We have published a decent amount of articles on the merits of the SAT vs ACT, but a sharp distinction hit me today: The ACT doesn’t test vocabulary, while the SAT tests it to no end:
Vocabulary shows up on every critical reading section of the SAT for about 8-10 questions in the Completing Sentences part. Then the same topic comes up again in the actual passages of the CR section. And then once more in the Writing section on those rare diction questions:
(i.e. The noisome band music was so loud I couldn’t study—-noisome is the error, it actually doesn’t have to do with noise).
So if you don’t want to spend hours and hours memorizing the top 250 hardest vocabulary words, the 100 most common vocab words, and the 500 most recent word lists, go with the ACT.
If you’ve been investing time into prepping for the SAT but need help on the ACT, let us help you!