Testing Time

By: Keely Testa

The school year has begun and it’s finally Senior Season. Time for Friday night lights and staycation. But most of all, it is time for the bane of every student’s existence: standardized testing.

There are two main tests accepted by colleges and universities. They are the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Test. While they are similar, most students tend to prefer or perform better on one over the other.

The SAT

Overview: The SAT has four sections: reading, english, math with calculator and math without calculator. The test also gives subscores for history and science with the questions sprinkled in throughout the different sections.

Scoring: You are given a score out of 800 for the english sections and math sections and they are added to form a score out of 1600. The SAT is not curved, but more weight is given to harder to questions which can affect your score.

The ACT

Overview: The ACT has four sections: reading, english, math and science. Unlike the SAT, the math section is completely with calculator.

Scoring: You are given a subscore out of 36 in each of the four sections which are then averaged together to make a composite score. The ACT is not curved, but the questions do receive differing weight based on difficulty.

The Differences

The SAT is designed to be an aptitude test while the ACT is meant to test you on what you have learned. The main difference besides scoring and being able to use calculators is that the SAT has Khan Academy for you to prep on. However, there are a multitude of prep books for each test.

More Information

To find out more about either test and when to register, look into their websites: www.act.org and collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat