Hey guys! I have taken the SAT three times and I only have a 1740. Im very upset with that because I get 1990s on practice tests. Do you think it will be wise to drop the SAT and instead focus on the ACT? I heard people do better on the ACT than the SAT… is that true?
In addition, please give me tips as to how I can boost my score. I am desperate!
Thank you all so much and have a great day!
i would try a few practice act tests - easily found in the official act review book and if you are getting high 20’s, or even in the 30’s then that’s a good indicator that you should take the act
I think that’s like asking which is better: vanilla or chocolate?
It totally depends on your background and experience.
Princeton Review runs a free practice test which is part ACT, part SAT, to help you determine which is your best bet. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the other SAT prep places do the same.
The SAT is an aptitude test, so it is more logic base, while the ACT is an achievement test, so it is more curriculum based. Also if time is the issue with the SAT I would not suggest taking the ACT, as while IMO the questions are easier, time is what makes this test so hard.
Yes, choosing between the ACT/SAT is very much like selecting between vanilla and chocolate. The ACT is geared more toward academics such as math, reading, etc… so is more like an achievement test. The SAT, formally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, evaluates verbal and quantitative skills. Other factors in choosing include the part of the country in which the student lives. The SAT, housed in NYC, dominates the Northeast. In contrast, the ACT, based in Iowa City, IA, is more likely used in the Midwest. So, a student could elect e over the other because of format or location of the student’s preferred schools. Neither the ACT nor the SAT is easier than the other. They are just different in some ways and even ways that are not relevant to scores.
Both tests are designed to rank students on knowledge of high school curriculum, leading to a prediction of academic success in the first year of college. Scores on the ACT and the SAT are highly correlated, meaning a student’s scores reported in percentiles on one will be very similar to scores on the other. A few students may earn higher scores on one in contrast to the other, but the level of difference in scores may be modest and/or factors other than the relative difficulty of one over the other likely has more to do with personal variables such as fatigue, stress or luck than comparative level of difficulty of a particular test. The choice between them is more like choosing which flavor of vanilla is preferred than deciding between chocolate and vanilla.
Try both and see which one you think you can do better on.
For me, I scored higher on the ACT without prep than the SAT with prep (although I took ACT after SAT).