Take the SAT or ACT?

Test Preparation
1

<p>What type of people tend to do better on the SAT and which tend to do better on the ACT? Naturally one can take several diagnostic exams but short of that is there a good rule of thumb? </p>

<p>Yes, I am familiar with the differences in the test. For example, ACT has the science section, it is associated with greater emphasis on the composite score than the score of each section, you cannot do any superscoring, there is no guessing penalty, less time is allocated per question, you do all of the questions of one type in one sitting before taking a break, the exam is not as long time-wise, the math topics are mildly more advanced (includes topics like logs and cosine, there are no sentence completions, the essay questions of a different breed and is optional, and more grammar rules seem to be tested (though I’m not certain of that last point). </p>

<p>With all that said, any sense of what type of students tend to perform better on the SAT versus the ACT?</p>

2

<p>You will never know until you’ve tried both. Most people would do comparably well. My D did comparable well in practice and yet, she did a lot better in ACT for the real test.</p>

3

<p>Timing is a big component of the ACT. You may know a lot of the material, but if you ge the timing wrong, you could end up with several unanswered questions. This happens in the SAT also, but it is more of a factor in the ACT. You need to practice either test enough to ensure that you get the pacing down. Best of luck!</p>