SAT

The SAT Reasoning Test (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test) is a standardized test for undergraduate college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a non-profit organization in the United States, and was once developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). ETS now administers the test.

Structure of the Test

SAT consists of three major sections: Critical Reading, Mathematics, and Writing. Each section receives a score on the scale of 200–800. All scores are multiples of 10. Total scores are calculated by adding up scores of the three sections. Each major section is divided into three parts. There are 10 sub-sections, including an additional 25-minute experimental or "equating" section that may be in any of the three major sections. The experimental section is used to normalize questions for future administrations of the SAT and does not count toward the final score. The test contains 3 hours and 45 minutes of actual timed sections, although most administrations, including orientation, distribution of materials, and completion of the biographical sections, run about 4 hours (10–25 minutes per sub-section) long.

• Takes three hours and 45 minutes
• Consists of 10 separately timed sections:
• Three sections test critical reading (70 minutes total)
• Three sections test mathematics (70 minutes total)
• Three sections test writing (60 minutes total)
• One variable (unscored) section tests critical reading, mathematics, or writing (25 minutes total)
• Assesses critical thinking and problem solving skills in three areas: Critical reading, Mathematics and  Writing
• Includes three kinds of questions:
            o Multiple-choice questions
            o Student-produced responses (mathematics)
            o Essay question
• Is machine-scored, except for the essay

Critical Reading

The Critical Reading, formerly verbal, section of the SAT is made up of three scored sections, two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section, with varying types of questions, including sentence completions and questions about short and long reading passages. Critical Reading sections normally begin with 5 to 8 sentence completion questions; the remainder of the questions are focused on the reading passages. Sentence completions generally test the student's vocabulary and understanding of sentence structure and organization by requiring the student to select one or two words that best complete a given sentence. The bulk of the Critical Reading questions is made up of questions regarding reading passages, in which students read short excerpts on social sciences, humanities, physical sciences, or personal narratives and answer questions based on the passage. Certain sections contain passages asking the student to compare two related passages; generally, these consist of short reading passages as well as longer passages. Since this is a timed test, the number of questions about each passage is proportional to the length of the passage.

Mathematics

The Mathematics section of SAT is widely known as Quantitative Section. Mathematics section consists of three scored sections. There are two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section, as follows:

• One of the 25 minute sections is entirely multiple- choice, with 20 questions.
• The other 25-minute section contains 8 multiple-choice questions and 10 grid-in questions.
• The shorter section is all multiple-choice, with only 16 questions.

Notably, the SAT has done away with quantitative comparison questions on the math section, leaving only questions with straightforward symbolic or numerical answers. Since the quantitative comparison questions were well-known for their deceptive nature—often turning on the student's recognition of a single exception to a rule or pattern—this choice has been equated to a philosophical shift away from "trickery" and toward "straight math" on the SAT. Also, many test experts have attributed this change, like the addition of the new writing section, to an attempt to make the SAT more like the ACT. Indeed, there is a correlation between ACT scores and SAT scores.

Writing

The writing section of the SAT, based on but not directly comparable to the old SAT II subject test in writing, includes multiple-choice questions and a brief essay. The multiple-choice questions include error identification questions, sentence improvement questions, and paragraph improvement questions. Error identification and sentence improvement questions test the student's knowledge of grammar, presenting an awkward or grammatically incorrect sentence; in the error identification section, the student must locate the word producing the source of the error or indicate that the sentence has no error, while the sentence improvement section requires the student to select an acceptable fix to the awkward sentence. The paragraph improvement questions test the student's understanding of logical organization of ideas, presenting a poorly written student essay and asking a series of questions as to what changes might be made to best improve it.

The essay section, which is always administered as the first section of the test, is 25 minutes long. All essays must be in response to a given prompt. The prompts are broad and often philosophical and are designed to be accessible to students regardless of their educational and social backgrounds. For instance, test takers may be asked to expound on such ideas as their opinion on the value of work in human life or whether technological change also carries negative consequences to those who benefit from it. No particular essay structure is required, and the College Board accepts examples "taken from [the student's] reading, studies, experience, or observations." Two trained readers assign each essay a score between 1 and 6, where a score of 0 is reserved for essays that are blank, off-topic, non-English, not written with a Number 2 pencil, or considered illegible after several attempts at reading. The scores are summed to produce a final score from 2 to 12 (or 0). If the two readers' scores differ by more than one point, then a senior third reader decides. The essay score accounts for roughly 30% of the writing score; the multiple- choice component accounts for roughly 70%.

Content          Minutes            Time Writing (essay)                                  25                
Writing (multiple-choice)                     25                60 minutes
Writing (multiple-choice)                     10

Critical reading (multiple-choice)         25                
Critical reading (multiple-choice)         25                70 minutes
Critical reading (multiple-choice)         20

Mathematics (multiple-choice and                                             student-produced response)                25               
Mathematics (multiple-choice)             25               70 minutes
Mathematics (multiple-choice)             20

Variable (unscored, multiple-choice)    25                25 minutes

The unscored section

One of the 25-minute sections is unscored. This "variable" or "equating" section may have critical reading, mathematics, or multiple-choice writing questions. It does not count toward the final score but is used to try out new questions and to ensure that scores on new editions of the SAT are comparable to scores on earlier editions.

Test book variations

Test-takers sitting next to each other in the same testing session may have test books with an entirely different sequence of the 25-minute and 20-minute sections.

New SAT Score-Reporting Policy

The College Board has approved an important change to the current SAT score-reporting policy. This new policy will give students the freedom to send the scores by sitting (test date) that they feel best represent their ability to colleges and universities, at no additional cost. Designed to reduce student stress and improve the test-day experience, this new score-reporting feature will launch in early spring 2009, and will therefore be available to students participating in the March 2009 test administration.

Any student who has taken an SAT prior to the policy launch or who registers for the SAT after launch will be able to take advantage of this new policy. The students who have taken tests prior to the launch can use the score-reporting feature retroactively. Additionally, this new score-reporting feature will be optional to students. If a student chooses not to select their scores, all of their scores will be sent.

This new score-reporting feature also gives colleges the ability to choose which scores are required for admission. Colleges and universities will communicate any changes to their admissions policies or application requirements to students.

Questions

Most of the questions on the SAT are multiple choice; all multiple-choice questions have five answer choices, one of which is correct. The questions of each section of the same type are generally ordered by difficulty. However, an important exception exists: Questions that follow the long and short reading passages are organized chronologically, rather than by difficulty. Ten of the questions in one of the math sub-sections are not multiple-choice. They instead require the test taker to bubble in a number in a four-column grid.

The questions are weighted equally. For each correct answer, one raw point is added. For each incorrect answer one-fourth of a point is deducted. No points are deducted for incorrect math grid-in questions. This ensures that a student's mathematically expected gain from guessing is zero. The final score is derived from the raw score; the precise conversion chart varies between test administrations.

The SAT therefore recommends only making educated guesses, that is, when the test taker can eliminate at least one answer he or she thinks is wrong. Without eliminating any answers one's probability of answering correctly is 20%. Eliminating one wrong answer increases this probability to 25%; two, a 33.3% probability; three, a 50% probability of choosing the correct answer and thus earning the full point for the question.

The SAT Writing Section

The SAT facts

SAT Preparation Booklet

SAT Subject Test Preparation Booklet

SAT Program Handbook

To download the SAT Registration Bulletin click here