This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report.

Colleges and universities in the United States generally considerthree things when they decide which students to accept. Theyconsider the grades that a student has earned in school. Experts saymarks are the most important thing.

But officials also consider the difficulty of the classes thatthe student took. And they consider the scores that the studentreceived on college entrance tests.

Today, in part eight of our Foreign Student Series, we discussthe two tests known as the S.A.T. and the A.C.T.

The S.A.T. measures reasoning skills in mathematics and language.This includes how well a student reads and understands what is read.Students may also need to take S.A.T. subject tests in areas likehistory, science and foreign language.

After January, the S.A.T. will cost forty-one dollars and fiftycents, a twelve dollar increase. The international processing chargeis an additional twenty dollars.

Next March, there will be changes in the S.A.T. For example,students will have to write an essay. But they will no longer betested on word analogies. The test is now three hours long. Thechanges will add forty-five minutes.

You can get more information about the S.A.T. at the CollegeBoard Web site, collegeboard dot com.

The A.C.T. has tests in English, mathematics, reading andscience. It takes about three hours and thirty minutes to complete.Starting in February, students can also take a writing test. TheA.C.T. costs forty-five dollars to take outside the United States.The Web site for more information is actstuden.org.

Some schools may suggest that foreign students also take the Testof Spoken English or the Test of Written English. But most Americanschools require the TOEFL, the Test of English as a ForeignLanguage. That is our subject next week.

Internet users can find the reports in our Foreign Student Seriesat WWW.51VOA.COM. The State Department has information forinternational students at educationusa.state.gov.

Now here is a quick test. Do you know what A.C.T. and S.A.T.mean? A.C.T. stands for American College Test. S.A.T. used to standfor Scholastic Aptitude Test. Then it became Scholastic AssessmentTest. Now, the College Board, which owns the test, says S.A.T. doesnot stand for anything.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by NancySteinbach. This is Gwen Outen.