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January 16th, 2015

SAT Overhaul One Year Away!

Let’s have our dessert before dinner.  Be honest, you want to know about the SAT changes more than why it’s changing, right?  Bon appetit!

  • No penalty will be assessed for wrong answers. Currently one quarter point is deducted for a wrong answer.
  • There are still three sections, but now the first section is Evidence-Based Reading and Writing while section two is Math. These sections will be worth 800 points each and take three hours to complete. The last section is the essay which will be scored separately and take 50 minutes to complete.

Evidence-Based Reading

  • 80% of the reading passages will be non-fiction and include one passage from literature, two passages from history and two from science. The great documents of American history will be heavily represented. The reading section will also require students to cite support for their answers from the text and will include graphics and charts.5318d92306393.image
  • The reading section will now contain a writing portion that will “place students in the role of someone revising and editing the work of an unspecified writer.” It will include four passages from three categories — explanatory, argumentative, and narrative nonfiction — and 44 multiple choice questions.
  • The sentence completion section, notorious for asking about arcane vocabulary, is being eliminated. Instead, words “that are widely used” such as “synthesis” and “empirical” will be asked about, but in the context of passages.

Math

  • Two parts to the math section: a 55-minute, 37 question section that allows calculator use and a 25 minute, 20 question section that prohibits calculator use. Forty-five questions are multiple choice whereas the other 12 require answers entered into a grid. The scope is being narrowed and many more multi-part questions will be asked.

Essay

  • This will now be optional and placed at the end of the test. It will no longer be an opinion piece, but directs that “Your essay should not explain whether you agree with [the author’s] claims, but rather explain how [the author] builds an argument to persuade his audience.”
  • Finally, the test will be offered in digital and print versions.

Just remember, dinner is next!

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