What if you’ve been taking the ACT (once or multiple times), and have realized that the SAT is going to get you a better score? How do you switch between tests as efficiently as possible? Exactly which new strategies and content do you need to learn for the SAT that weren’t on the ACT?
Over the course of my 15+ years as a standardized testing tutor, I’ve shepherded many students through this transition. And today, I’m going to outline exactly what you need to study now that you’re pivoting to the SAT.
Article Contents
1. Watch this article as a video
2. How to know if it’s a good idea to quit the ACT
3. What new content to learn if you’re switching to the SAT
ii. Function of the Underlined Text
iii. Claims/evidence
B. Math section
i. Problem-solving and Data Analysis
ii. Advanced Math
iii. Geometry
iv. Trigonometry
v. Systems of Linear Equations
4. Conclusion
Watch this article as a video:
*Should* you change tests?
First of all: lots of students go through a rough spot with standardized testing…and assume that this means they should switch to the other test. Before you commit to swapping out the ACT for the SAT, though—a non-trivial decision that will definitely cost you study time!—you want to carefully consider that choice.
I’d recommend giving this article a skim before plunging head-first into ACT studying. It’ll walk you through exactly how to make this decision. Then pop back over to today’s post to find out what your new study plan of attack should be.
What's on the SAT that isn't on the ACT?
Ok, welcome back. If you’re still reading, you must feel confident that switching to the Digital SAT will likely be advantageous for you. Woohoo!
Your new test, the Digital SAT, will have only two sections, as opposed to the four that you were used to on the ACT:
The Reading & Writing section, composed of two modules; and
The Math section, also composed of two modules.
Let's break down exactly what new content you’ll need to learn within each section, shall we?
Reading and Writing: how it differs from the ACT
Sentence Completions
If you’re an ex-ACT taker, the first new type of SAT question you're going to need to master is what we call a Sentence Completion question. Sometimes these may also take the form of Meaning in Context questions.
These will account for the first few questions in each of your Reading and Writing modules.
Fortunately, I’ve made posts (and videos!) explaining the top strategies you need to learn for each of these question types. Check out the links above for details.
Function of the Underlined Text
The next novel question type that you might see is not necessarily testing different knowledge from what you encountered in the ACT’s Reading section—but the questions might be worded differently from what you're used to.
What do “Function of the Underlined Text” Qs look like? You'll be given a paragraph, and it might have a short snippet that’s been underlined—a sentence or part of a sentence—and you’ll be asked, “What is the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?”
You now need to identify what that underlined portion is doing for the passage, rhetorically speaking. Why is the author trying to achieve by including that part?
If you’ve been hitting the books for the ACT's Reading section, you’ll already have dealt with questions like, “What is the function of XYZ sentence” or “What is the function of this paragraph” or “The author said XYZ in order to…” These are very much in the same ballpark as the SAT version. It's just that now the test will underline the part that you're supposed to analyze.
Claims (aka evidence questions)
The third type of SAT Reading and Writing question that will be new to former ACT takers are Claims questions, also known as Evidence questions.
This type of question gives you a passage (sometimes with an accompanying bar graph, chart, or table) then asks you to select the answer that does one of the following:
supports a claim, hypothesis, or conclusion;
weakens the claim, hypothesis, or conclusion; or
best illustrates an example that the text provides.
It's a very different ask from what you’ll have been used to on the ACT, so you're definitely going to need to study this question type if you’re changing lanes to the SAT.
(This post teaches you the #1 strategy for approaching these questions, btw.)
Logically completes
Closely related to the “claims” genre of questions are what I call “Logically Completes” or “Text Completion” questions.
Here, you’ll be given part of a text, and then asked, “Which of the following answer choices most logically completes the text?” The answer choices are typically quite word heavy.
Again, this kind of question is all about figuring out the text’s internal logic. You need to analyze what the person was saying and what the grand conclusion is. You will not have done this kind of task before if you were previously an ACT person.
(If you want to know HOW to study this question type, my Reading and Writing e-course teaches you exactly that, btw.)
Research notes
Last but not least in the RW section, new converts to the Digital SAT will need to conquer what I call Research Notes questions.
These Qs appear at the end of both Reading and Writing modules modules. The setup is that a student has conducted research on a certain topic, and you’re given bullet points representing the notes that the student has taken. The test will ask you a very, very specific question about those notes.
And if you’re wondering whether I’ve developed a world-class strategy for solving these kinds of questions quickly and accurately….well, of course I did!
What Math is on the SAT but not the ACT?
There is a fair amount of overlap between the ACT and SAT Math sections—but you’ll also have a lot of new material to learn, too. (There is also math material that does appear on the ACT, but accounts for substantially more points on the SAT, meaning you may want to learn it in greater depth as you change tests.)
Problem-solving and Data analysis
Sure, the ACT's Math section also features some charts and graphs that you have to interpret. However, on the Digital SAT, those charts and graphs questions are harder.
Meaning: the SAT features more varieties of data visualization that you need to familiarize yourself with, AND the accompanying questions go into much more detail.
If you’re a prior ACT-taker who decides to join team SAT, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with all of these different types of charts and graphs and tables:
Box-whisker plots. You need to know what one is, and how to find the mean, Q1, Q3, range and the interquartile range.
Scatterplots. I'm sure you came across a scatter plot or two on the ACT, but you will face a TON of them on the Digital SAT. You need to fully understand the line of best fit. Is this plot’s overall trend linear? Is it quadratic? Is it an exponential relationship?
Frequency tables. You might have seen one or two on the ACT, but you will DEFINITELY see them on the Digital SAT.
Two-way tables. Not just a table, but a two-way table where you have a variable that is changing along the y-axis and a variable that is changing along the x-axis. You will need to be able to draw information from these tables in order to answer very specific probability and statistics questions about them.
Histograms
Bar graphs
Line graphs
Stacked graphs
Stem-leaf plots
In addition to mastering those types of data visualization, you’ll need to learn how to evaluate a statistical claim. If researchers conduct a survey, for instance, what's the largest population that their conclusion will apply to?
Advanced math
This subtopic represents the most material you’ll need to learn anew (or learn more thoroughly) if you’re moving from the ACT to the SAT. A lot of it is Algebra 2 territoy that you may have learned in school (but haven’t reviewed since then, and therefore need a refresher on!).
Polynomial long division.
Complex fractions (think fractions within fractions: the numerator itself is a fraction and/or the denominator might be a fraction).
Rational expressions (a polynomial on top of a fraction or on the bottom of a fraction). You should also be able to answer what such a number might mean as far as a graph is concerned—is there a hole in the graph? Is there an asymptote? How does it reduce?
Systems of nonlinear equations. You might be given a parabola and a line, and asked: how many solutions are there? And what is the solution, if any? Or you might be asked to go a step further—maybe there are three different lines or curves, and you have to find the solution.
Exponential functions. You didn't really have to deal with these on the ACT, but you WILL see a few of them on the Digital SAT.
Geometry
You're not really going to see any Geometry on the the SAT that you didn't already learn previously for the ACT.
Trigonometry
Trig is a different story. There’s one concept that might pop up—in fact, that almost ALWAYS pops up in (if only for one question). That concept is what we call the Complementary Angle Relationship—think sine and cosine.
You can learn how to solve this question type in my e-course, the Ultimate Digital SAT Math Guide.
Systems of Linear Equations
Though you will have also dealt with systems of linear equations on the ACT, they show up much more often, are more complicated, and are tested in different ways on the Digital SAT.
You will encounter a bunch of questions asking things like:
What would this coefficient be if the system has NO solution? Or
What would this coefficient be if the system has INFINITE solutions? Or
What IS the solution? Or
How many solutions are there?
In other words, you’re going to get a LOT of questions on this topic, so you’d best know it cold.
Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far, good for you! You’re one big step closer to pivoting from the ACT towards SAT success—because now you know what you need to learn.
As for how to learn it, there are dozens of free resources on my website that’ll get you started on your study journey. If you’d like to go deeper (and learn faster), my online courses walks you through everything you need to know for the SAT and ACT. Or if you’d like a study plan custom to YOU—that takes into account your strengths, weaknesses, and target score—you can learn more about working with me here:
