Composition of the 3-Hour Exam
The SAT/ACT Diagnostic consists of seven sections – the three sections on the SAT, plus the four sections on the ACT, excluding the essay. Each section is between 20 and 27 minutes long, and contains the number of questions and sections needed to simulate the pace required on each exam. The student will be tasked with completing 200 exercises in all.
SAT Sections
- Reading 24 questions, 25 minutes
- Writing 35 questions, 25 minutes
- Math 20 questions 25, minutes
ACT Sections
- English 45 questions, 27 minutes
- Math 25 questions, 25 minutes
- Reading 30 questions, 27 minutes
- Science 21 questions, 19 minutes
Essays are not included on the SAT/ACT Diagnostic. There is rarely a significant difference in a student’s SAT essay score and their ACT essay score, and thus we have found it unnecessary to include an essay on the exam.
Please remember: The SAT/ACT Diagnostic was designed to help students determine whether they’re better at the ACT or the SAT. It was not designed to generate precise scores that predict how they will do on the actual SAT or ACT. The generated comparison scores reflect how a student did on the diagnostic the day that he or she took the diagnostic.
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The SAT/ACT Diagnostic Comparison Report
SAT v. ACT Comparison Summary
The comparison summary is a succinct recap of the student’s results on each section, as well as his or her overall scores. The comparison summary also notes (based on the overall percentiles given) whether a student is stronger on the SAT, ACT, or whether the results of the exam are too close to call. In addition, the comparison summary gives the comparable SAT score range based on the student’s ACT result, or comparable ACT score based on their SAT score range, for ease of comparison.
Subject Area Overview
The subject area overview is a one-page breakdown of each section’s results. The student can see the number of questions answered correctly, answered incorrectly, and omitted on the exam. In addition, the student can see these numbers for each style of question on the exam. This page is most useful for identifying a particular type of problem- for example, “improving sentences” – that a student is weakest at.
Section Summaries
The section summaries are a top-level breakdown of each individual section. The student sees their scaled score, the percentile it corresponds to, the breakdown of questions answered correctly by difficulty, and a quick overview of how best to improve that particular section’s score. It’s a quick way to analyze why a student did particularly well or particularly poorly on a given section.
Question Responses by Section
On the page the section summaries, students will also be given a list of the questions on the test – green if answered correctly, red if answered incorrectly, and black if left blank – as well as the correct answers, and more importantly, the particular topic and difficulty corresponding to each question. A graph is provided, so when a student looks at the report, it’s immediately obvious what topics they need to focus on during prep.
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