Objective To assessment short-term prognosis in patients with acute on chronic liver failure , several scoring systems were compared. Methods Two hundred and sixteen patients with acute on chronic liver failure were divided into survival group and death group according to the results of 90 days after admission.CTP , MELD,APACHEⅡ, SOFA and SMSVH score were calculated.After ROC curves were performed ,the areas under the curves of these scoring systems were compared. Results The areas under the ROC curves of MELD, APACHEⅡ, SOFA, CTP and SMSVH were 0.88, 0.76, 0.89,0.79and 0.69,respectively. The areas under the curves of SOFA and MELD were larger than the APACHEⅡ, CTP and SMSVH (P<0.05). There was no difference between the SOFA and MELD (P>0.05). The area under the curve of CTP was larger than the APACHEⅡ, but there was no statistically significant difference (P > 0.05). The area under the curve of SMSVH were less than 0.7. Conclusions The SOFA, MELD,CTP and APACHEⅡcan predict the short-term prognosis of acute on chronic liver failure. The SOFA and MELD are the best scoring systems.CTP,APACHEⅡ are better than SMSVH. SMSVH fail to predict the prognosis of acute on chronic liver failure.