The PreACT: What We Know So Far
The ACT recently announced that it will debut its prelimary ACT–a kind of official practice ACT called the PreACT–in the 2016-2017 school year. The PreACT is a multiple-choice test meant to help sophomores prepare for the ACT. Until now, the ACT’s preliminary test was called Aspire, but the PreACT is different from the Aspire test in a critical way: it allows students to see their scores in English, Math, Reading, and Science on a scale from 1 to 36, just like on the real ACT.
The main difference between the PreACT and the official ACT is that the PreACT is a notably shorter test.
According the ACT, the questions on the exam will be past official ACT questions that have been reworked for the PreACT. This means that the PreACT should be just as difficult as the ACT. This allows students to have an accurate snapshot of how they might perform on the offical ACT. The PreACT, therefore, serves as a great guide for students aiming to increase their scores by working with private ACT tutors.
Individual school districts will choose when to administer the PreACT between September 1st and June 1st.
Differences Between the PreACT and PSAT
Unlike the PSAT, which is linked to the National Merit Scholarship, the PreACT has no associated scholarship contest. Many parents and students aren’t aware that the PSAT can actually be more important than the official SAT in terms of scholarship earning potential. The PreACT is no less valuable, but for purely instructive reasons. It provides students a realistic idea of where they stand on the material featured on the ACT.
The PreACT is also slightly cheaper than the ACT: it costs $12 per test for the PreACT and $15 per test for the PSAT. Although this may be of marginal interest to most students and parents, to us it seems like an obvious attempt to compete with the College Board and the SAT. The SAT and ACT are competitors, after all, and each hopes to dominate the market at the expense of the other.
Finally, the PreACT provides score reports much faster than the PSAT. Students who take the PreACT will see their scores in as little as 2 weeks. The PSAT, by contrast, takes around 6 weeks to post scores.
The Bottom Line
Students should prep for and take both the PreACT and the PSAT. The PreACT provides a realistic picture of where students stand to score on the ACT, and the PSAT has a prestigious and lucrative scholarship contest associated with it.
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