Kuni wrote, The opinions expressed in this article are mine, and mine alone.
They do not reflect the perspectives of the publisher or anyone else associated with the publisher.
Also please note that the SAT has been “redesigned” multiple times since this article
was written in 2014 and the CLT has been added to the mix since then as well.—ED
I n April 2016, the College Board will implement the “Redesigned”
SAT. Right after the announcement came out, I got flooded with calls and
emails. Some parents panicked, thinking the changes were taking place
immediately.
The SAT Has Changed Before
In the last 20 years, the SAT has undergone many changes. In 1994, they
dropped the Antonyms section (this was more of a vocabulary exercise).
In 1995 they started doing this thing called “Centering,” which is
a fancy word for curving the scores.
In 2005, they added a Writing section and the notorious essay. This Writing
section was actually a throwback to earlier SATs that had a Grammar
sub-section. In addition, they dropped the Analogies and the Quantitative
Comparisons. They also changed the way the SAT would be scored, making the
Writing section a completely distinct section and independent score, so that
the maximum score went from 1600 to 2400, creating a great deal of confusion
that still exists 10 years later.
Why did they make these changes in 2005 in the first place?
This was prompted by a potential move by the University of California system.
They had threatened to drop the SAT as part of their admissions criteria. At
that time, students seeking admission to the University of California system
represented about 9% of the total SAT market. So, needless to say, if 9% of
your market share threatens to leave, you will be motivated to make drastic
changes, which is what happened.
In contrast, the ACT has undergone only one change in the last 20 years adding
an optional essay in 2005 to align its testing to those colleges who are going
to require the SAT essay. In 2012, for the first time, more students took the
ACT than SAT.
The real irony here is that in public colleges in California, only the nine
schools in the University of California System (UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis,
etc.) use the Writing section that they made such a fuss about including. The 23
schools in the California State System (Cal Poly, Long Beach State, Fresno
State, San Diego State, San Jose State, etc.) use only the Math and Reading
sections.
The Writing section has made the SAT less relevant, and the triple-digit
increase in those taking the ACT has certainly made an impact.
Why Is It Changing Now [2014]?
There’s a lot of rhetoric and “spinning” on why these
changes are being made. Most of it, in my opinion, is fluff. I believe the
College Board, under its new leadership, has realized it’s time to end
this 10-year debacle.
The 2005 SAT change caused incredible confusion in the college admissions
process. Indeed, many colleges considered the Writing section and the Essay to
be so inconsistent that some 85% of colleges do not even use the Writing or
Essay score for admissions and scholarships. If the vast majority of colleges
believe one-third of your test is irrelevant, it’s probably a sign to
change things.
Also, just to provide even more information on how colleges actually use test
scores, here is a link to an article that gives very specific
information on how colleges use scores and whether or not they will take the
highest score across multiple tests (a.k.a. “Super Scoring”):
blog.prepscholar.com/which-sat-score-do-schools-use.
One other small item is that in 2016, the SAT will be available on computer at
those test sites that have sufficient computers for students to use. The ACT
is going to beat the SAT to the punch on this, because they will be
introducing the ACT on computer in 2015. [The SAT will be going digital-only
in 2024, i.e., no paper tests any more. What happened with the ACT in 2015? I don’t know.
blog.prepscholar.com says the ACT CBT became available in the US beginning in September, 2020.—ED]
Common Core
There’s a lot of concern about the Common Core and the SAT. David
Coleman became President of the College Board in 2012 after a stint as senior
executive with the group that developed the Common Core. His association with
the Common Core has caused many to speculate that the SAT will be aligned with
the Common Core.
Although the rhetoric used by the College Board indicates the SAT is supposed
to reflect what a student learns in high school, the SAT itself still
requires—and tests—the student’s reasoning ability. Whether
or not a student is in a Common Core program will be irrelevant on the test.
Because Common Core is based on academic content, not
reasoning ability, I do
not foresee the SAT becoming a Common Core test. Indeed, the SAT has to
maintain a relative parity with the ACT, which doesn’t seem to be
changing and hasn’t changed in the last 20 years.
Actual Changes
I’m not going to list all the changes [from back in 2014—ED] but here’s a quick synopsis:
- The essay will be optional
- Scoring returns to the pre-2005 1600 point system
- A portion of the Math Section has to be done without a calculator
- No penalty for wrong answers (the SAT currently deducts points for wrong
answers; the ACT doesn’t)
- You can test on computers if the testing center has them
- This will “trickle down” to affect the “Redesigned”
PSAT
“Redesigned” Test Preparation
Another thing I found very curious about the new “Redesigned” SAT
is the College Board’s official position on formal preparation programs.
Prior to 2005, the official position was that test-prep courses really
didn’t work. The College Board insisted that the best way to prepare for
the test was to simply take practice tests and that it was a waste of money to
take expensive preparation courses. That changed in 2005 when both SAT and ACT
began to offer their own preparation courses that could be purchased through
their websites.
With the 2016 “Redesigned” SAT, the College Board has made a
180-degree turn on its perspective on test prep courses. In a major public
relations move, the College Board announced it has now teamed with Khan
Academy to provide a free online prep course in order to level the playing
field for “students who could not afford expensive test prep
programs.” So the College Board is finally admitting that test-prep
courses do help and actually have an impact on student performance on the SAT.
I say that this is a “public relations” move, because Khan Academy
has been offering free test prep online for several years. So this is not new,
and certainly no more than a cosmetic effort to help those who cannot afford
expensive test preparation. Since the Khan Academy courses have always been
free, they also are free for the College Board, which doesn’t have to
invest in anything. In fact, other than the announcement of the College
Board’s collaboration with Khan Academy, I have not seen that the
?College Board is making any significant donation or investment in Khan
Academy or its test-prep program. I would invite anyone who has seen any news
on this to share it with me.
Most test-preparation programs (including Khan Academy’s) focus on
increasing the student’s academic ability as a means to better prepare
and perform on the test. Pick up any of the major test-prep publications and
you’ll see a common pattern where they provide an academic review,
usually consisting of fractions, decimals, percentages, vocabulary, and
grammar. The assumption is that the more academically prepared student is, the
better the student will perform on the test.
Do High-School Students Know More than a 7th Grader?
Early-identification programs, such as the Duke Talent Identification Program
(TIP), have seventh graders taking the SAT and ACT. These provide recognition
for those who score higher than 50% of seniors and even higher recognition for
those who score higher than 90% of seniors.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain how the SAT can “test the
skills you’re learning in school” and “test your knowledge
of reading, writing and math—subjects that are taught every day in
high-school classrooms” when you have seventh graders scoring higher
than seniors, having never taken a high-school course.
Indeed, my own experience of preparing students for the Duke TIP for almost 20
years, training seventh graders in logic and reasoning, and providing them
test-taking tools and techniques have yielded more than my share of seventh
graders receiving recognition for scoring higher than most seniors on the SAT
and ACT.
What to Do? (No Need to Panic)
So, to conclude, the SAT is going to change. There are some substantive
changes, such as dropping the Writing section, but overall, the SAT is simply
looking more like the ACT than ever before.
The College Board does have enormous free resources on its site, and I urge
everyone to exploit these. In my own prep course, we require students to go
through the sites in their first lesson. I do not recommend their Official SAT
Online Course, but I do highly recommend their
Official SAT Study Guide book—which I use in my course.
My final advice on the SAT and ACT: Take both . . . early
. . . and often.
