ACT vs SAT: which test is a better fit for your student? Students may take whichever test they prefer (assuming there are available testing locations for both tests). If you’re not sure which test your child would prefer, consider the key differences between the ACT and SAT. Some students find that the ACT caters to their strengths more so than the SAT, and vice versa. Need a quick side-by-side comparison of the tests? Check out this ACT vs SAT Comparison Chart.
Educational Testing Services (ETS) is an organization that provides a range of products and services, including research, test administration, test scoring, and more. This organization develops and administers AP, GRE, and SAT tests, among others.
Established in 1955, National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance. NMSC conducts the National Merit® Scholarship Program, an annual academic competition for recognition and college undergraduate scholarships.
Offers BRIGANCE Screening and Inventories products. Designed for use in elementary and middle schools, the CIBS-R is a valuable resource for programs serving students with special needs, and continues to be indispensable in IEP development and program planning.
Offers the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the Stanford Achievement Test, the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT). There are some specific guidelines for administering these tests, including requirements in some cases for a bachelor's degree, teacher certification, and/or special training in test administration. Also offered are test support products designed to help your child achieve higher test scores.
Future School online learning systems support your entire family in both the classroom and the home using only qualified teachers to ensure its educational services. They offer tutoring students in the home, classroom and after school facilities, providing both face-to-face, telephone and online assistance in the two core areas of literacy and numeracy. Future School has also many years experience in the development of Basic Skill Tests in mathematics and English covering years 3, 5, and 7, including the materials, delivery, marking, psychometrics and reporting to Education Departments, schools, and parents.
The Princeton Review offers personalized private tutoring, test prep, and admission products and services to help students knock down barriers and achieve their academic goals. Search for schools and careers, find test preparation courses, get information on scholarships, and more. Covered tests include: ACT, AP, PSAT, SAT, SAT Subjects, TOEFL, ISEE, MCAT, DAT, OAT, LSAT, GRE, GMAT, CFA, and USMLE.
When the first SAT was created, it was named the Scholastic Aptitude Test, signaling that its creators and the education world believed it to be a test of aptitude, or, a student’s ability to perform well in college. Aptitude tests supposedly measure talents that indicate possible achievement in the future, while achievement tests supposedly reveal how much someone has learned in the past. All these years later, we know the test never really did measure anybody’s aptitude to do well in college.
Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks. Traditional assessment, by contract, relies on indirect or proxy 'items'--efficient, simplistic substitutes from which we think valid inferences can be made about the student's performance at those valued challenges.
Many parents arrive in the world of gifted education with a report full of tests results, supposedly defining their child as "gifted." But more often than not, parents have more questions than answers upon receiving those test results. And just as often, the short answers from the psychologist, the school, the teachers, and other parents do more to confuse than clarify.
Catforms Testing Service offers the 1970 California Achievement Tests with their own answer sheets and computer scoring. Key features of this system include graphical results in color, cumulative comparisons from year to year, and a detailed analysis of strengths and weaknesses in each area of the test. In addition to the original 1970 norms, they also have their own norms, the Catforms Percentiles, which are updated annually from the tests they have on file. The Catforms Percentiles are not a national norm, but are useful in comparing your students' performance with others from Christian schools and home schools today.
Family Learning Organization offers standardized tests for homeschooling families. Through their Educational Assessment & Testing Service, tests may be obtained by parents to administer to their homeschooled children. Their services include standardized achievement tests (California Achievement Test, Fifth Edition), review of parent-administered assessments by a certified teacher, toll-free telephone answers to your questions about administering tests and interpreting results, and computerized score printouts for tests including Percentile Rankings, Grade Equivalencies, Stanine Scores and Scaled Scores, where applicable.
Crosspointe Educational Services is a mail order service that offers state-approved Survey and Complete Battery California Achievement Tests (CAT) in an effort to meet your testing needs. Their flexibility allows you your choice of testing dates and the opportunity to administer the test in the comfort of your own home; or you may choose to test with your support group or choose someone outside your home school to test your student.
John Holt's article in which he lists questions that should be asked of school districts' testing policies.
As home schooling grows as a movement, there is increasing politics from anti-home school forces to try to interfere with or legislatively control home schoolers. This has come to include legislative attempts to force home school students to take standardized tests along with public school students. But mandatory testing doesn't work in public schools, and it won't work for home schoolers.