For all juniors or sophomores (or even some ambitious freshmen!) beginning to take on the ambitious task of preparing for standardized testing for college, this is for you! Stuck between picking the SAT or ACT, or even just looking for some additional information on all things standardized testing, find your guide below:
A historical overview
The SAT actually has no meaning as an acronym. It originally meant “Scholastic Aptitude Test,” but as the test evolved, the acronym’s meaning was dropped. Formally, the SAT is “a multiple-choice, computer-based test created and administered by the College Board,” according to The Princeton Review. It was first offered by the College Board in 1926 but has origins dating back to World War I. The U.S. Army recruited Robert Yerkes, an American psychologist, to make an IQ test to help them sort their new recruits. Carl Brigham, an American psychologist from Princeton University, worked with Yerkes on the Army IQ screener (the Army Alpha Test), which eventually turned into the SAT. The SAT’s deep history reflects the racial discrimination at the time, as Brigham believed that people of color were innately less intelligent than white people. In his book “A Study of American Intelligence,” Brigham “warned” that the decline of education would “proceed with an accelerating rate as the racial mixture becomes more and more extensive,” according to BestColleges.com. Around this time, American colleges began to search for a new way to identify elite students from perhaps less accomplished secondary schoolers. The Army test, therefore, turned into the SAT. By 1935, Harvard University required all applicants to submit SAT scores. In 1952, the current structure of questions for the verbal section of the SAT was established: reading comprehension, analogies, antonyms, and sentence completion questions, according to PBS.org. The most recent and relevant change to the SAT was the switch to a digital testing format, which was first administered on March 9, 2024. Since then, the SAT has grown and changed in numerous ways, which we’ll see later in the article.
The ACT stands for American College Testing. It was first introduced in November 1959 by University of Iowa Professor Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Lindquist had originally offered the idea of creating a second exam for students interested in less selective colleges, but when the College Board disagreed, he created the ACT himself. “The [ACT] must make him feel he has earned the right to go to college by his own efforts, not that he is entitled to college admission because of his innate abilities or aptitudes, regardless of what he has done in high school,” Lindquist stated. It was created to test knowledge, not aptitude. According to the ACT Newsroom, From 2012-2016, the number of ACT-test-taking graduates increased by 25.5 percent, while the estimated number of total high school graduates in the US has increased by 1.3 percent. Additionally, in the 2016-2017 school year, 16 states required all 11th graders to take the ACT as part of their statewide testing programs. Although both the SAT and ACT have long histories of growth and success, things have definitely been changing.
The tests now
Many schools have recently stopped requiring the ACT and SAT for college applications. According to a study by DePaul University, the test-optional movement first occurred in 2001 when Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, recommended that colleges stop using the SAT and switch to tests tied more closely to the high school curriculum. Additionally, the Covid pandemic made it difficult for high school students to take the SAT and ACT, so dozens of selective colleges dropped their standardized test score requirement, according to the New York Times. This decision was described as “temporary,” yet many colleges have yet to revert back to a test-required policy. Research has increasingly shown that test scores are more reliable than high school grades, partly because of grade inflation. “Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades,” Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, told the New York Times.
However, a number of top universities have recently announced that test scores will be required again. In March 2022, MIT announced plans to reinstate its mandatory SAT and ACT testing policy. According to US News.com, in the early months of 2024, schools such as Dartmouth College, Brown University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Yale University also eliminated its test-optional policy. However, over 80 percent of U.S. colleges will continue to be test-optional for the fall 2025 admissions cycle, according to data from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.
What is each test?
The SAT is a 2-hour and 14-minute test, with 64 minutes to complete the Reading and Writing section and 70 minutes to complete the Math section. It is scored out of 1600. Each section is divided into two equal-length modules, and there is a 10-minute break between the Reading and Writing section and the Math section. In March 2024, the College Board administered its first digital SAT. With this design, “the first module of each section contains a broad mix of easy, medium, and hard questions. Based on how you perform on the first module, the second module of questions will either be more difficult or less difficult,” according to the College Board website. Reading and Writing is divided into two 32-minute modules and 54 questions total, while math is divided into two 35-minute modules and has 44 questions total. In the reading and writing section, you will receive multiple choice questions of one of the four domains: Craft and Structure, Information and Ideas, Standard English Conventions, and Expression of Ideas. The math section is also divided into four domains: Algebra, Advanced Math, Problem-Solving and Data Analysis, and Geometry and Trigonometry. There are 13–15 Algebra and Advanced Math questions, and 5-7 Problem-Solving and Data Analysis and Geometry and Trigonometry questions.
The ACT is a 2-hour and 55-minute test, or 3 hours and 35 minutes if you elect to take the ACT with writing. It is scored on a scale of 1-36. Students are given the option to take the ACT writing test, which is an optional 40-minute essay that comes after the main ACT test. “It’s designed to measure your writing skills — skills you’ve been honing in high school and will need in college,” according to the ACT website. It requires students to craft their own viewpoint and analyze three perspectives of a prompt. This test is required by very few schools, and is just an opportunity for students to add an English Language Arts (ELA) score to their report.
The main ACT exam tests students on four subjects: English, Math, Reading, and Science. English is 75 questions in 45 minutes, Math is 60 questions in 60 minutes, Reading is 40 questions in 35 minutes, and Science is 40 questions in 35 minutes. Scores can further be broken down in the English section: alongside a score for the section overall, they provide information on one’s success in three reporting category scores based on specific knowledge and skills.
Which one should you take?
First, it is important to establish that colleges do not value either the SAT or ACT over each other; they are equally weighed. While neither test is harder than the other, there is usually a test students find themselves preferring or performing better on based on personal preference. There are a couple main differences between each exam. 1) The SAT is shorter 2) The reading passages on the SAT are shorter 3) The SAT is only digital, while the ACT is offered online and on paper 4) The SAT has no science section, it only has two sections, and 5) The ACT has an optional writing portion.
If you are a student who takes more time while testing, you may choose the SAT as it offers more time per question. For example, the ACT math section offers 60 seconds per question, while the SAT gives 95 seconds per question. Also, the ACT has a larger emphasis on geometry. The ACT has several math sections that the SAT doesn’t, including matrices, graphs of trig functions, and logarithms. The SAT also provides you with a diagram of math formulas, while the ACT does not. On the ACT, Math accounts for one-fourth of your total score. On the SAT, however, Math accounts for half of your total score. Therefore, if math isn’t your strong suit, I’d recommend the ACT.
Evidence-support questions are a big part of SAT Reading but are entirely absent on ACT Reading. There are many differences between these two very different tests. To determine which is the best fit for you, there’s a couple options. You may consider taking a practice test for each and compare your scores. Or, you can take an online quiz which will help evaluate your likelihood of success in each. You’ve already completed a great first step by getting to the end of this article!
