SAT Goes Digital
The College Board announced today that plans are underway to release a digital SAT in the spring of 2024 for domestic students. International students will have access in 2023. What implications does this have for our high school students who have been dealing with so much change? The first class to be affected is the Class of 2025, our current ninth graders.
Going digital doesn’t come as a total surprise because College Board and the ACT organization have been talking about this for years. Many graduate exams went digital years ago. In light of the shifting landscape in testing and in college admissions itself, let’s look at how it will remain the same as our current paper and pencil test and how it proposes to be different.
What’s the same?
- Scaled at 1600, 800 total math score and 800 English & reading
- Measures knowledge and skills learned in school
- Test must be taken at school or testing site
- Practice resources are free
- Accommodations are available for those who need them
How is it different?
- Shorter test experience, from 3 to 2 hours
- Faster score delivery – a matter of days not weeks
- Adaptive testing which means questions are calibrated to the appropriate level of diffculty for each student based on responses and scoring is weighted differently similar to the GRE which has been using adaptive section testing for years
- More time per question, shorter passages which can benefit students’ working memory, pacing challenges and stamina
- Students with learning challenges can have access to tools that will support their testing such as enlarging text
- Calculator is allowed on total math section and is embedded in test
- Students can use personal device, school issued or College Board loaner
- Improved testing security and flexibility
Want to learn more?
The 5 Points Prep senior staff will host a webinar on February 22 at 7pm. Sign up for the complimentary info session.