ACT test before you start college? what exactly is it for?

Question

what happens if i fail or score low?

Answer 1

The ACT is designed to measure high school students' general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work. Some colleges require the ACT, whereas others require a similar test, the SAT.

Admission standards vary from college to college but most colleges will look at both your grades and test scores, as well as your extra-curricular activities, before deciding to admit you. Some students are not good test takers but if they have uniformly high grades in their high school courses, a college may overlook rather low test scores.

Some students who were goof-offs in high school have a rather low GPA but exceptionally high test scores. That tells a college that the student has the ability to handle college work if he becomes highly motivated.

This is the ACT site for students:
http://www.actstudent.org/

This site helps you understand your scores"
http://www.actstudent.org/faq/taken.html

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Answer 2

The ACT is an alternative to the SAT as an admissions test to college. Because the types of questions are a little different, some people do better on the ACT than they do on the SAT. Not all colleges accept the ACT, but many people do take it because of their strengths. The reason for these admissions test is to give a sense of your aptitude for college. If the universities looked only at your GPA, they would be comparing apples to oranges, because not all teachers have the same idea of what level of work should get an "A" or a "B". The test is the same for everyone who takes it, so if your grades are really high, but your test scores are low, they may assume that the grading was easy at your school. If you do well on the test, but your grades weren't too strong, it may tell them either than you are an underachiever or that your school's grading standards are unusually tough.

If you do poorly on the ACT or SAT, you can retake it, although very few scores change dramatically unless the student took a prep class in between (even then, changes of more than 10 or 20 points are relatively unusual). If you still do poorly, the college options available to you will be somewhat more limited. You can still go to a community college and transfer as a junior, and at that point no one looks at the test scores any more.

Answer 3

You cant "fail" the ACT. Its basically another assessment of your knowledge, similar to the SAT, but only some colleges accept it. Some colleges use it to make admission decisions.