Although most schools and the most competitive ones require the SAT, about as many individual students take the ACT nationally as take the SAT. Many southern and midwestern schools require the ACT, which is the dominant program in twenty-eight states. Some schools will accept either the SAT or the ACT.
The ACT includes some unique features that are not part of the actual test, but which are used to help high schools and colleges in assessing students' needs. The ACT's Interest Inventory, for example, includes some ninety questions on student interests. This information is also helpful to students, who receive information showing them how their interests compare with those of other stu dents nationwide. The ACT service also sends students in formation relating their interests to possible careers and college majors.
The ACT Student Profile indicates what extracurricu lar interests students have, what they have done outside of class, what majors and careers they are considering, and what services and programs they expect from their school. Colleges can use information from both the Inventor?, and the Student Profile to place students in appropriate courses. anticipate potential problems. help students find extracurricular activities that might be of interest to them, and generally gear their advisers to provide the best possible individual assistance. It is important to re member, however, that neither the Interest Inventory nor the Student Profile is actually part of the test itself. There are no right and wrong answers. These assessments are used only to provide additional information that might be of interest to high schools, colleges, and students them selves. The ACT takes two hours and 55 minutes to complete, and is divided as follows:
|TEST||NUMBER OF QUESTIONS||LENGTH|
|Science Reasoning||40||35 Minutes|
|Usage and Mechanics:Basic Grammar and Punctuation, Sentence Sturcture||40 Questions|
|Rhetorical Skills: Writing Strategy, Organization, Style||35 Questions|
Generally, five prose passage of about 300 words are given. You are asked to decide whether the underlined sections in the paragraph are correct, and, if not which of the provided alternative choices is the solution. Items can contain errors in punctuation, sentence structure or an aspect of grammar and usage.
The Mathematics Usage Test (60 questions, 60 min utes) . This section examines mathematical reasoning abil ity based on geometry and two years of algebra.
|Pre-Algebra and Elementary Algebra||24 Questions|
|Intermediate Algebra and Coordinate Geometry||18 Questions|
|Plane Geometry||14 Questions|
The Reading Test (40 questions, 35 minutes) . This section measures your ability to understand materials similiar to those read in college courses. The test consists of four passages, each about 750 words, drawn from four different areas of knowledge:
|Prose Fiction: novels, short stories||10 Questions|
|Humanities: art, music, dance, architecture, theater, history||10 Questions|
|Social Sciences: sociology, psychology, economics, political sceince, government, anthropology||10 Questions|
|Natural Scienecs: biology, chemistry, physics, echology, earth sceince||10 Questions|
Generally, you can expect these passages to be in order of reading difficulty: the first is easiest, the last hardest. The order of the different areas is not announced. Many of the passages are taken from books, articles, and other publications. Each question is followed by four choices. To answer a majority of the questions you will need to draw inferences from passages, perceived implications, distinquish the author's intent, separate fact from opinion, etc.
The Science Test (40 questions, 35 minutes) . This section measures your ability to think like a scientist. You must answer questions about seven sets of scientific information presented in three formats:
|Data Representation:graphs, tables, other schematics||15 Questions|
|Research Summaries: several related experiments||18 Questions|
|Conflicting Viewpoints: alternative interpretations of scientific matters||7 Questions|
Information for this section comes from biology, chemistry, physics, and the physical sciences. Three of the seven sets of data are presented as graphs, charts, tables, or scientific drawings. The other three are summaries of research, and the seventh is a discussion of a controversial issue. Some mathematics may be necessary to answer some of the questions.
They will send you a booklet that comes with a registration form and an explanation of the steps you must take to sign up. The regular registration deadline is approximately one month before the examination date. After that deadline, you may apply for late registration until about two weeks before the examination.
The dates for the 1995/1996 Year are:
|TEST DATES||REGISTRATION DATE||FEE||LATE REGISTRATION||FEES|
|OCT 26 1996||SEPT 27 1996||$19.00*||OCT 12 1996&||$19.00* + $20.00|
|DEC 14 1996||NOV 15 1996||$19.00*||NOV 30 1996&||$19.00* + $20.00|
|FEB 8 1997||JAN 10 1997||$19.00*||JAN 24 1997&||$19.00* + $20.00|
|APR 12 1997||MAR 14 1997||$19.00*||MAR 28 1997&||$19.00* + $20.00|
|JUNE 14 1997||MAY 16 1997||$19.00*||MAY 31 1997&||$19.00* + $20.00|
|* New York and Florida Registration Fee: $22.00||& Estimated Date - Call 319-337-1270|
|TEST||CONTENT||AVERAGE LENGTH OF LINE PER QUESTION|
|ENGLISH 75 QUESTIONS||5 passages, 15 questions each||30 seconds|
|MATH 60 QUESTIONS||Questions increase in difficulty from beginning to end||1 minute|
|READING 40 QUESTIONS||4 passages, 10 questions each.||5 minutes per passage, 4 minutes for 10 questions or 25 seconds per question.|
|SCIENCE 40 QUESTIONS||7 sets of data with 5 to 7 questions per set; sets increase in difficulty.||5 minutes per set of data|
Your ACT performance can help to offset mediocre grades and you can be sure that a good ACT score will never hurt your chances of getting into the college of your choice. If your score doesn't please you then, start preparing to take it again.
Copyright 1995 - 1997 --
Educational On-Line Inc.