As SAT season kicks off this month, college hopefuls taking the test will experience a new format: the test is now entirely digital.
The digital SAT’s launch is a push to make the test more relevant to today’s students. According to the College Board, the new SAT is adaptive, meaning that the math and reading sections will be divided into two sections, with the difficulty level of the second section determined by performance on the first.
“I actually think this new version of the SAT is going to be the most student-friendly version of the exam,” said Shaan Patel, CEO and founder of Prep Expert. “It’s only 2 hours instead of the normal 3 to 4 hour exam, the reading passages are a lot shorter – only 100 words versus the old 750 words, they got rid of obscure vocabulary, and they made a lot of the question types more relevant to students’ future careers.”
Patel encourages all students to sign up for the SAT, pointing to a recent trend of colleges once again requiring the test for admissions applications.
“M.I.T. brought it back a couple years ago, Yale just announced last week, Dartmouth announced a couple months ago,” he said.
Even though the SAT is now all digital, students are still required to take the exam at a testing site. Experts said the change does mean, though, that results will be returned in a matter of days, rather than weeks or longer.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)