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ACTurday?

So today I took the ACT, The Test You Don’t Have to Take But Really Ought To™. You didn’t think I’d forget, did you? I almost did, but then I remembered what a weekend I was going to have. What a weekend I’m having!

Anyway, yesterday I had to wake up early for work, and today I had to wake up early to take the ACT. Even though I really didn’t want to be awake so early, I guess it’s good to take both the ACT and the SAT, and I had already done the latter — two times — so it was about time for me to take the ACT. After all, if you don’t do well on one, you might do better on the other. They’re pretty similar, but obviously, there are some differences.

My sister and I, along with our friend Lisa, were taking the test at Monarch High School, a relatively new school (I think?) that some people I know go to. I had never been there, so I didn’t really know how far it was from my house, but it’s not too far away — just on the other side of the dump. We waited a little while for the test to start. It was supposed to start at 8:00, but you know how those things are. Eventually there were about a million people waiting outside, and then they opened the doors. Unusually, I wasn’t at the very end of the line.

We had some trouble finding the classrooms we were supposed to go to because the people there told us to go to the wrong building. We found them quickly, though. My sister and I went into one and Lisa went into another. We waited for almost an hour for everyone outside to get in — they have to check your ID to make sure you’re who you claim to be. When everyone was there, we took the test.

When I took the SAT, I was relieved by how familiar it looked. It looked just like the PSAT, which I had already taken twice also. So I was kind of worried that I wouldn’t be used to the format of the ACT, but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s very similar to the SAT in that respect. As for the questions themselves, I think I liked the ACT better. There were no vocabulary questions like these ones that plague the SAT:

…except the ones on the SAT sometimes make sense (but they always love to throw in words that you’ve never heard of before). Overall, on the ACT, the questions on the reading, English, and math seemed easier. Even so, I’m glad I took the ACT when I did because there were some things on the math part that I wouldn’t have known how to answer if I had taken the test at this same time last year.

The most notable difference between the SAT and the ACT is that the latter has a science section. I had heard that it was just to see if you could read charts and graphs, and I guess it was, but it was harder than I thought. I had to guess on a few more than I should have, but that was only because I was running out of time. Notably, the ACT doesn’t penalize you for wrong answers, so it’s okay to guess.

After all that was the optional writing section that I decided to take. It was exactly like the one on the SAT, except that the prompt had you take a position on a real-life issue; compare that to the SAT’s vague essay prompts about character and things like that.

Not long after that, I was home. We got out earlier than I thought we would, considering that we started almost an hour late. So I’ve been here since then, and hopefully I won’t have to take any more SAT- or ACT-type tests again. The scores should come in four to seven weeks.

Leave it to Wikipedia to have a list of famous trees.

Never forget your lock combination again. If I had a lock whose combination I couldn’t remember, this would be handy.

One year ago: “So I guess things are back to normal between us.”
Three years ago: “Today, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel printed an article featuring me and TWoS.”