Act at NSA

Cross and Smith showing their love for the ACT

Acceptable College Testing?

By: Kelsey Lynch

LAKE PLACID, NY--- At the National Sports Academy, many high school seniors anxiously await their ACT results that may ultimately determine their future.

American College Testing, or the ACT, is a standardized test that is said to measure how prepared a high school student is for attendance at a college or university. The test consists of four multiple-choice sections: reading, English, mathematics, and science. The test takes about three and a half hours to complete. 

Some students struggle because of the long timed sections. One NSA student has actually fallen asleep during the ACT leaving 50 questions blank.

All NSA students are on a tight schedule that consists of school and training everyday. Considering this, the amount of free time is limited and with other schoolwork, studying for the ACT is generally not a top priority.

As I sat down with two of NSA’s seniors, Maggie Cross and Martha Smith, their faces were anything but thrilled when I brought up the three letters ACT. Their eye rolling gave me the impression that they didn’t want to relive their ACT experience.

As it turned out, my suspicions were right; they didn’t want to relieve the experience; however, they were willing to give some feedback on how the test went and what they liked or disliked about it.

As a new test taker, Maggie Cross had a lot more negative things to say rather than positive.

As I asked her how the test went, Cross-fired back with, “ IT SUCKED!” She then continued by saying, “I don’t think I did very well, I didn’t prepare much and the timing threw me off.”

Although Maggie walked into the test without studying she was still fairly confident that she would do well, having experience taking the SAT. And even though the ACT and SAT tests are very different from one another, they intend to measure the same thing. After taking both tests, Cross says, “ I will never take the ACT again.”

Maggie also cracked a joke saying, “The only thing better about the ACT is that you don’t have to fill in as many bubbles before the test starts!”

Martha Smith is an experienced ACT test taker, who recently took the test for the 4^th time last weekend. Her feedback was not thrilling but more positive then I expected. As she walked out of the ACT room she felt as if she “did better” then her previous experience.

Smith has no experience with the SAT therefore; she has nothing to compare it to. I asked her if she thinks the ACT’ is an accurate test and she quickly responded “no.” She feels, as though, “you can be smart and not apply yourself or you can study for a long time and not take test well.”