Which part of the world is ACT mostly accepted?
Certification: Test Prep ACT - American College Testing
In many countries, the college’s admissions are done on the basis of standardized tests, but still now most of the people believe that SAT is the only option. But the truth lies in the fact that, in many countries and worldwide a different test score is accepted that is ACT. In case you want to decide which test you should give, you should contact the college and universities were you wish to tae admission and on that basis go for the test.
The ACT stands for “American College Testing”, is a standardized assessment test meant for senior secondary school. It is meant for the assessment of achievements and admissions in college in United States conducted by ACT. Firstly it was conducted by Everett Franklin Lindquist in November 1959, making it a competitor for SAT (College Board’s Scholastic Aptitude Test). Originally ACT comprises of four exams Natural Sciences, Social Studies, Math’s and English. After in 1989 test for Social Studies was replaced by Reading test which had Social Studies as its part and Science Reasoning test replaces the Natural Sciences test, after the change paper focused more on problem solving skill of the students.
In many colleges score of SAT is taken. The difference lies in the fact that, SAT test your ability to behave in difficult situations, such as how you manage you time, difficult questions that trick your mind while ACT measures your skill at you secondary school. It determines your level of grasping power by testing your knowledge in four areas you studied in high school.
The reason behind the broader acceptance of ACT depends on the fact that it provides a wider knowledge, whether the student is capable of entering college or not, as the test is based on high school curriculum.
Acceptance of ACT Score
The ACT score is accepted widely due to its test format. It is most widely accepted in Rocky Mountain, Midwestern and southern United States. Recently ACT is gaining popularity in the East and west coasts also where initially SAT scores were used more. The reason behind the increase in the acceptance of ACT lies behind the fact that, after its introduction the SAT scores are being criticized and are being questioned on their fairness and effectiveness of the test procedure. If you have taken the test before September 1989 and have a score above 29, you can have the membership of American Mensa which is a high IQ society. Likewise if you have score of 32 of old ACT i.e. before 1989 and score of 34 prior to September 1989, you can have a membership of Triple Nine Society.
So usually SAT scores were widely accepted but now as ACT is gaining popularity it is being widely accepted by various colleges and university because of its test format. The reason behind the gradual increase in the acceptance of ACT in comparison to SAT is as follows:
Achievement of the student
The ACT test is the correct measurement of the knowledge that an individual have learnt in his/her school. It tests the verbal ability and reasoning sense of students. The students who are ran holder can make their achievements visible to the educating college and university by clearing the test with good ran and percentile. The test allows you to determine what does the student knows from his/her high school study, whether he/she is ready for college or not.
Length of the test
The test conducted by ACT consists of 215 questions with an essay. For this the students are given 3 hrs. and 25 min. this means that the students have less time per question to answer. The students should have a good speed to answer all the questions in time. This can come if you practice as much questions as you can in short span of time to succeed.
Pattern of questions
The paper of ACT is overall multiple choice questions, which makes it easier to an extent. But if you don’t have in depth knowledge of the topic, you will not be able to answer the performance based questions, in which one need to use their knowledge as we as skills. This provides the educators now about the thing eve of students.
Science paper
The science section of the ACT test assesses the ability of the students, whether they are able to interpret the graphs, summaries of various researches, and hypotheses in various areas of science. The questions are from every field of science. The students who are good at interpreting graphs charts and other hypothetical situations will do extremely we in this section, providing the educators info about their strong roots of high school.
Scoring procedure
Every section of ACT is of 36 points along with certain sub scores. The average composite score of ACT test is 21. So if a student scores more than that, then it means he has studied well during his high school. The composite score is determined by measuring the score of a student against other students who are taking the test. Therefore the composite scores of ACT are more valued by the colleges
The composite scores of ACT are valued because it provides whether the student is ready to enter college or not. The statistics show that in the year 2011, 25% of test takers only were ready to enter college in all the sections of knowledge that ACT determines. In other study it showed that only 29.3% students could go to Science College. This low values shows that the students may face performance problems in college. The ACT also measures the student’s ability to perform in tests. The successful measurement is necessary because passing a test is essential for college. The students who perform well in tests often tend to have higher grades in their college, especially in the multiple choice type question papers.
