On the morning of Mar. 5, students all over the country sat for the brand new, College Board administered SAT. The new test is designed to reflect what students are actually learning in high school and what they are projected to learn in college.
Changes such as going back to the 1600 grading scale (with both critical reading and math scored at 800 each), making the essay optional, eliminating the challenging vocabulary, removing the guessing penalty and focusing on more relevant areas of math that matter most in preparing for college were all present in the exam. Many argue that the structure of the new SAT is similar to the ACT, which is now an increasingly popular testing option for students.
“An ongoing trend we’ve seen throughout the past few admissions cycles is the shift towards a two-test landscape, and what’s interesting is that even as some of the changes to the SAT make it more ACT-like, more students are taking both tests or considering the ACT option,” said Lee Weiss, vice president of college admissions programs for Kaplan Test Prep in a news release.
College Board merged with Khan Academy, a test prep site, and now offers free practice tests and questions for the new SAT, allowing for the access of practice to be more widespread.
Many students took to social media post-exam to rant, but with the new test, the reviews were harder to locate under #newsat. The reactions to the exam were mixed, but students can now collectively exhale because of their completion of the never-before-seen new SAT.
“The exam wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m glad the preparation process is over,” said junior Daniel Cano.
Whether you take the test one time, or three, it’s important to be prepared to the best of your abilities for the New SAT exam.
