<p>Unlimited guessing? C’mon, that’s weaksauce.</p>
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<p>Use common sense. A common reason students cite for taking the ACT is that there is no guessing penalty. If you’ve ever tutored anybody on the SAT, you would know that students always complain about being unsure when to guess and when not to guess. If the guessing penalty is eliminated, so is this problem, and the ACT loses an advantage that it had over the SAT.</p>
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<p>Yes, but I don’t think that I’ve heard anyone say that he or she didn’t take the SAT because it had a guessing penalty; they simply took the ACT as well.</p>
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<p>I don’t really see the SAT/ACT environment as a typical consumer market in which such factors have significant impact. Students in the midwest take the ACT; some give the SAT a try as well if they are trying for northeastern schools. Students outside the midwest take the SAT and try the ACT if they do unsatisfactorily on the SAT. I don’t see how this decision will change those dynamics.</p>
<p>It gives a greater incentive to retake the SAT. High scoring students can get 2200+ on the SAT, and perhaps a 34 or higher on the ACT and submit the ACT. These students are not in the majority. Let’s consider the case for a majority of the students - anecdotal of course - who take the SAT once, do average on it, and then take the ACT and do average on it as well. They most likely “took it cold” or without studying “just to see how they do.” </p>
<p>Now the choice is what to retake. I highly doubt students would study for both exams and consider retaking both. They would most likely see which one they could study for more, and prepare for that one. A reason students chose the ACT was because of no guessing penalty, but if the SAT didn’t have a guessing penalty, then students would have a different situation when deciding what to study for as opposed to before.</p>