Talk:ACT (test)
Correct the grammar in intro paragraph to remove bias "In February 2005, an optional writing test was added to the ACT, mirroring changes to the SAT later that year." How can something created in February mirror something created later that year? If the ACT added Writing before SAT added it, then SAT mirrored ACT. ACT did not mirror SAT. The current phrasing suggests bias by implying that ACT follows or marches to SAT's beat. Suggested correction: In February 2005, an optional writing test was added to the ACT, mirrored by changes to the SAT later that year. 207.118.69.170 (talk) 17:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)A.C.T.
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Answers on p2p network?
Who put in that several students found answers to the ACT on a p2p network? A statement of that magnitutde definately needs a source being cited along with it. Unless someone can find out where that info came from, I think it should be removed --Ichiroska
Incorrect Article Title
The official title of the ACT is the "ACT Assessment". It may be noted that a google search on "ACT Examination" within ACT.com or ACTStudent.com turns up only 3 results, while "ACT Assessment" turns up 644. A search of the whole Internet shows this article as the first result out of 37,000 for "ACT Examination". Comparatively, ACT.org is the top result out of 222,000 for "ACT Assessment".
BTW, does anyone have anything solid that suggests that the test was ever called "American College Test"? ACT says that the company itself used to be called The American College Testing Program, Inc., but doesn't mention other names for the assessment itself. This information does sound verifiable, but would somebody please provide a source to confirm it? --Jack 17:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The official name of the test was quietly changed from "ACT Assessment" to "The ACT" sometime in the last year or so. It was never called "The American College Test." --Zoofroot 05:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Separate Article for ACT
American College Testing (the company that administers the ACT Assessment) has no article on WikiPedia.com. ACT actually administers more than one Assessment-- while the ACT Assessment, of course, is by far the most popular. For practical purposes, ACT is the common name of the assessment, but also refers to the company itself. --Jack 18:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
SAT Slam
The SAT focuses on deception and tricks to fool students? This may be true, but I'm pretty sure it's not NPOV. Furthermore, can we say for sure that the ability to spot tricks is not a good (or acceptable) measure of intelligence or ability or whatever college entrance exams are supposed to test nowadays?
Paullusmagnus 12:57, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Major Changes
I am currently in the process of revamping this article and any suggestions would be helpful. --TAOW
Minor statistical inconsistency, but the article states anything above and including a 31 is the in 99th percentile, whereas when I got a 31 in late 2005, it was the 98th percentile.
The cumulative percentages given on score reports are based on the most recent three full academic years of scores, while the ones in the national press release are based on the most recent graduating class and only count the highest score for each student that tested more than once. Both ranks change yearly. --Zoofroot 05:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Analogies
Note that the analogies will be removed from the SAT in March. The reference here should probably be changed soon.
The SAT does try to trick students, but this isn't a secret and stating such shouldn't violate NPOV for the reason mentioned above: the ability to identify a "trap" is an acceptable measure of academic aptitude. On both Math and Verbal sections, as the question number increases the questions not only become more difficult but "tricky" because obstensibly obvious (but wrong) answers are given as choices. Additionally, on the Math section, the wrong answers are chosen by assuming common mistakes, wheras the ACT is more likely to randomly generate incorrect answers. In this way the SAT's mode of deception is patterned and thus is more fact than opinion. Of course, this is an article on the ACT. And while we're on the subject, the SAT long favored students with highly developed verbal skills because of the vocab necessary for a high score. The ACT, because it had trig, favored strong math students. The new versions of each tests have moderated these advantages (ie, removal of analogies on SAT and inclusion of higher level math problems), but they still exist. Jordan
- Hmm, pretty interesting stuff.
This article previously had that the ACT includes algebra 2 and trigonemtry, which aren't included on the SATs. But, the new SATs do include algebra 2, so I eliminated that from the sentence.
--chocolateluvr88 11:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
ACT SAT Conversion Chart
I just added a conversion chart from the College Board site, but I could use some help putting it into table form. Captain Jackson 05:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Out of 36 or 37
I just reverted an edit changing the maximum score for 36 to 37. I reverted it since it seems that the online information here says it is out of 36. Does anyone with more information illuminate? --Hansnesse 00:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I took the ACT in 2001. The highest score is indeed 36. Jade Peat 02:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
disambiguation
could we do a disambiguation page? ACT is also the acronym for Arlington Coalition on Transportation let me know what you think...Anlace 03:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Not the most notable ACT
I challenge the fact you have redirected ACT to this article, I question if this is by the most notable usagage of the acronym. If not then the redirect should be to the disambiguation page or the most notable term. --Martyman-(talk) 02:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
You actually have to go through two ACT disambiguation pages to get to the article.
Name Change
"ACT received its current name following a name change in 1997." What was it called before? I'm assuming that the author was referring to the organization, and not the test, but it isn't clear from the article.
How quaint
I believe the phrase "how quaint" should be removed; it is used as a sarcastic knock at the NCAA.
graph has no scale
The graph (Actgraph.jpg) has no scale indicated along the left side. There are 10 horizontal lines, so perhaps it represents a scale from 0 to 100. But this should be specifically defined. Scott Crevier 20:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
- The graph is a density curve. Therefore the area under the curve should equal one. In order for it to be one, the top of the y-axis should be about .1 (or 10%). I'm not sure if this is implied or should be stated. Perhaps a second opinion here? -- >|< shablog talk/cont 16:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
ACT on p2p network
My friend told me he aquired information from Kazaa on the ACT. He got the answers and ended up with a 30 on the ACT with no help.
-I dont' think this is really probable. There are about 20 different test booklets, all different questions, of the same ACT test. When you take it, you are required to fill in a circle on your answer sheet saying which booklet you tested from. To guarantee a high score on the ACT by cheating, you'd have to match the answers you found with the booklet you're given, which is memorizing a little under 300 ABCDE sequences. To entirely ENSURE that you could do this no matter what booklet you are given, you would have to memorize thousands of ABCDE sequences. If you have the memory to do that, you don't need to download answers from the internet.
Guessing penalty
"The ACT (unlike the SAT) does not take points off for wrong answers..." It could be my "old timers" disease setting in, but my recollection of the ACT policy on guessing answers is just the opposite of this statement; you are/(were) penalized for guessing answers on the ACT and not so on the SAT. I remember distinctly NOT guessing answers on problems that I could not solve on the ACT and I ended up being one of those fortunate few in 1975? who scored a perfect 36. One of my peers who was actually a better student than I did guess at an answer (that ended up being incorrect) and scored a 35. (Yes, we were both exceptional mathematics students). Maybe there was a change at some time, but I remember this quite distinctly.
Tony
I don't know how things were back in the day, but this is how it has been for at least the last decade: On the ACT, an incorrect answer is treated the same as one you leave blank. On the SAT, if a correct answer is worth 1 point and a blank answer is worth 0, then an incorrect answer is worth -.25.
The ACT changed significantly in 1989; for example, the score ranges for each subtest and maybe the composite were different. --Zoofroot 05:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Percentiles
Just did some recent changes, hopefully they're for the better. I added a percentiles chart, and altered the format section. This: http://www.act.org/news/data/06/pdf/National2006.pdf is an absolutely excellent source of raw data directly from ACT itself. I suggest you reference that source before changing any data, of course data can be skewed to do some 'amazing' things, so I did not want to delve to deeply and do any reinterpretation and create data overload. Huerndy 19:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
SAT-ACT conversion
The article sates that there is no "official" conversion method for the two tests, but i was able to find one from the College Board: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/satACT_concordance.pdf.
Could this be considered an "offical" chart? I added it to the article, but did not note it as such. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.164.65.186 (talk) 23:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC).
Historical comparison of ACT scores?
Unlike today, when I took the ACT in 1986 the maximum possible scores for each of the tests were:
English: 33 Social Studies: 34 Science: 35 Math: 36
Thus, a perfect score on all of the individual tests did not result in a composite score of 36. Does anyone know whether the maximum score at that time was 34 or 35 (depends on rounding, I suppose) or when all of the tests were changed to a maximum of 36? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.211.163.209 (talk) 00:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC).
Histogram
I am thinking that the graph "Average distribution of ACT scores" should be later in the article where score is talked about. If no one objects in seven days this will be done. Zginder 12:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC) I moved it.Zginder 20:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Accuracy of Score conversions
On May 5, 2007, user:71.136.45.125 (whose only contributions are this edit) added inserted the following bolded sentence:
- Although there is no official conversion chart, the College Board, who administers the SAT, released an unofficial chart based on results from 103,525 test takers who took both tests between October 1994 and December 1996 (in earlier years, ACT scores were deleted after a certain time period at some community colleges or they were just never reported to ACT in Iowa. Therefor, these statistics are not entirely valid) here. Several colleges have also issued their own. The following is based on the University of California's conversion chart.[1]
- ^ University of California Scholarship Requirement. (URL accessed June 26, 2006).
Now, to me this seems to be unreferenced WP:OR, but my knowledge of the history of this test is anything but comprehensive. Can any other editor vouch for its credibility, or more importantly, find a source? (In the interim I have put a {{verify source}} tag on it.) --YbborTalk 16:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- As there has been no discussion for three days, I have decided to be bold and remove the content pending further discussion. --YbborTalk 13:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)