Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Inside the New SAT

Volume 5 / Issue 2 / Winter 2005

The College Board is gearing up to release the new version of the SAT Reasoning Test. Parents and students have expressed concerns regarding the change in format. Recently, the Duke Gifted Letter asked Brian O’Reilly, the executive director for SAT Information Services at the College Board, to share with us the questions he is asked about the new SAT and to highlight the most important information about the changes to this college entrance exam. Here’s what he had to say:

When will the new SAT be introduced?

The class of 2006 will be the first class to take the new version of the test, starting in the spring of 2005.

What are these changes?

There will be several changes to the format of the test, as follows.

Critical Reading: Analogy questions will be eliminated, primarily because they don’t resemble what students study in the classroom and because they encourage preparing for the SAT by memorizing vocabulary lists. The best way to build vocabulary is to read widely, so more reading passages, with associated questions, will be added.

Mathematics: Quantitative comparison questions will be eliminated, again because they don’t resemble how students learn in the classroom. Algebra II content will be added, because most SAT takers study Algebra II. This will affect about 15-20 percent of the math section.

Writing: The most dramatic change to the SAT is the introduction of a new writing section, which will have three types of multiple-choice questions in which students find the grammatical error in a sentence, make a change in a sentence (e.g., by eliminating unnecessary words) to improve it, and make changes to a paragraph (e.g., by reordering sentences).

The Essay: The writing section will also have a 25-minute essay on a selected topic, designed to be accessible to all students. Students will need to take a position on the topic and support their position with an example or examples. Possible topics are the need for secrecy in government; which is more common, change or the status quo; and whether freedom requires discipline. The essay will be read and scored by two trained teachers. It will count for about 30 percent of the overall writing score, while the multiple-choice questions will count for about 70 percent.

Why is the College Board making these changes?

For two major reasons. The first, already mentioned, is to make the test better resemble what students do in the classroom. The second is to send a message to students and schools about how highly colleges value writing. But the addition of writing will also increase the validity of the SAT as a predictor of which students will be academically successful in college.

Why the addition of writing now?

This particular change was almost implemented in 1993, the last time the SAT changed. But the difficulty of scoring a half million essays and getting scores out on time prevented it. The problem has since been solved by technology. Each student’s essay will be scanned, the image retained, and the essay distributed to readers all around the country via a secure Web connection for reading and scoring.

What advice do you have for students preparing to take the new SAT?

Many students are relieved to hear that they have been preparing for many years just by going to school and learning. They should recognize their strengths and realize that if they have read widely, they should do well in the critical reading section. If they have read and written a lot, then both the essay and the multiple-choice writing sections will present no problems. Even much of the math section will be familiar from their math classes.

As in many activities in life, practice is probably the best preparation. Many students practice for the SAT by taking the PSAT/NMSQT (Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test) in their sophomore and/or junior years. For the new SAT, the College Board has produced a book of full-length sample tests that is available in bookstores now. In addition, new practice materials are available online at www.collegeboard.com.

Above all, parents and students should relax and take the exam in stride. Remember, on the SAT, unlike tests taken in school, no one is expected to get 100 percent. Out of the 1.4 million SAT takers in the class of 2004, only 944 earned a perfect score. That’s only 0.07 percent!
—Brian O’Reilly, MA

Brian O’Reilly is executive director for SAT Information Services at the College Board. He has been involved with all aspects of the SAT Program since 1988 and has been with the College Board since 1983.