Last
Wednesday, the President of the College Board, David Coleman, announced that
they would be making the first major changes to the SAT since 2005. The changes
come after the SAT has faced some major challenges, including skepticism from
colleges about the test’s usefulness and competition from the rival ACT test.
This new version, which will be launched in the spring of 2016, will be a test
that more accurately tracks what students learn in school by eliminating
obscure vocabulary words, ending the penalty for guessing, making the essay
optional, allowing students to take it either by paper or on the computer and
using documents such as the Declaration of Independence for reading
comprehension.
There will
be three sections on the new test: Evidence-Based Writing and Reading, Math and
the Essay. The test will be about three hours, which is 45 minutes shorter than
the current version. The SAT will also once again be scored on a 1600 point
scale. In the reading and writing section, students will be asked to support
answers with evidence- some questions will require them to cite a specific part
of a passage to back up an answer that they chose. The section will also
include passages from historical documents in an array of disciplines,
including science and social studies. The math section will be focused in
greater depth on fewer topics and will concentrate on problem solving, data
analysis and algebra. Calculators will only be allowed on some portions of the
math section.
The College
Board will also be offering more options for low and middle income students.
All SAT takers who are financially eligible will directly receive four college
application fee waivers. They also plan to partner with the online Khan Academy
to provide free online test preparation, including access to previously
unreleased practice problems and instructional videos about the exam.
In September
of 2012, it was announced that for the first time in history, more students
took the ACT than the SAT, which is a trend that continued in 2013. Many of the
new changes mirror the ACT, such as the elimination of the guessing penalty and
the optional writing section. There have also been a growing number of colleges
(now close to 800) that have eliminated the SAT and the ACT as admission
requirements, citing a 2008 University of California study which characterized
the SAT as a “relatively poor predictor of student performance.” Critics have
stated that the new SAT changes are the College Board’s way to compete with the
ACT by making it a more similar test and to stay relevant in the college
admissions process.
Because the
new SAT will become available in the spring of 2016, the changes will not impact GVPS juniors or sophomores. The only current Visitation class that will be taking
the new SAT is our 9th grade class; once the new SAT is released, the current SAT
will no longer be available. The new version of the PSAT will be released in
the fall of 2015 in order to prepare students for the redesign. The college
counseling office will be speaking to students and parents further about the
new test as the timeline approaches.
For more
information about the new SAT and the reasoning behind the changes, check out
some of these articles:
The
Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Plans-for-New-SAT-Spark-Mixed/145141/
The New York
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html
Inside
Higher Ed: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/06/college-board-unveils-plans-new-sat-including-completely-revamped-writing-test
