ACT (examination)
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Image:ACT.gif The ACT, formerly the American College Testing Program or American College Test, is a college-entrance achivement test that emerged in 1959 as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT. Some students who perform poorly on the SAT find that they perform better on the ACT due to question wording and its content. Mirroring the changes undergone by the SAT in 2005, the ACT started offering a writing test in February, 2005. The ACT has seen an increase in the number of test takers recently, and the amount of students taking them virtually equals that of the SAT. Almost every college accepts and treats the ACT and SAT equally.
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Acceptance
The ACT is typically used for college admissions, but it is also sometimes used for class placement. The vast majority of colleges treat the SAT and ACT the same. However, some do show a preference to either test. Wake Forest College does not accept the ACT, and Princeton University does only under certain circumstances. On the other hand, many Midwestern universities, such as the University of Nebraska and University of Kansas, have historically only accepted the ACT, although they currently accept SAT scores (and convert them to ACT scores for statistical and admissions purposes). The general rule is that coastal universities tend to prefer the SAT, whereas Midwestern ones prefer the ACT.
Differences between SAT and ACT
In theory, the ACT, being an achievement test, measures knowledge a student learns from high school. The SAT, an aptitude test, attempts to predict college freshmen year GPA.
Most commercial test-preparation companies, such as Kaplan and The Princeton Review, believe that the ACT is a fundamentally better test than the SAT. The Princeton Review, in its Cracking the ACT book, favors the ACT because of its less ambiguous and more knowledge-based questions.
The ACT (unlike the SAT) does not take points off for a wrong answer, making it to the advantage of the test taker to answer or guess at every single question. Instead of having the writing test first like in the SAT, the ACT offers the optional writing test after all parts of the basic test have been completed. With few exceptions, the ACT does not test for vocabulary.
The math component of the ACT includes trigonometry, a topic that is not included in the SAT Reasoning Test (although it is present in the SAT Subject Test covering math). One important policy difference is that the ACT does not allow any calculators with algebra systems, including the popular TI-89. Similarly, the English test eschews the vocabulary-based SAT and instead concentrates on elements of style, usage, and grammar.
An important difference is how the scores are sent. When sending SAT scores, every score received is sent. The ACT allows the person to pick which scores from a certain sitting to send. This is referred to as "score choice", which had previously been offered by the SAT.
ACT Organization
The ACT is administered by a private not-for-profit organization under the same name. The national headquarters is located in Iowa City, Iowa. E.F. Lindquist and Ted McCarrel, faculty members of the University of Iowa, founded the organization in 1959 (ACT does not have any official affiliation with the university). ACT received its current name following a name change in 1997. Besides the ACT, it also administers several other assessment tests in other fields.
Use
The ACT is more widely used in the midwest and southeast United States, while the SAT is more popular in the northeast and west coasts. Usage of the ACT by colleges has risen as a result of various criticisms of the effectiveness and fairness of the SAT. Image:Actgraph.jpg
In two states, Colorado and Illinois, the ACT is taken by all high school juniors as a standard to measure schools and the students, and Michigan is in the process of doing the same. In most states however, it is an optional test for college acceptance.
Format
The ACT is divided into four sections: English, Reading, Mathematics, and Science Reasoning. The maximum sub-section score is a 36, while subscores, which are only given in English, Mathematics, and Reading, range from 1-18. The composite score is the average of all four sections. In addition, the person taking the test may receive a writing score ranging from 1 to 12. The writing score does not affect the composite score directly, but is averaged with the english score for an english/writing score.
The average score is around 20 to 21. Any composite score over,and including, 31 is considered to be in the 99th percentile. In the 2004-2005 testing cycle, 251 students nationwide received a perfect ACT composite score of 36, a lower number than perfect scores on the SAT because it is essentially harder to get a perfect score on the ACT due to the way the composite score is computed.
ACT Math Section
There are 60 questions on the ACT math section, which must be completed in 60 minutes. The math section covers: pre-algebra, elementary algebra, intermediate algebra, coordinate geometry, geometry, and trigonometry.
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Conversion Chart
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SAT (Prior to Writing Test Addition)
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ACT Composite Score
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