SAT or ACT?

[Emerald Stoker]

I know this will vary by student, but generally speaking, which test do you think has more capacity to show improvement? Given basically equal, decent-but-room-for-improvement initial practice test scores, is it easier to improve one's understanding of SAT tricksy questions, or easier to increase speed on the ACT?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by Emerald Stoker

[Arcadia]

My DS11 SAT's score went up 250 points on the second time to get a >1500 score. Both times he spent two weeks on prep at home, about 30 hrs total. He didn't retake the ACT so I don't know how much his score might improve. So test prep doesn't have to be time intensive and since your child took the practice test without prep, he is likely to be much faster with prep.

 

Also we are interested in U of Waterloo and for US applicants they are looking at AP scores when we visited them. So I am not sure for Canadians if your universities prefer SAT subject tests or AP exams scores or would take either.

 

From U of Waterloo for US applicants

"Program requirements:

AP Calculus, AP Physics (or 2 high school Physics courses when AP is unavailable), Algebra (Pre-Calculus), Chemistry, Grade 12 English, and one other Grade 12 academic course, minimum final grade of 75% in each. Average 88% in the 6 required courses."

https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/admission-requirements/computer-eng/international-system/american-system/

Edited September 1, 2017 by Arcadia

[Emerald Stoker]

Thanks for your reply, Arcadia. There are no AP test centres readily available to us.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Emerald Stoker

[RootAnn]

Generally speaking, both are prep-able. Being that your kid pretty much just needs to speed up on the ACT where the SAT was confusing, I'd drop the SAT completely & focus just on the ACT.

 

With practice, you can definitely speed up on the ACT. The majority is reading speed (or tricks on how to focus on just the parts of the passages you need for the questions, depending on your strategy). I'd use all the (free) practice tests you can find on the internet first. (There are five free ones here.) I'd have her take each one, marking where she runs out of time on each section. Then, go over EVERY ANSWER with her - even the ones she got right, to make sure her reasoning was correct and it wasn't just a guess. Then, there are three more in the Official ACT book. The older edition has five.

 

The official ACT book also has an online component, if I remember correctly, with more practice questions. This should give her plenty of time to work on speeding up. When you've used them all, you can always start over and see how much she's sped up. There are books to help with each section - like Erica Metzler & specific ones to help with the science section or the math section. I have also seen

. The links are suggestions, but I haven't used any of them, so take them with a grain of salt!! (There have been past threads with suggestions by people who do test prep with kids for a living.)

 

Good luck!!

[Arcadia]

(Even there, APs are not required of Canadian students, as those courses are not widely available across the country.)

My older who had 800 for the SAT math 2, had a higher math score on his ACT than his SAT but the science score on the ACT pulled down his ACT composite. He ran out of steam by the time it was the science section. He didn't prep.

 

I know doing practice tests is very time consuming but after doing two sets of practice test each, it was obvious what my kids were weaker in and the time needed just got shorter due to practice.

 

If your son can finish the SAT Math 2 50 questions in an hour under test conditions, I do think he can easily finish the math sections of the actual SAT and ACT after having tried a practice test for each.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Arcadia

[gstharr]

My 7th grader started prepping for the October PSAT at the start of August.  It is not the SAT or ACT, but this is how we are prepping.  Began tearing one  section out of the practice guides each day and doing it with a timer. So each week, he did a complete test.  Over the past month, total math errors went from around 10 to 5 wrong,  An occasional perfect section.  Total reading errors dropped from 17 to 7.   Now, that we are a month away and he has returned to school, we are doing 2 timed sections on Saturday and the remaining on Sunday.  We started with 2015, and 2016 Princeton and Barron's guides.  We are now using the actual 2016, and 2015  PSAT test.  We will do our final practice with Global Ivy (the free practices).   We generally don't review the correct answers, but for the wrong reading comprehension answers, I read  the passages, and go over the answer choices with him and point out the strategy. This is how we prep for all standardized test. He is an excellent test taker.  We have not paid for any center. 

[Emerald Stoker]

Thank you for that very helpful post, RootAnn! I really appreciate the advice, as well as all of the links--it's kind of you to go to all of that work looking things up for me.

 

And thanks again for the encouragement, Arcadia!

 

ETA: Just saw your post, gstharr; thank you, too!

Edited September 1, 2017 by Emerald Stoker