There are people who will just take the SAT or the ACT without studying for it. These people will usually get lower scores than they would otherwise. It is true that intelligent people and good students will tend to get favorable scores one way or another. However, even this will not always be the case.
After all, many skilled students will tend to be nervous about their test scores. Test anxiety can cause a person to perform much less effectively on any exam, regardless of the difficulty of the exam involved. Many people will tend to downplay the role of test anxiety in an examination situation. However, these people should look at the research involved.
People might be able to overcome some of their anxiety through the force of will and through brainpower alone. However, these people are still potentially making things more difficult for themselves for no reason. The fact is, the people who tend to be particularly good at the SAT or ACT are the people who have tried a lot of practice tests related to those two exams.
Studying for the SAT and the ACT will not be like studying for other exams, at least in some ways. However, people will need to find a way to master all of the different skills involved. In a way, becoming good at these tests is a little bit like becoming skilled at crossword puzzles.
Crossword puzzles will vary in terms of their difficulty level on an individual basis, because people will vary in terms of their vocabularies. Some words will be more familiar to different people than others. However, there is a sort of ‘language’ associated with crossword puzzles. People who find a way to learn this language will find it easier to approach almost all crossword puzzles.