The Student Room Group

SATs/ACTs in england?

To clarify sats and ACTs are a set of tests that are taken to help boost your chances if getting into college and are primarily taken i think in highschool junior senior year?

But do u think some type of test similar to these should be put in the uk edu system or a gcses and alvels already a good system???
No, I don't.
The US education system needs these tests for good reason. Whilst GCSEs and A Levels are taken at the end of two year courses and test your learned knowledge, memory, performance under pressure and time management, in the US, the GPA (Grade Point Average) is taken from results of homework, projects (coursework), participation/attendance, and in class tests (pop quizzes). Therefore, US universities need to have a test to asses the logic that students can come with under pressure, in a real exam environment.

Thus, in the UK, such tests would be widely redundant, because GCSEs and A-Levels test this already. That being said, for certain subjects, UK universities require separate tests (such as the LNAT for Law and the UCAT for medicine) to test specific skills that might not be so obvious in A Levels.

I think the system as it is is good enough. Along with the personal statement, academic reference and interviews (sometimes), I think that unis in the UK can get quite a clear idea of their future students and therefore SATS/ACTs would be unnecessary and extra stress for students.

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