ACT® or SAT®? An Expert Tutor’s Guide

Read time: 4 min  ·  Last updated: June 21, 2026

Choosing between the ACT and SAT is an important decision, but it’s not always the big deal that some people make it out to be. There are more factors to consider than just what’s on each test, though. Both tests have virtually the same content.

Each Test asks questions in an idiosyncratic way. Very few students actually do much better on one test than the other. It’s not a good idea to choose the ACT or the SAT based solely on the content or structure of either. There are still good reasons to prefer one over the other. Read on to learn more.

What’s on Each Test?

There are some important structural differences between the ACT® Test and the SAT® Test. It’s important to understand how each is different. But the structural differences alone shouldn’t be the single deciding factor when choosing between the two Tests.

SAT at a Glance

The SAT® Test has gone through many iterations since its inception. In recent history, the SAT® Test undergoes a substantial redesign approximately every 10 years. Smaller but significant updates occur in between the redesigns. This guide is updated for 2026.

The SAT® Test takes 2 hours and 14 minutes. There is a 10-minute break between the Reading and Writing and the Math tests. The SAT® Test has the following sections:

Students can use a calculator on all sections of the math. Students can bring their own approved calculator, but the testing application also features a powerful built-in Desmos graphing calculator.

The Test is fully digital. There may be some exceptions to take the Test with pencil and paper made for students with specific, documented learning disabilities.

The SAT® Test utilizes "section-adaptive questioning." That means the difficulty of Module 2 changes depending on a student’s performance in Module 1. Doing well on the first module unlocks a harder (but higher-scoring) second module.

There’s no Essay Section on the SAT® Test anymore, except in a very small number of school-day administrations required by specific states.

ACT at a Glance

The ACT® has permanently shifted to what was initially called the "Enhanced ACT." It is shorter and more flexible than the legacy test. By default, the core ACT® Test takes 2 hours and 5 minutes. The Science and Writing sections are completely optional.

The ACT® is offered in both digital and paper formats at most US testing centers (international students must take it digitally). Regardless of whether a student takes it on paper or on a screen, the format and timing remain exactly the same.

Unlike the SAT®, the ACT® Test is not adaptive. The questions are static and do not change based on a student’s performance.

Comparing the ACT® Test and the SAT® Test

By now, you’ve seen the differences in content at a high level for both the SAT® Test and ACT® Test. The differences are just that: differences. It’s hard to make a recommendation one way or another based on the content alone.

To understand the deeper differences between the two Tests, knowing a little bit about how each has changed is a big part of why I have a preference for one test over the other. The intention is merely to demonstrate the stark contrast in changes made by the SAT® Test versus the ACT® Test.

SAT Changes

Here’s a brief timeline of some of the biggest changes in recent history to the SAT® Test.

• 1994 – increased reading section time and questions; decreased rote vocab; added calc and multiple true options.
• 2005 – removed analogies from verbal section; removed quantitative comparison section from math; added writing section; increase max score to 2400.
• 2016 – more “evidenced-based” reading; less “obscure” vocabulary; reduced number of options for questions from 5 to 4; essay becomes optional; scope of math test narrows; removed guessing penalty; score max decreased to 1600.
• 2024 – SAT Digital; complete redesign of sections into adaptive modules; SAT shortened to two hours and 14 minutes; removal of the no-calculator math section.

ACT Changes

Here’s a brief timeline of some of the biggest changes in recent history to the ACT® Test.

• 1989 – Added Reading Section.
• 2005 – Added Optional Writing Test.
• 2025/2026 – Transitioned to the condensed format; Science made optional; Math answer choices reduced from 5 to 4.

Notice how little the core content has changed on the ACT® Test. While the test was recently shortened to give students more time per question, it is testing the exact same concepts it always has. There are ACT® Tests from as far back as 1998 that are still highly useful for prep today.

There have been some minor structural tweaks. For example, the ACT® Reading Test now includes a dual passage (usually social studies) where questions ask you to compare two related texts. Certain math concepts, like vectors and matrices, have also become slightly more frequent over the years.

The point isn’t whether changing is a good or bad thing. The point is that the ACT® Test has a massive, stable archive of highly relevant prep resources available for students, merely due to the fact that its core curriculum has changed a lot less than the SAT's.

Comparing Data Reporting

The data reporting on each test is vastly different. Reporting is an invaluable tool that enables students to correct their mistakes. The better the data, the easier it is to learn.

SAT® Test

The SAT® Test provides data analytics on its score report. The SAT® Score Report looks something like this.

However, it doesn’t map on exactly to neatly known, testable categories. The College Board® (the organization that makes the SAT® Test) doesn’t release detailed internal scoring information. It is unclear how to precisely map certain concepts onto their broad reporting categories, which makes studying a student’s specific mistakes harder.

A bonus to the SAT® Tests’s reporting categories is that they have partnered officially with Khan Academy®. If you decide to take the SAT® Test, definitely feel free to use Khan Academy. Professionally, I recommend students use Khan Academy for core concepts they don’t know. Khan Academy Digital SAT Prep

ACT® Test

First of all, the ACT® Test concepts have been much the same since 1989. The ACT® Organization has explicitly stated that despite the recent enhancements to the test's length, past materials remain completely relevant because the types of knowledge and skills measured have not significantly changed.

More to the point, the ACT® Test provides really useful data for studying. Each of their publicly available practice tests has a detailed reporting category. The ACT® Technical Manual clearly outlines the concepts in each category.

It’s really easy to know exactly which concepts a student is missing. For example, on a given ACT® English Test, questions 1, 15, and 50 might all be comma questions. Depending on how many of those questions a student got right or wrong, he or she would know exactly whether or not to study commas.

To be fair to the SAT® Test, a similar sort of reporting could be possible. The material is virtually identical between the two Tests. But without clear, granular data from the College Board® itself, achieving absolute certainty on how to efficiently target a student’s SAT® Test weaknesses is harder. I’ve helped many students achieve perfect scores on both tests — the slight degree of opaqueness on the SAT® Test makes optimized studying more difficult, but by no means impossible.

Concordance Between Tests

The ACT® Test and the SAT® Test both have concordance tables. That means that each Test has a mathematically equivalent score on the other Test. Even with all of the changes on both Tests, you can always find what an equivalent score would be. Fortunately, the reporting on concordance tables is very good and easily accessible for both Tests.

Colleges Requiring Test Scores

Similarly, all colleges that accept the SAT® Test also accept the ACT® Test. And vice versa. There’s absolutely no difference in terms of a college preferring one test over the other. A college’s preference shouldn’t factor in to your decision-making process, because no such preference exists.

Differences for Some Students

Very few students actually do dramatically better on the ACT® Test than on the SAT® Test or vice versa. It is incredibly rare. For most students, it shouldn’t be a concern. But for maybe 1 in 1000, one test might genuinely feel easier. Here’s my qualitative, not quantitative, description of each test's "vibe."

The SAT® Test

The SAT® Test tends to be highly specific. There aren’t many straightforward vocabulary questions anymore. Instead, the questions are literal in a way some students have a hard time comprehending.

Instead of testing a student’s reasoning ability broadly, the SAT Reading often asks students to find evidence and match that evidence directly to the answer choices. It tends to ask questions in a narrow way that causes a small subsection of students to overthink and struggle. The Math questions can also feel somewhat procedural compared to the ACT® Test.

This is neither good nor bad. It’s just a difference. Not every single person is naturally wired to think this way.

The ACT® Test

The ACT® is very rules-based in a way the SAT® isn’t always. Especially on the English Test, for example, a large portion of the questions are somewhat rote applications of grammar rules.

The Math Test is a little different. While a good deal of the questions are straightforward math rules, they’re seldom just one math rule in isolation. ACT® Math likes to pull from topics across domains: for example, asking you to solve a geometry question using algebra.

The ACT® Reading uses line reference questions in a slightly less literal way that’s nonetheless evidence-based.

The Science Test (if you choose to take it) feels like a misnomer. There’s almost no outside science required. It’s primarily reading graphs, charts, and tables quickly. (There are also science questions on the SAT® Test—they’re just interwoven into the reading and math modules instead of having their own dedicated section).

Conclusion

Ultimately, the decision between the SAT® Test and ACT® Test needs to be made by each student. I slightly recommend the ACT® Test over the SAT® Test based on my years of experience, the sheer volume of stable, highly-relevant material available for the ACT®, and the ACT's far superior method of data reporting.

There’s a huge caveat: My recommendation is only valid if a student accepts that studying and taking the test is still his or her responsibility. The test format matters much less than the effort put into mastering it.

What are your thoughts? Did you decide ACT or SAT? How did you decide, and what kind of difference, if any, do you think it made?

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