By Patrick Fitz

Comparisons and contrasts between the two major American standardized tests, the SAT and the ACT, are frequently made. This has become more common as, over time, the tests have to some degree converged in material and methodology. There are still differences, and education consultants here in Dubai and Abu Dhabi would recommend that students sit diagnostic exams for both and then choose the exam that is best for them, only then enrolling in either ACT classes or SAT Classes.

Despite recent trends, there is still one section of the ACT that is highly distinct from anything on the SAT. This would be the ACT Science Test. It consists of 40 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 35 minutes. Thoroughly unique, this final section of the ACT exam warrants further scrutiny, and all students, even those with an admitted interest or deep background in science classes or material, would be wise to review the section before sitting the exam.

Below are some features of the ACT Science Test that all students should be aware of before sitting a diagnostic ACT exam or taking the exam for an official score.

Methodology

The ACT Science Test is designed to gauge students’ reading comprehension skills and numeracy through focused and detailed questions on science-oriented passages. No outside domain expertise is necessary. On the margins, a student with some familiarity of a given topic about which a Science Test passages is written may have a slightly easier time making sense of the material. That said, it is not worth studying actual science in order to prepare for this section of the exam.

This is because the Science Test is more interested in assessing students’ ability to understand information—both textual and visual—than it is their core knowledge of various science topics. Additionally, students are required to answer highly focused questions that demand of them careful consideration of massive amounts of data: to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. Making sense of more information than one needs is an important skill in the contemporary world, and students are asked to demonstrate this on the Science Test.

Material

Most of the passages on the ACT Science Test take the form of experiments: materials, methods, results, and interpretation. At first glance, this seems similar to certain Science-oriented passages on the SAT. Those, however, are often written as narrative, contain little to no infographics (visualized information), and are more interested in how the experiment is presented and discussed than the results themselves. Such passages are typically adapted from popular science news outlets, including magazines or websites, or from major news sources reporting on science for a nonspecialized audience.

Passages in the ACT Science Test, however, are not narrative reports of experimental data and would not be featured, as constructed, in newspapers or other outlets. The topics are wide-ranging and come from virtually every domain in science: biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, earth science, genetics—the list is endless. The experiment is the point in these passages, and this is what students are provided with.

Some background explanation, for general comprehension and context, is provided, and then the experiment is presented, including methods and setup, results (often depicted through infographics), and interpretation. Questions then ask for very specific pieces of information to be found in the text or infographics or for further interpretation of the data, including making inferences and weighing hypothetical situations.

Passages are written clearly and concisely but contain technical language and jargon that may or may not be defined. The language itself becomes something that must be confronted, as not every word or phrase is relevant to answer the questions that follow each passage. In this way, students must learn how to read past things they do not understand, which cuts against the usual strategies associated with reading comprehension assessments. Often it is more important to read generally rather than specifically, saving the real textual analysis only for questions that require it.

A final type of passage is the Conflicting Viewpoints passage, which provides less information about the topic and instead presents multiple interpretations or hypotheses concerning it, often in the form of student or scientist viewpoints. Those sitting the exam must then interpret these viewpoints and answer questions about them. This type of passage is usually less reliant on infographics to establish information and present the experiment or situation.

Infographics

Among the most difficult aspects of the ACT Science Test is the need to interpret visualized information presented as infographics. The term “infographic” is used here as a catch-all term to include charts, graphs, tables, schema, and assorted figures. These infographics are significantly more complex and elaborate than anything found in either the Reading or Writing sections of the SAT. Students would be well advised to devote sufficient time to learning about how to read and interpret these figures and how to answer questions about them, including basic arithmetic.

As with the text component of an ACT Science passage, not every data point or entry or label presented will be relevant when answering the questions. Students must be ready to analyze the information and sift through large amounts of visualized data in order to answer whatever is being asked of them.

Conclusion

The ACT Science Test assesses the ability of students to search for information and interpret results from scientific experiments and situations. Those with a science background may occasionally find a passage slightly easier to understand, but the exam is written in such that anyone can sit before it and answer the questions with the information at hand.

Education Consultants frequently recommend the ACT for students who are stronger in language or maybe slightly weaker in math, or for those who are fast readers or good with large quantities of information. This similarly holds for the Science Test. The ability to sift through technical language and visual graphics to find answers and derive meaning is the core competency tested on this section of the ACT.

In the end, SAT Prep is focused on the SAT while ACT Prep is focused on the ACT. For the latter, investing time in the Science Test will pay off later, as students will be better able to answer questions in both the English and Reading Tests, as well as to understand and interpret information in their daily readings outside of school and also in their academic courses.

- Hale Education Group