As part of a project I'm working on, I'm trying to compare the history of the SAT and ACT. While I found the information for the SAT, I'm having trouble determining when the ACT was first created. Any history buffs here who could help?
The ACT, which stands for American College Testing, was first instituted in 1959. It was originally introduced as a competitor to the long-standing SAT.
Interestingly, the ACT was created by Everett Franklin Lindquist, a University of Iowa professor. Lindquist’s aim was to design a different kind of test – while the SAT aimed to measure a student's aptitude and potential for learning, the ACT was designed to measure what a student had already learned in school. Thus, the ACT tests knowledge in areas such as English, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning.
In essence, the ACT was created to emphasize a high school curriculum-based standardized test as an alternative to the SAT's more generalized approach to measuring a student's abilities.
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