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.

Plain and Simple – The SAT is far easier

The SAT and ACT are radically different tests when it comes to the math section. 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 (for now). 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, and the SAT no longer releases actual exams, so it is hard to get a grasp on how hard it truly is.

If you still have doubts

In this post, we will attempt to outline the key differences and hopefully help you select the test that might be best for you. Before registering for one test or the other, check with your favorite college or university to be sure they accept whichever test you plan to take.

Assess Your SAT & ACT Skills First

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 list any formulas, whereas the SAT does include 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.

Side by Side Comparison

	SAT	ACT
Bright Futures – 75% Scholarship	1210 (2025) 1190 (2026)	25 (2025) 24 (2026)
Bright Futures – Full Scholarship	1340 (2025) 1330 (2026)	29 (2025 and 2026)
Questions	22 questions each module (there are 2)	60 questions
Time Allowed	35 minutes per module	60 minutes
Type of Questions	Mostly multiple choice, but some short answer (4 choices per question)	60 multiple choice (20 easy, 20 medium, and 20 advanced) (5 choices per question)
Difficulty	A couple of the questions are harder. Generally, all of the wording confuses many students, but tutoring and practice pays off.	The questions are shorter and often require only one step and a simple formula.
Calculator	Desmos (extremely powerful) Bring your own	Bring your own
Summary	Think deep thoughts, understand the concepts, and be a good problem solver.	It’s a race against time. Lots of easy questions that must be answered quickly.
Formulas	Many are provided.	Must be memorized.
Geometry	15% or so	Nearly 50%
Probability	2%	10%
Trig.	2% (1 question)	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.	Heavy on: Geometry Moderate on: Trigonometry Lots of single questions on a wide variety of topics: Logarithms Matrices Probability Statistics Permutations Sequences & Series
Separate Science Score/Section	No	Yes (mainly reading complicated graphs)