ACT’s and SAT’s:
The Good, the Bad, and the Truth by Hannah Goodman
Anxiety rushes through you. Your senses sharpen and you can hear everything. Off to your left the clock ticks, counting down the seconds, erasing time. To your right is that guy who you vaguely recognize from either history or biology class; you are not quite sure. You can see delicate beads of sweat slowly rolling down his face. The papers in front of you are filled with bubbles labeled a. b. c. d. or e. Only some of the bubbles are filled in and time is running out. The girl in front of you chews on her number two pencil, and the girl next to her nervously taps hers against the desk. Somebody coughs, another person sneezes. You look down at your SAT. The test you are currently in the process of taking holds your future. However, many question whether or not the American College Testing Program, ACT, and the Scholastic Aptitude Test, SAT, are accurate and effective ways to measure a student’s knowledge. In 1901, before the SAT and ACT, students who applied to Columbia, Barnard and New York University were the first to take College Board exams. High school teachers and colleges created the College Boards, exhausting essay tests in subjects such as chemistry, psychics, Latin, history and math. “The College Board was the standard-setter for American education,” educational historian Diane Ravitch stated. “[It] said ‘these are the works we want students to study’” (Barnes, 2002). Psychologist Carl Brigham, a firm believer in IQ testing, created the Scholastic Aptitude Test in 1926. Brigham thought he would be able to predict an applicant’s future success in college. In 1959, 33 years after the creation of the SAT, the ACT was created due to the increase in students enrolling in college. The ACT is the SAT’s biggest competition. However, the ACT differs from the SAT in that the SAT was supposed to measure a student’s ability to learn, where the ACT measures what a student already knows. How can a student’s knowledge be measured if the student has not yet learned the information? Brigham began to realize that the SAT could be detrimental to school curriculums. He did not want teachers to start teaching students the test (Barnes, 2002). 38