What students often do not realize as they reluctantly prepare to apply for college is, that they are wasting their time taking the ACT. The SAT is so much better.

Now, please don’t think that I am biased of one exam over the other, I have literally taken each of them, twice. In both scenarios, my SAT score was better than my ACT score, after comparing the tests taken within the same year.

Let me start off by saying, the SAT, short for the Scholastic Assessment Test, is fun. It is a fun test to take! Sure, I get it. It is a test, and it does decide my fate of where I go and what I might study in the future, but I enjoyed taking that test! I had fun being assessed over the things that I had learned in high school, unlike when I was taking the ACT.

Instead, the ACT made me question everything I had studied.

Not only this, the SAT is much easier than the material that is tested on the ACT. First of all, unlike the ACT, the SAT does not include a science portion. The SAT includes four sections: reading, grammar, mathematics with a calculator, and mathematics without a calculator. From my perspective, I felt that the material tested throughout the reading and grammar sections were much like that of the ACT’s. However, the math portions of the two tests are very different. The ACT usually includes questions involving geometry, while the SAT has a lot of algebra or trigonometry based problems. Personally, I have always struggled a little with geometry-based criteria, which is more common on the ACT, so when I took the SAT I was capable of breezing through the two mathematics tests.

Often times it is misunderstood that the SAT is a college admission test taken by students near the East and West Coasts, which is statistically true, but should not be the case. All universities, no matter where in the United States will accept an ACT or a SAT score, so why not increase your admission chances by taking the easier of the two tests? There isn’t even a cost difference between the SAT and the ACT! So believe me when I say, the SAT is better, and you should try taking it too!

Editor’s Note: Jane Elliston is a Senior at Fair Grove High School, she writes about her life and the challenges she faces.