Major Changes Coming to the SAT in 2016 - Will Affect Current Freshmen Students

Is your son or daughter currently a high school freshman?  Have you heard the headline news about changes to the SAT?  Changes to the SAT will directly impact the way your son or daughter gets into college.

Yesterday, March 5th 2014, the College Board announced some radical changes to the SAT that will take place starting in the Spring of 2016.  Sorry current high school Juniors and Sophomores, these changes won’t affect you.  You will have to take the test before the arrival of this new SAT format.

So what is changing?

1.  Students will not be penalized for incorrect answers. 

Currently, students lose 1/4 of a point for every multiple choice answer that they mark incorrectly.  As a result of this point deduction, we teach students to eliminate answers before making guesses.  We also teach students to assess the difficulty level of a question before attempting a guess. Although effective on the current SAT format, on the new SAT, students will want to attempt a guess on every question. Interestingly, this is exactly the way scoring works on the SAT’s main rival, the ACT.

2.  The essay will become optional. 

Currently, the essay is mandatory.  It accounts for 30% of the Writing score.  

There are three sections on the current SAT format:

1. Critical Reading
2. Math
3. Writing

The Current Writing section includes two elements:

• The essay - 30% of the score
• Multiple choice grammar questions, which make up the other 70% of the score

This essay will no longer be required for students to complete. It might be "recommended" to be completed by many universities (especially top-tier schools), but this remains to be seen. It seems as though it will be a similar format to what the ACT does, and even though the essay is "optional", many schools "recommend" a student completes it.

The redesigned SAT will have two sections:

1. Evidenced-Based Reading and Writing 
2. Math

As well as an optional essay which will provide a separate score. Traditionally the SAT had always had a maximum score of 1600.  Since 2005, when the Writing section was added, it has had a maximum score of 2400.  Now that the test is returning to a two section format, it will once-again have a maximum score of 1600.

The essay itself will also change dramatically.  On the current SAT, students have 25-minutes to write a paper based on their studies, experiences, and observations.  As a results students are encouraged to create false examples to prove their points.

The new essay will be 50-minutes long. Students will be required to “analyze evidence and explain how an author builds an argument to persuade an audience.”  Students will be graded on the quality of their writing and analysis.  In this manner the SAT essay will be more like the Document Based Questions from an AP exam.  AP exams, by the way, are also designed and administered by the College Board.

Interestingly, this optional essay format is also a hallmark of the ACT.

3. The vocabulary will become less esoteric, meaning students won’t be tested on words like esoteric. 

What does esoteric mean?  Not widely known.  For years students have spent countless hours learning rarely used vocabulary.  On the new SAT, vocabulary questions “will focus on words that students will use consistently in college and beyond.” Once again, there are some similarities with the ACT.  Success on the ACT English and Reading sections does require vocabulary knowledge, but the ACT does’t really directly test vocabulary knowledge.  

4. The test will be offered in a digital format.

The new SAT will be offered both on paper and in a digital format.  For years grad school admissions tests like the GRE have been offered digitally, but the SAT and ACT have not.

Yet again, the ACT had announced last year that starting in 2016 it would offer a digital format for its test.

Over the last few years the ACT, for decades the less popular test, has overtaken the SAT as the most widely taken college admissions test.  High Schools and Colleges like it because they feel it more closely reflects high school curriculum than the SAT.  These changes to the SAT are most likely a reaction to that. 

This, however, is where the SAT/ACT similarity stops.  These next several changes are entirely unique to the SAT.

5. Math sections will cover fewer topics.

The new math sections will focus on three areas: 

1. Problem solving and analysis
2. The heart of algebra; 
3. Passport to advanced math.”  

Loosely translated this means it will focus on reading charts and graphs, linear equations, and functions.  In many ways these are the hardest elements on the current SAT math sections, so the math might get harder.

This is also very different from the ACT, which currently tests far more math topics than the SAT does.  As of 2016, the SAT will be testing even fewer of these topics.

6. Students will be required to use evidence in their answers.

Some of the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing questions will require students “to cite a specific part of the passage to support their answer choice.”

The SAT is changing, but it remans a test, and like any test, you can prepare for it and succeed.  At Tried & True Tutoring we will be closely following every College Board announcement so that we can continue to create curriculum and develop programs that will help you beat the SAT, no matter what the format.