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SAT

SAT vs. ACT – Which test is right for you?

Now that it’s prime time to start studying for the SAT and ACT, we’ve had a lot of students ask us which test they should take.

Nowadays, most colleges accept the SAT and ACT and weigh scores from both tests equally, so that’s no longer a reason to take one test over the other.

The College Board recently redesigned the SAT and it is now quite similar to the ACT. Both tests now have optional essays and no guessing penalty. The SAT also no longer has a “random vocabulary” section, which used to be a deal breaker for a lot of our students. Instead, the SAT has a vocabulary in-context section. The SAT also has less geometry than the ACT.  We’ve covered the all differences in a handy graphic below. (more…)

2021-05-11T14:54:39-04:00

College Board SAT Bait and Switch?

 Maybe to call it “bait and switch” is extreme,  but we are pretty annoyed.  Last fall College Board introduced the redesigned PSAT and SAT, and released the scores  in January 2016.  At the time, it seemed as if all of the juniors we talked to were doing better on the new test, but we work with small numbers of students and figured that the new (and radically different) test was just better-suited to these individuals.  This was also the perception of counselors we spoke to at various schools.  Many of these same students also took an ACT in the fall with Inspiring Test Prep and in some cases, based on a comparison of 2015 PSAT scores and percentiles to the ACT diagnostic, we recommended they take the SAT, instead of the ACT.

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2017-04-07T19:30:51-04:00