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Health & Fitness

ACT - Is It the Right Test for My Child?

As a tutor of both the ACT and SAT, I get asked this question a lot. Many parents of juniors – and even sophomores – are trying to decide which test will provide their child an advantage when applying to colleges.  Since colleges use the results of these tests as major acceptance criteria, there is no easy answer.  Each test evaluates the student’s ability in the areas of Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing.   One way to decide which test to take is to examine the differences between them.

A brief listing of each test's features follows:

ACT

  • 2 hours , 55 minutes without writing section; 3 hours 25 minutes with optional writing section.
  • 4 Sections plus optional essay.
  • Order is predictable: English, Mathematics, Reading, Science.
  • Essay is 30 minutes and appears at the end of the test.
  • No open-ended questions.
  • Multiple-choice offers 4 answer choices in every section, but Mathematics which has 5 answer choices.
  • English section is 5 passages – questions address sentence revision, error recognition, and paragraph revision are scattered within the passages.
  • English section is 75 questions in 45 minutes. Question types are mixed within the passages.
  • Mathematics is 60 questions in 60 minutes and includes some trigonometry.
  • Science section (interpreting data).
  • No points deducted for incorrect answer.

SAT

  • 3 hours 45 minutes with writing section – it is not an option.
  • 10 Sections including experimental section.
  • Other than the essay, order of sections is unpredictable.
  • Essay is 25 minutes and is the first section of the test.
  • Open-ended questions in reading sections and in one of the mathematics sections.
  • Multiple-choice questions offer 5 answer choices in all the sections.
  • Writing sections are separated by type of questions: sentence revision, error recognition, and paragraph revision.
  • Writing, other than the essay, is broken into two sections: 49 questions in 35 minutes.
  • Mathematics includes 54 questions in 70 minutes - there is no trigonometry in mathematics section.
  • No science section.
  • ¼ point deducted per incorrect answer.

 

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A student’s performance on these tests may vary from test to test and from section to section, regardless of whether the test is an ACT or an SAT.  Some students may prefer one test over the other, however. In my practice, I suggest that students take the PLAN, or ACT’s preliminary test, and the PSAT, the preliminary SAT, to determine the test on which they perform the best.   The PLAN takes 2 hours and 25 minutes; the PSAT takes 2 hours and 15 minutes to complete. College Prep is offering a PLAN test on Sunday, August 18th at 9:00 AM.  If you would like your child to participate in this test, please call (732) 972-3330 as seating is limited.

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