NEW DIGITAL SAT: Everything You Need to Know

The College Board has announced that the SAT will be converted to digital format in 2023 for international students and in 2024 for US students. The test will be reduced to 2 hours, as opposed to 3 hours for the current SAT. This is a positive change because it reaffirms the relevance and importance of standardized testing in a post-COVID-19 scenario. Given the ease of administration, College Board anticipates a significant increase in the number of SAT test takers in 2023. With this SAT, the test takers will receive their SAT score in a matter of days rather than months.

ADVANTAGES OF THE NEW SAT

Secure: The paper-pencil version of tests may be canceled if there are any external or internal issues. The SAT will be more secure because each student will have a unique test form and will use their own or a school-issued device. Faster Score: Students will have access to their scores in days rather than weeks.

CHANGES IN THE SAT

The pandemic taught us all how to learn and take tests in a digital world. The SAT exam in March 2023 appears to be ready to carry on that spirit of simplicity. According to the College Board, in addition to reducing testing hours to two hours, the test will allow more time per question across the board. The following are the major changes to the test content that have been declared so far: 1) Shorter reading passages with a single question per passage 2) Passages from a broader range of college-level exams 3) Calculators for the entire Math section The SAT Scores will be released faster, allowing students and educators to make college decisions more quickly.

CHANGES THAT HAVE NOT HAPPENED IN THE NEW SAT

While the SAT Suite will include a number of changes that will benefit both students and educators, many important aspects of the SAT Suite will remain unchanged. The SAT Suite will continue to assess students’ knowledge and skills that are most important for college and career readiness. The SAT will be scored on the same 1600 scale, allowing educators and students to track growth across the suite over time. The SAT will still be administered in a school or a testing center with a proctor present, not at home. Students will continue to have direct access to scholarships.

MAJOR DIFFERENCES EXPLAINED: NEW SAT vs OLD SAT

The DIGITAL SAT will be a simplified version of the current SAT. The new format will place less emphasis on endurance and speed and more emphasis on college readiness skills. The current SAT Reading section, with its long passages and frequently obscure History passages, requires patience to solve. The test is likely to include passages from the humanities and sciences delving into more contemporary issues in finance, economics, and the environment, with a broader range of short passages. Furthermore, we may see a greater emphasis on combining graphical information with passage text to answer questions. The use of calculators for the entire Math section indicates significant changes to the test. We may see a shift to more straightforward questions, similar to the ACT Math section, as well as the inclusion of more geometry and trigonometry problems, in addition to the SAT’s emphasis on Algebra and Word Problems. While the College Board is revising test content to better accommodate digital delivery, the SAT exam 2023 will continue to assess the same skills and knowledge that students learn in high school and that are most important for college and career readiness.

DEVICES REQUIRED TO TAKE THE NEW SAT

Students can use a laptop or tablet to take the SAT Suite. They may use either a personal or a school-issued device. If a student does not have a device, they can request one from the College Board, and they will provide one to use on the test day. This is true for students taking the SAT on the weekend both internationally and in the USA. Moreover, if a student faces any difficulty with their device or connectivity on the test day then the College Board has built the exam application to withstand internet outages. If the internet disconnects during testing, students will still be able to progress through the test with no disruption—all their work will be saved, and they will not lose testing time.

IS THE NEW SAT ONLINE FORMAT EASY OR DIFFICULT?

If you prefer taking tests online, you may be concerned about the test’s online version. The good news is that the majority of students in the pilot test found it to be more intuitive and simpler. When the College Board claims that the digital version of the test is more “intuitive,” they mean that it is “simpler to navigate” and “simpler to answer without fatigue.” The SAT interface will include a Student Clock, making it easier for test takers to keep track of time. Highlighters, strikethrough, and mark for review will be available, as will a built-in calculator and a reference feature (standard mathematical formulas). Test takers will have all the tools they need to solve questions in one place.

TOOLS AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS TAKING THE NEW SAT

Many test tools will be included in the digital testing application for students. Here are a couple of examples: You can flag the questions so that you can come back to them later. Students will get a countdown clock, which they can choose to show or hide at the top of their testing screen, which will alert them when they are running out of time. Students can use the built-in graphing calculator throughout the math section (or they can bring their own calculator). A reference sheet with common formulas for each math question.

IMPACT OF THE NEW SAT ON COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

Because these changes were recently announced and will not go into effect for another year or two, it is difficult to predict how they will affect college admissions, but we believe they will not make much of a difference. Because the SAT’s general content, difficulty, and scoring system are not changing much, we expect colleges to view the digital version of the SAT in the same way they did the current version. Colleges also make an effort not to penalize students for circumstances beyond their control, so taking one version of the SAT will not have a negative impact on your college applications compared to students who took the other version. Regardless of these new changes, the way colleges view the SAT (and the ACT) has shifted significantly in recent years. Many colleges have gradually shifted their emphasis away from standardized test scores and toward other application components such as GPA, high school classes, and extracurricular. The COVID-19 pandemic, which made taking standardized tests difficult or impossible for many students for months, only accelerated this trend. In 2020 and 2021, practically every college became test-optional, and hundreds of schools have chosen to remain test-optional indefinitely. If a school is test-optional, you can choose whether or not to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of your application. If you do not, the other components of your application will be given more weight. The College Board is well aware of these trends, and many of the new SAT changes were implemented to make the test more appealing to students who may have been put off by taking such a long, difficult test. However, according to a College Board poll, 83 % wanted the option to submit test scores in their college applications, and nearly every college still allows it, so the SAT is not going away anytime soon. KEY SUMMARY The College Board announced a major change in January 2022: the SAT will go digital and will soon be administered via computer rather than pencil and paper. These changes will not take effect until 2023 for international students and 2024 for US students, but it is important to be aware of them so that you can plan accordingly. The following are the six major key takeaways to the SAT: 1) The SAT will go digital 2) The SAT will be reduced in duration (2 hours instead of 3 hours) 3) Students will have more time to answer each question 4) Calculators will be permitted throughout the Math section 5) Reading passages will be more focused and shorter 6) Students will receive their SAT results in days rather than weeks We expect that colleges will view the SAT in much the same way that they do the current SAT, though standardized test scores, in general, are becoming less important for admission to many schools. So, if you are confused about which SAT to take, go with the one that you believe will best play to your strengths. If you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.