FFE Testing

Testing Information

What are the SAT and ACT Exams?

They are tests that the College Board, Inc. (for the SAT) and ACT, Inc. (the ACT) administer to people planning on attending college. Colleges and Universities across the country and around the world use the scores that a student makes on the test(s) to determine a student's eligibility for admission to and potential for success in their learning facility. Sounds fancy, huh? That means that College Board and ACT give these tests to students. And colleges and universities use the test scores to decide whether or not a particular student is likely (or not) to pass his/her classes if the student is admitted to the college of his/her choice. It also provides a standard grading scale by which all students are measured.

Although the tests are administered, graded and processed virtually the same, there are differences. The two organizations try to schedule tests on differing weeks (usually on Saturdays) to accommodate people who try to take both tests. Fees vary depending on which tests a student chooses to take. They range in price from $26 to $45.

Here's a schedule of dates for the 2006-07 academic year.

SAT		ACT
Test Date	Registration Deadline	Test Date	Registration Deadline
10/6/07	9/10/07	9/15/07	8/16/07
11/3/07	10/2/07	10/27/07	10/1/07
12/1/07	10/30/07	12/8/07	11/2/07
1/26/08	12/26/07	2/9/08	1/4/08
3/1/08	1/29/08	4/12/08	3/7/08
5/3/08	4/1/08	6/14/08	6/9/08
6/7/08	5/6/08

Since the writing portion of the ACT is optional (until '09), I'm going to focus on what's known about the SAT essay. The 2006 class of SAT students who wrote essays in their exams this year had, among others, the following averages of results:

average grade on the essay was 7.2 (lowest is a "1" and the highest given is a "12")
longer essays usually score higher
84% of the writers reached the second page of writing.
although most high school teachers insist on "third person" voice (he, she it), "first person" voice (I, me, my) is acceptable for the SAT.
slightly less than half of the writers used first person voice, slightly more than half used third person voice.
academic references (from books, newspapers, etc.) were used in about half of the essays; personal references (personal experiences) were used in the other half.

For Some Serious Test-Taking and Test-Day Tips from ACT, check out these links:

Tips for Taking the ACT - http://www.actstudent.org/testprep/tips/index.html

Test Day Tips - http://www.actstudent.org/testprep/tips/testday.html

Test Day Procedures - http://www.actstudent.org/testprep/taking/procedures.html

Tips for the Writing Test - http://www.actstudent.org/testprep/tips/writing.html

College Board Store (lots of good test-taking products):

http://store.collegeboard.com/enter.do