If you graduated high school and went on to college in the U.S., you probably took one of those 3 tests.
I took the P-ACT when I was a senior, because it's the only one my high school offered. It's also the only one that no college today accepts. It's been so long since colleges have accepted the P-ACT that Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry about the P-ACT, and you can hardly find anything about it online. I also took the P-ACT Plus as a high school sophomore, which was useless. It was like one of those vanity standardized tests everyone is forced to take now.
When I took the P-ACT as a senior, I had to go over to Thomas More College on a Saturday to take it. I have no recollection of what my scores were.
Just before high school, I had to take the Iowa Test of Essential Skills (or whatever it was called back then), even though I was a Kentucky resident. That test was horrible. But my high school absolutely worshiped it.
I took the ACT, scored an overall 32, got 80% of my tuition to a private university paid for with zero loans, then proceeded to not attend class and flunk out my first year.
ACT, got a 22
The P-SAT was offered to sophomores this year, but since colleges only look at Junior (11th) year scores, I saw no point in taking it.
My school counselor decided it would be a good idea for about ten students at the school the take the ACT... in seventh grade. I was one of the selected few. I only got a dozen points as I only ended up answering half of the questions.
Took the SATs...ended up with a 1010 out of 1600.
Iowa's...took them every year in elementary school. I usually did well on them.
I took the SATs. Long enough ago that the tests and their scoring have probably changed a lot. So it doesn't matter that I don't remember my scores, just that they didn't keep me out of my first-choice school.
Later, I overheard some undergrads in a movie line, talking about their PSATs (which didn't count for anything back then -- as ozarkman417 points out, they still don't). I was appalled.
I took the PSAT in 11th grade. Did rotten in the verbal section as it contained mostly words that i never heard of. On the other hand i got in the 99th percentile in the math portion.
With that I knew that taking the SAT would drag me down. So I took the ACT in 12th grade and thought it was a fairer test
Took the SAT's in 7th grade as part of a John's Hopkins program. Got a 510 in math and 370 verbal. My class was the last class under the old SAT. I got a 1230 (710 math, 520 verbal)
I took the SAT one time, late in my junior year of high school, with no test preparation or anything. Scored well enough that I didn't take it again. I scored higher on the verbal portion than on the math portion, though the difference was only ten points.
For the LSAT, I did self-study preparation–took an adaptive test that told me where I was weak and then focused on that part of the test (the logic games). It worked–I didn't miss any questions on that part of the test.
Quote from: kphoger on December 06, 2019, 02:48:46 PM
I took the ACT, scored an overall 32, got 80% of my tuition to a private university paid for with zero loans, then proceeded to not attend class and flunk out my first year.
Basically what happened to me, except I didn't skip class–I ended up in a math class that was too far above my level.
I took both the ACT and SAT but wound up doing quite a bit better on the ACT, so that was the score I used for all my college applications. I took those either at another local high school or at the University of Utah - except when the SAT location was randomly moved from Salt Lake to Weber State in Ogden only a week before the test. I took advantage of that opportunity to clinch SR 203 and SR 53.
I took the Iowa tests every year in elementary and middle school, except for a couple years where we took the "SAT" (Stanford Achievement Test). Then when I got to high school, my freshman and sophomore years I took the Aspire test which was sort of the ACT-produced equivalent of the PSAT. My high school had everyone take the PSAT in their junior year, but I was also "selected" to take it my sophomore year, which involved staying four hours after school, on the last day before fall break. It sucked.
I took the ACT as a junior, per the advice of my high school counselor. (The university I was planning to attend had an early admissions program based in part on one's ACT score.)
A couple of weeks later, I get called down to the school office to see the counselor. "Well, you won't have to worry about your admission being accepted. You scored a 36 on the ACT." That didn't sound very good to me (like, out of 100?) until she explained exactly what that meant. To this day, I don't know how that happened, since at best I was just an average test-taker. Anyhow, that score got me a scholarship that paid for my tuition for all four years.
Did the ACT (21 or 22), SAT (1150, IIRC), and even the GRE for grad school (1060)
ACT, SAT, LSAT (a gratefully aborted detour) and then GRE.
In my case, I definitely took the PSAT and SAT in high school, and probably also the ACT. I hadn't actually heard of a P-ACT before this thread. I don't remember my scores on any of these exams except for the PSAT, which was high enough to clear the threshold for designation as a National Merit semifinalist.
At the time I was applying to colleges, Kansas still had open admission to state universities for in-state residents. I also applied to two universities out of state and was accepted by one.