The ACT is 25% geometry, 6% trigonometry and 5% analytic geometry, so you better review your geometry! What makes the test challenging is how many subjects are included on the test, so to get a high score you have to invest time in rarely used facts about absolute value, logarithms, matrices and sequences & series. So, get LOTS of practice by doing several free practice tests and get some tutoring to help kick start your studying.
The Bright Futures Scholarship is funded by the FL Lottery. It pays for tuition and educational fees, but it does NOT pay for room and board, so it does NOT cover all costs. In fact, room and board are more expensive than tuition for FL residents, so please understand Bright Futures does NOT make college free, it just covers tuition and some fees. To get a truly full ride, students must become National Merit Scholars by scoring exceptionally high on their 11th grade PSAT, and then they are awarded the Benacquisto Scholarship. My son’s Benacquisto Scholarship, along with a scholarship from USF, will pay about $125,000 over four year. So, becoming a National Merit Scholar can be very rewarding if you stay in Florida.
In order to earn the 75% tuition Bright Futures Scholarship, students now need a score of 1210 (81st percentile) and 1340 (93rd percentile) for a full tuition scholarship. ACT composite score requirements are 25 (78th percentile) and 29 (90th percentile). Super scoring is permitted.
In order to earn the 75% tuition Bright Futures Scholarship, students now need a score of 1190 (81st percentile) and 1330 (93rd percentile) for a full tuition scholarship. ACT composite score requirements are 24 (78th percentile) and 29 (90th percentile). Super scoring is permitted.
Need to boost your SAT or ACT math score to qualify for Bright Futures? Schedule a tutoring session today. We have helped many students qualify, perhaps we can help you too!
Thank you so much Kennon! I could not have done it [earned the Bright Futures Scholarship] without your help and support!
O. D.
There are other requirements for the scholarship as well, such as GPA (3.0 and 3.5) and volunteer hours (75 or 100) or paid work hours (100). This FL government website has all of the most recent eligibility details. Once in college, students must continue to meet GPA requirements each year as well.
Please read the information on our SAT Frequently Asked Questions page regarding how difficult it can be to earn a Bright Futures Scholarship.
[My daughter]’s SAT math score went up 100 points! Thank you so much!
L. B., September 2019
For the past few months, my daughter has been working with Kennon on ACT Math prep and she has already seen an improvement in her score. He does a great job with explaining all types of math problems and equations and knows how to motivate his students to achieve their goals. He is very passionate about teaching his students and watching them learn and progress. Transformative Tutoring has been a great experience!
A. C.
My short answer: Take the SAT and avoid the ACT.
Here’s why (full table of reasons are at the bottom of this page): The SAT and ACT are radically different math tests. After the 2024 redesign of the SAT, nearly every student will find the SAT math section to be far easier than the ACT. The Desmos graphing calculator included in the SAT is extremely powerful and (with some training) can be used to solve about half the questions on the test. I’m not happy about it, but it is the reality. In the past the SAT had a non-calculator section, so I had to be sure that students actually knew math, now I can take a student with little (or sadly no) understanding of math and get their score into the 600+ range with very few hours of tutoring. Again, I don’t like it, but it’s true. To get similar results with an ACT student might take 30 hours of tutoring. Students going for elite math scores (700+) have complained that the second half of the SAT math section can be quite hard, but the practice tests don’t really show that. Because the SAT no longer releases actual exams, it is hard to get a grasp on how hard it truly is. Needless to say, I have spent a lot of time creating additional materials to try to prepare these high scorers and although I didn’t have a student get a perfect score in the first year, I had the highest percentage of 700+ scores of any year.
I care about my students and their families. I do not want you to waste your money. I am also extremely busy, and I cannot afford to waste my time. I would much rather help more people (using less time per student on the SAT) than fewer people (by billing endless hours per family for the ACT). My calendar is generally maxed out, so I need to optimize the use of my time so that I can help as many families as possible.
Students tell me all the time, “I want to re-take the ACT because my first score was so terrible, that it offers the most room for improvement.” That’s nonsense. If you are terrible at something, how much work do you think is required to become good at it? A lot!! Don’t think for a minute that starting from the bottom is the fastest way to the top. It isn’t.
If you have not taken either test, do a an official ACT practice test and then an official SAT practice test to see which they are more comfortable with. Do the ACT test first because it does not provide any formulas, whereas the SAT includes geometry formulas. This should help you get an unbiased assessment of how many geometry formulas you still remember. Obviously, it is your overall score that you are most interested in, so if you are doing far better on the non-math sections of the ACT, it might be worth taking on the challenge of the ACT math section. In my experience, the ACT will take significantly more studying and tutoring to raise your score significantly, and this difference has only become more drastic with the new SAT.
| SAT | ACT | |
| Bright Futures – 75% Scholarship | 1190 (2026) | 24 (2026) |
| Bright Futures – Full Scholarship | 1330 (2026) | 29 (2026) |
| Questions | 44 questions split into two modules | 60 questions |
| Time Allowed | 70 minutes (35 per module) | 60 minutes |
| Free Practice Tests | Seven | One |
| Type of Questions | Multiple choice, but some short answer (4 choices per question) | All multiple choice (20 easy, 20 medium, and 20 advanced) (5 choices per question) |
| Difficulty | A couple of the questions are hard, but most are simple and there’s no precalculus. The wording confuses many students, but tutoring and practice pays off. | The questions often three or more sentences, but direct. Precalculus is about 6 questions. |
| Adaptive | Yes. This simply means that if you do poorly on the first module, you get a low score, and the second module is easy (but appropriate for low scoring students). This allows the SAT to more accurately rank low scoring students because they get another 22 easy questions to assess/rank them. | No. But the test has a higher percentage of hard questions than the SAT. |
| Calculator | Desmos (extremely powerful & not to be underestimated), and/or bring your own | Bring your own |
| Summary | If you don’t know how to do something, maybe the Desmos calculator can do it for you. | It’s a race against time. Lots of questions that must be answered quickly. |
| Geometry Formulas | Provided. | Must be memorized. |
| Geometry | 15% or so | Nearly 50% |
| Probability | 2% | 10% |
| Trig. | 2% (1 question, sometimes 2) | 7% (5 questions) |
| FOIL, Parabolas | 15% (single biggest topic) | 5% |
| Algebra | 50% or more | 20% or less |
| Topics | Heavy on: Parabolas FOIL & Factoring General Algebra & Lines Systems of Equations Light on: Trig (1 question) Far fewer topics to learn. There’s only 44 questions after all! | Heavy on: Geometry Moderate on: Trigonometry/Precalc Lots of single questions on a wide variety of topics that are NOT on the SAT: Logarithms Matrices Imaginary Numbers0-2 Permutations Sequences & Series |
| Separate Science Score/Section | No | Yes |
The listing of our summer enrichment programs for 2019 is now available online. We have courses for middle school, Calculus, Computer Programming and SAT Test Prep. Learn all about the summer programs here.
Transformative Tutoring will be at the Family Living’s Summer Camp Fair at Nathan Benderson Park on Saturday, March 30, 2019 from 10 AM until 2 PM. Register online for free admission to the Camp Fair or visit the tutoring studio for a free ticket or two.
Our summer camp schedule for 2019 is as follows:
Pricing and registration for all camps will be available online soon. Please use the Contact Us page to express immediate interest. All camps have a maximum of 6 students.
Visit our booth to enter your guess at the number of erasers in our giant jar of erasers for your chance to win $100 and 2 free hours of tutoring.
Practice materials are available here: https://fsassessments.org/students-and-families/practice-tests/
One of the best years of my life involved making the six Algebra Explained apps that sold over 10,000 copies in the Apple App Store. The app is no longer available, so I decided to upload the videos to YouTube in hopes of helping students learn and enjoy algebra. If you need help with fractions, order of operations, negative numbers, solving equations or inequalities watch a few of the videos on YouTube and hopefully they will help. If you watch carefully, you might even catch Carter doing a cameo appearance or two!
After discussing the PSAT with a parent this weekend, I decided it was time to start encouraging students and parents to take the PSAT seriously! Often, students are told not to study for the PSAT, but that simply does not compute with me. If it is truly your chance to practice for the SAT, why not show up to practice ready to practice!?
The PSAT score is not used in college admissions, but it is the score used to help students earn National Merit Scholarships. Although only 1% of students earn National Merit Scholarships (which generally max out at a single award of $2500), these awards can also be used to qualify for the Benacquisto Scholarship
Of course, a great PSAT score can also fill your email inbox or regular mailbox with literature from great schools that might be of interest to you!
Additionally, some high school programs, including Pine View, may restrict students with low PSAT scores from taking certain (AP) classes.
So, if you are interested in studying for the PSAT that you will take in October of your junior year you can visit the our PSAT practice
We have added seven new students
We can now comfortably fit six students at the main table. Six is our limit for after school study groups and SAT/ACT test prep. As the schedule gets too busy to accommodate all students for one-on-one sessions, please consider joining a group. They are meant to be convenient and affordable.
If you need a study group at a different time, contact us and we will see if we can gather enough students to start more after school study groups.