Revised SAT provide new challenge for students

As the material being taught in high school classrooms has shifted over time, it only makes sense that the test whose scores are considered for students’ college acceptance changes too.

Consequently, College Board, the company that has been responsible for the SAT for the last 89 years, will be updating their standardized test.

The changes College Board plans on making to the SAT are designed to better reflect the knowledge students acquire in high school classrooms. The upcoming revisions will impact students starting with the graduating class of 2017.

When College Board made their test’s debut in 1926, SAT was an acronym for the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

College Board’s website explains that the goal of the SAT was to “give equal opportunities for all students to demonstrate their skills and knowledge regardless of their economic status and their specific high school curriculum.”

Since then, the test’s name has changed twice, from the Scholastic Assessment Test to simply nothing at all.

The final name change when spokesman for College Board, Scott Jeffe said, “The SAT has become the trademark; it doesn’t stand for anything… The SAT is the SAT, and that’s all it is.”

The most recent content change in the material within the test was in 2005. Much has changed in high school classrooms since then.

In an article in the New York Times, David Coleman, the president of College Board, “criticized his own test, the SAT and its main rival, the ACT <American College Testing> saying that both had “become disconnected from the work of our high schools.”

Starting in March 2016, students will take the new SAT. The new PSAT will come out in October of 2015.

There are many major changes: There will be no penalty for wrong answers; previously, a quarter of a point was deducted. Multiple choice type questions will only have four answer choices instead of five, and the sentence completion type questions will be omitted entirely.

More familiar academic vocabulary will be tested, as opposed to the SAT’s famously obscure and rarely used words.

The use of a calculator will be restricted in a portion of the math assessment.

Trigonometry will now be included in the math portion, and will fundamental skills will be emphasized.

The written essay will be an evidence-based analysis of an argument, and is newly an optional portion of the test.

Regarding scoring, the new SAT will have two sections (math and evidence-based reading and written language) making it scored on a scale from 400—1600. In contrast, previous years saw three sections (math, critical reading, and writing skills) measured on a scale from 600—2400.

The Princeton Review, a company geared towards test preparation, has analyzed samples of the new test.

They report, “The content on the new SAT will be very similar to that which is on the ACT… Students will have to reason their way through this exam by tackling problems in a linear and sequential fashion; a student’s ability to process information quickly will be key.”

“But beyond the particulars,” a New York Times article explained, “Mr. Coleman emphasized that the three-hour exam — three hours and 50 minutes with the essay — had been redesigned with an eye toward reinforcing the skills and evidence-based thinking that students should be learning in high school, and moving away from a need for test-taking tricks and strategies.”

As early as this fall, College Board’s new SAT will require today’s scholars to practice the skills they’ll use tomorrow.