<p>last year my state made all high school juniors take the act. since that test, i have encountered many people with 1500-1600 SAT scores who got over 30 on the ACT. I have seen the people in the top 10 (people, not percentages!) of my class get lower ACT scores than those in the mid 200s. if this was one or two people i would say it is an isolated incident, but this is a bunch, a good sized bunch. is this type of discrepancy normal, or is it possible that some type of error with score reporting could have happened?</p>
<p>Many students do much better on one test over the other. That’s one reason most schools allow the student to pick which one to send - to give them the benefit of the doubt on the score.</p>
<p>This discrepance has to do with the nature of the tests themselves.</p>
<p>The ACT pressures test takers with less time per problem; however, the test has easier questions. If you are someone who likes to check your work and make sure you have everything correct, you wil have a harder time with the ACT. Also, the ACT has a writing portion that is not calculated in the final composite score. Therefor, people who are not that adept at writing will benefit from taking this exam over the SAT.</p>
<p>SAT is the opposite. If you like to check every answer multiple times, you are in luck. The catch is that the trickier questions are meant to be decieving. The writing portion is gay too.</p>