high reading, and a high science. There is no combination of sections the way the reading and the writing do combine on the SAT® side, so as they're saying yes to the right test, or determining which one is better, it's important to keep that in mind while you're building out that testing timeline of making sure that there's at least two attempts of the official testing done in order to help set the student up for success with regards to that superscore. If they're looking at ACT®, it might even be more than that. So besides taking a full-length practice test of the SAT®, and a full-length practice test of the ACT®, which hear me say is by far the best way to determine which test a student is better suited for, and when I say full-length practice I mean an officially released exam from college board or from act.org. Other than that using a student's PSAT® can also be extremely impactful of pointing the student in the right direction, and here's what we look at when we're examining a PSAT® score report. If math is the stronger score over the verbal regardless of how much stronger it is, that's normally a pretty good indication that the SAT® is a better test for the student. If their verbal score, which is again is the reading and the writing combined, is 50 or more points higher than the math that's a good indication that the student is going to be better suited for the ACT®. Again keep in mind ACT® 75% verbal so a strong verbal skill is going to point towards that exam. SAT® is 50% math compared to only 25 percent on the ACT®, so that stronger math score coming in is again typically going to lean towards that SAT®. If a student is coming in with a composite of 1250 or higher on their PSAT® that means that their brain is aligning with the way that SAT® likes to ask questions, because again outside of content the way the two exams ask questions is extremely different. So again if their brain resonates well with the reasoning required for what the SAT® does, showing that high composite score, that's going to lean us towards that SAT®, but again please please please hear me say that nothing is better than taking a full-length practice test of both in order to do a side-by-side comparison as well as the score and the percentile rank.

Conclusion

So again Rachel Mead here with Enhanced Prep. We're here to help you and your student determine how to say yes to the right tests so please make sure you reach out to us with any questions that you have. Our website is enhancedprep.com our customer service line is 323-433-9775, and you can reach out to our fantastic advising service team at advisor at enhanceprep.com. Thanks for your time today and joining me and helping to say yes to the right test as we examine the similarities and differences between the SAT® and the ACT®.