A new version of the College Board’s Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) will be administered for the first time March 5. Among the changes is an optional essay, more advanced reading passages and no guessing penalty. This overhaul makes the SAT more similar to the American College Test (ACT). These changes are long awaited according to school counselor Telisa Hunter.
“I think the changes are positive and will benefit more students,” Hunter said. “I think the changes have been needed for a while, as most of the United States already uses the ACT over the SAT.”
The SAT was originally designed to test a student’s readiness for college, but over time, the SAT has evolved into something that critics accuse of only measuring how well a student knows the twists and tricks of the test. Students agonize over the SAT starting as early as their freshmen year or sooner.
“I feel that there are positives and negatives to the SAT,” Hunter said. “I do feel like it is discouraging for students who have testing anxiety or just do not test well. It can be very stressful.”
Junior Ashby Volk agrees that the SAT can be stressful.
“It’s kind of overwhelming, because it determines a lot of college acceptances and stuff like that,” Volk said. “It’s kind of scary.”
Despite the stress it can cause, students still believe performing well on the SAT is their ticket to college.
“It’s very long and tedious and difficult, but I think it’s a good way for colleges to kind of see where people stand,” said sophomore Maria Campbell, who has already taken the test but plans to take it at least once more.
Experts say the redesigned test will change who does well but still fear it further isolates groups that haven’t been exposed to as much advanced reading material. The College Board has done away with sentence completion questions and replaced them with longer passages of a more difficult nature. Even math problems have become more wordy; experts guess about 50 percent of the math section is now reading comprehension. Although experts are unsure of how this test will impact scores, students are embracing the change.
“I think my score will be better because of the guessing penalty thing,” Campbell said. “It will be easier for people to do well, because if they guess [wrong], it won’t count against them.”
Junior Kristen Viera is also a fan of the new guessing penalty rule.
“I guess [no penalty for guessing] will be better, because then I won’t have to worry if I’m running out of time; I can just guess C,” Viera said. “Hopefully it would make it easier for me or for my scores to be higher.”
Despite the mixed feedback, the new test is set to launch this March, and there will be no telling how the changes will impact students until the scores are released.
– By Chloe Maynard