Sitting the test versus using the SAT score you already have

We sell preparation for this test, so read the next sentence with that in mind. If your SAT score qualifies, use the SAT score and don't buy anything from us.

That's not modesty. It's the rule, and pretending otherwise would make every other number on this site less believable.

The three conditions

Two section scores against four subtests. That's the whole requirement, met by a test you sat years ago for a different reason. The full alternative-score table has the equivalent figures for the ACT, GRE and CLT rather than repeating them here.

What it saves you

USD 130 in registration fees, at least one appointment at a Pearson test center, and the preparation. Against that, the cost of using the score is finding the score report and sending it in.

The time saving is the bigger one. The published first-attempt pass rates are 64% for the essay, 68% for English Language Skills, 78% for Reading and 71% for Mathematics, and you have to pass all four. Multiply those and roughly a quarter of candidates clear everything on the first go, which is our arithmetic rather than a figure FLDOE publishes. If you land in the other three quarters you're waiting 30 days before you can retake the subtest you failed, and about four weeks for an essay result to arrive at all.

A qualifying score removes all of that.

When it doesn't work

• Your SAT is older than 1 March 2016. The cutoff is absolute and a strong score from an earlier administration counts for nothing. This is what rules out most career changers
• One section qualifies and the other doesn't. That's fine and it's the useful case: the rule works subtest by subtest, so you cover what you can and register only what's left, at USD 32.50 a subtest
• You never sat the SAT, or can't find the score. The College Board holds old reports and it's worth an email before you assume
• You need the general knowledge requirement met for something the exemption doesn't reach, which is a question for the Bureau of Educator Certification

The case for sitting it anyway

It's thinner than people want it to be, but it exists.

One reason is a clean Florida result on file. A passing subtest score doesn't expire, so a General Knowledge pass sits in your record permanently with no questions about which administration it came from. If your score report is hard to obtain, or you're near the boundary and unsure how the Department will read it, USD 32.50 a subtest is a cheap way to remove the ambiguity.

The other reason is a diagnostic one. Some people sit English Language Skills or Mathematics deliberately, exemption in hand, because they want to know where they stand before a subject area examination. That's a real motive and it's also the only one we'd call good value at full price.

What we won't do is dress either of those up as the normal case. The normal case is that a qualifying score should be used, and the site that tells you so is more use to you than the one that doesn't.