It's that time of the year again, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and high school seniors are taking 4 hour tests in order to go to college! yep, i just completed the ACT test plus a 30 minute essay question. i went to sleep last night kinda late (somewhere past hour number 11) so i was fairly exhausted when i woke up bright and early at 7. AM that is. anyway, i got ready, the picture i posted below is AFTER the ACT...haha...not actually...but thats definitely how i felt! i made it to the school about 750. i checked in and seated myself in room 12. the test went fairly well, i felt confident about most of the answers, although i felt like i didnt quite have enough time to finish each section. on almost each section, i had to guess on the last 2-5 questions because i didnt have enough time to figure them out before time ran was up. anyway, there were some crazy grammar questions, and the science part was totally foreign to me, since im used to the old SAT way of doing things. finally i got to the essay part. the essay was on whether or not social skills should be taught in school. that essay was the one part that i think i really did well! mom and dad thought i took too serious of a standpoint on the issue, but i still think i did a good job. i made an intermediate score on the SAT essay, which i knew i did bad on, since i had a bad intro, a slight better body, and then i stopped in midsentence before i reached my conclusion! on this one, i only wrote about a page and a half, but i covered the point completely and finished with a really strong conclusion, which i think will give me some extra points, since a conclusion can make or break an essay. probably the funniest part of the essay section was in the instruction page. the intructions were "to write an essay in 30 minutes in English." WELL....duh! i mean come on...whoops...i almost wrote a spanish essay! whew, close call there! anyway, i think i did well, since my essay was legible and in the correct language! i should get several points just for doing that! to finish up, it wasnt as terrible as i made it out to be, although it is alot different from the SAT. the SAT requires a lot more logic and reasoning, whereas the ACT seems to be more a measure of what a person knows. personally, i think the SAT does a better job of measuring student performance, but im not complaining if i get a really high score on my ACT. plus, a high ACT score can even count toward giving someone credit in certain classes (mainly in utah though). overall it was an exciting morning, and im glad to be done with it! the only bad news, is that in two weeks, its back to the grind, with SAT number 2 on oct 8! so for all u standarized test takers out there...take it easy and make sure u always use a soft, lead number 2 pencil.

2 comments

1. Kristen on 9/25/2005 7:33 AM

   enjoyed the post, adam. thank goodness for those directions, huh?!

    
2. sj on 9/25/2005 2:55 PM

   Can't wait to see those scores. You always do well on those type tests.