Low SAT scores?

FallenAngel9
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 22:36:43 +0000

On English/Writing:

The ACT and the SAT felt pretty similar here, although I felt more confident when “going with my gut” on the ACT than on the SAT.

On Math:

The ACT, to me anyways, seemed more focused on material you learn in freshman/sophomore level classes in high school. The SAT seemed to be more geared towards reasoning and logic skills.

On Critical Reading/Reading:

The SAT has a large emphasis on vocabulary, while the ACT is almost entirely based on understanding passages that cover different subjects (natural sciences, social sciences, etc). The ACT is kind of like a more elementary version of AP Lang or AP Lit.

On Science:

The ACT has a science section, the SAT does not. The science section does not require much (if any) knowledge of science though. It is more about reading graphs and understanding experiments and the scientific method, etc.

Overall:

The ACT does not penalize for guessing, the SAT does. The SAT always has a writing section, the ACT’s is optional (but recommended). I can cover the differences there if you’d like. The ACT also gains difficulty by giving tighter time constraints. It is much more difficult to finish an ACT section on time than it is to finish an SAT section on time - particularly the ACT science section since it is the last one and requires careful analysis of graphs, etc.

If you still want more information on the differences between tests, you can search the forums for the two tests on this site. There is a wealth of information on strategies/approaches to each test, and so on.