Frequently Asked Questions

How important are the SAT and ACT?
What are the differences between the SAT and ACT?
Is it ok to guess? and What is POE?
Who writes these tests?

How important are the SAT and ACT?
In recent years, criticism from many sides (including The Princeton Review) has prompted several schools to re-evaluate their admissions policies, and some schools have even gone so far as to make the SAT and ACT completely optional. However, these schools are the exception rather than the rule.

While your high school curriculum is usually the single most important factor, your standardized test scores tend to be one of the more important pieces in your admissions portfolio. If your scores fall below a school's usual range, the admission officers may look very critically at the other parts of your application; if your scores exceed the school's usual range, you will have a leg up on many others in the applicant pool.

In general, larger schools (which have a very large applicant pool to choose from) tend to rely more heavily on standardized test scores and high school grade point averages. At some of these schools, admissions decisions may be made entirely (or almost entirely) on these two factors alone. Smaller and more selective schools tend to place more weight on more individual factors, such as whether you've pursued the most challenging curriculum available to you at your school.

What are the differences between the ACT and the SAT?
You should take whichever test is, overall, more advantageous to you: Whichever you are best prepared for and will score the best on. If you're in doubt, take a practice test of each and see how your scores compare.

The main differences between the two exams are as follows

  ACT SAT

Purpose

 Measures academic achievement in English, Mathematics, Reading and Science Reasoning Designed to measure academic aptitude in verbal and numeric reasoning

Content

 25% each in English, Mathematics, Reading and Science Reasoning 50% each in Verbal and Mathematics

English Vocabulary

 Tests grammar and punctuation Stronger emphasis on vocabulary

Mathematics

 7% of the math is based on trigonometry Does not test trigonometry

Science

 Tests Science Reasoning Does not test Science

Structure

 Degree of difficulty is distributed randomly Test questions get increasingly harder within each section

Length

 3 hours long with 215 questions 3 hours long with 140 questions

Scoring

 No penalty for guessing Slight penalty for wrong answers on the SAT

<GUESSING important SAT: may heard various sources ?guessing penalty,? misleading advice. problem, take guess. why: The it) five-option tst. row, chance these five wrong. Since you?ll quarter each four wrong answers, net zero. Thus, help hurt SAT. It simply counts nothing. while it true lose fraction point every incorrect test, only neutralizing completely random has no effect score all. means shouldn?t waste by randomly guessing. However why aggressively often --if even one better than randomly, increase raw score. So habit aggressively. Even can?t answer, are impossible unreasonable, remain, move next problem. Guessing ACT: Unlike SAT, does guessing penalty. So, should never answered While working through section, if come question figure use eliminate many choices as possible, then guess from ones. finish section before time runs out, spend last minute filling remaining questions. Do leave questions blank ACT! POE? stands Process Elimination. This perhaps most testing skill for multiple-choice exam take. how solve in order (or at least able make good guess). Aggressively using will get points ACT. Here?s an example... If were see this or (don?t worry, won?t), you?d stuck -- not mention little upset. But majority problems on SAT ACT don?t problem above. look like following problem: What is Malawi A. Washington B. Paris C. Tokyo D. London E. Lilongwe They have given to choose from, which makes your job a lot easier. Using POE we can find correct answer. Are there any know cannot Malawi? You probably said answers (A), (B), (C), (D). Cross them off and that leaves you with answer choice (E). That must be the capital of Malawi!>

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Is it OK to guess? and What is POE?
Guessing on the SAT: You may have heard from various sources that the SAT has a "guessing penalty," and that you shouldn't guess on the SAT. This is misleading advice. You should guess aggressively and often on the SAT. Guessing aggressively means that if you can eliminate even one answer choice on a problem, you should take a guess. Here's why:

The SAT (or most of it) is a five-option multiple-choice test. If you guess completely randomly on five questions in a row, you should -- by random chance -- get one of these five correct and four of them wrong. Since you'll get one point for the one correct answer, and lose a quarter of a point for each of the four wrong answers, your net raw score will be zero. Thus, random guessing should not help or hurt you on the SAT. It simply counts for nothing.

So while it is true that you lose a fraction of a point for every incorrect answer on the test, this only has the effect of neutralizing completely random guessing. Guessing randomly has no effect on your score at all.

This means that you shouldn't waste your time by randomly guessing. However -- and this is why you should guess aggressively and often --if you can eliminate even one choice and guess better than randomly, then guessing will increase your raw score. So you should get in the habit of guessing aggressively. Even if you can't get the correct answer, you should use POE to eliminate the choices you know are impossible or unreasonable, guess from the choices that remain, and move on to the next problem.

Guessing on the ACT: Unlike the SAT, the ACT does not have a guessing penalty. So, you should never leave any question answered on the ACT. While working through a section, if you come to a question that you cannot figure out, use POE to eliminate as many answer choices as possible, then guess from the remaining ones. If you cannot finish the section before time runs out, spend the last minute filling in answers for the remaining questions. Do not leave any questions blank on the ACT!

What is POE? POE stands for Process of Elimination. This is perhaps the most important testing skill for any multiple-choice exam you take. You don't have to know how to solve a problem in order to get the correct answer (or to at least be able to make a good guess). Aggressively using POE will get you points on the SAT and the ACT.

Here's an example...

  1. What is the capital of Malawi?

If you were to see this problem on the SAT or the ACT (don't worry, you won't), you'd probably be stuck -- not to mention a little upset. But the majority of the problems on the SAT and ACT don't look like the problem above. They look like the following problem:

  1. What is the capital of Malawi

A.  Washington
B.  Paris
C.  Tokyo
D.  London
E.  Lilongwe

They have given you answers to choose from, which makes your job a lot easier. Using POE we can find the correct answer. Are there any answers that you know cannot be the capital of Malawi? You probably said answers (A), (B), (C), and (D). Cross them off and that leaves you with the answer choice (E). That must be the capital of Malawi!

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Who writes these tests?
First, let's take a closer look at ETS, the people who write the SAT. The people at ETS like to think of themselves as average middle-class Americans, with views to match. How do they feel about capitalism, democracy, progress and the American Way of Life? The people at ETS love these things. What do you think their feelings are toward other cultures? That they are, of course, interesting and that we should be respectful of them.

What do you think would happen if ETS wrote bad things about any particular group of people? they'd get lots of nasty letters, there would be lawsuits, and colleges might stop using the SAT. Would they risk this? No. One thing ETS will avoid at all costs is a potentially controversial answer choice. While ETS might say something negative about a particular person, they will avoid generalizing about an entire group.

The ACT is written by a company called ACT, based in Iowa City, Iowa. The company writes a number of other exams, some of which you may have already taken, like the PLAN, and some of which you may take in the future, like the MCAT. Questions are written by people from a variety of backgrounds, many of them high school teachers in the Iowa City area.

The intent of the ACT is to reflect what is being taught in high schools across America, so a panel of high school-level educators routinely reviews the content of the exam. This makes the ACT somewhat more like the math students learn in high school, and somewhat less "tricky" than the math on the SAT.

Like the folks at ETS, the people who write the ACT pick subjects (for reading passages, for instance) that they think are nice and uncontroversial. You won't find anything risky or extreme on this test. Just as with the SAT, it's important to keep this in mind when taking the ACT--it will help you know what sorts of answers will be considered "correct" by the test writers.

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