Almost every ten years, the College Board overhauls the SAT. The upcoming change could be the largest in the test’s almost-100-year history. The SAT is soon shedding its paper booklets and going completely digital. It will be available to be taken on a laptop or tablet beginning with international students in 2023 and rolling out fully to students in the United States in 2024. While this change may feel daunting to some, many of the changes are thought to be student-friendly.
The More Things Change
The digital SAT (or dSAT for short) will be different in several ways. First, the test will be significantly shorter, lasting a little more than two hours. Long reading passages have been replaced by much shorter ones. Even the math word problems will be more direct. Students will also be permitted to use calculators for all the math questions on the test. And instead of waiting two weeks for scores, testers will get their scores in mere days.
The new test will only have two sections – a reading and writing section and a math section – with a break between them. This test will also be adaptive. This means the questions will either become more challenging or easier as the test continues. A strong performance in the first set of questions will allow students to answer the more challenging second set to receive the highest possible scores. On the other hand, a weaker performance in the earlier questions will offer an easier second set for lower scores.
Test takers will have more time overall to answer each question. And the test is said to be more secure, since each tester will be taking a slightly different variation of the exam, even in the same room.
The More They Stay the Same
Some things are not changing with the release of the dSAT. The test will still be scored on a scale of 1600, with a maximum score of 800 for both the reading and math sections. The best early preparation for the exam is still to read as much as possible. Analyzing the structure, information, and style of the passages will still be critically important. The math section of the tests will still focus on the fundamentals of basic math, Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry.
Students will need to eventually practice on-screen to learn the cadence of the new tests and to master its new set of digital tools. However, the core knowledge students will need to know doesn’t appear to be changing very much. Regular reading, paired with a careful review of fundamental math concepts, goes a long way toward raising scores now and on the dSAT.
I’m Still Nervous – HELP!!
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Contributed by Keith Wilkerson, Founder, CollegeThoughts – keith@collegethoughts.com