Coming Soon: The New SAT

If you’re wondering why the SAT is changing next year, you can hold the University of California at least partly responsible. Several years ago, the UC seriously considered removing the SAT from the admissions process. The College Board, not wanting to lose a huge customer, and knowing that if the UC dropped the SAT, other schools would follow, offered to improve the test.

Whether the new version will be an improvement remains to be seen. But knowing what to expect may help lower the anxiety level among students. While the new writing section is getting most of the attention, there are other changes to both the verbal and math sections.

The new verbal section will be renamed critical reading, and many students will be happy to know that analogies are being eliminated. But if they’re thinking that means no more memorizing vocabulary words, they shouldn’t toss those flashcards yet. A strong vocabulary will help students perform well on the sentence completions and is invaluable when it comes to writing papers in college.

The current test has one or two long reading passages in each verbal section, and 40 out of the 78 verbal questions on the test are based on these passages. They’re adding short passages but not removing the long ones, so that reading comprehension will be more important than ever. If students needed motivation to read more, here they have it.

The math section will no longer include quantitative comparisons, also known as the column questions. But they are adding some topics from Algebra II. Some students may actually perform better because the advanced math problems should be closer to the kinds of problems they’ve seen in class. Even with the addition of these advanced math questions, the math section will still have many questions that can be answered by using reasoning skills rather than knowing upper-level math.

The new SAT will take about three and one-half hours, which is a half-hour longer than the current test.

Instead of two scores, each ranging from 200 to 800, students will receive three scores, for a possible total of 2,400. The writing test will also have two subscores: 20-80 for the multiple-choice questions and 2-12 for the essay.

The PSAT, which is offered in October, is being changed to better prepare students for the new SAT. The math and critical reading sections will look like the new SAT, but the math won’t be as advanced since many students won’t have completed Algebra II by the time they take the PSAT. The PSAT will continue to have a multiple-choice writing test, but no essay, mostly because it would be too difficult to find enough readers to score more than 2.5 million PSAT essays when they’ll also have fall SAT essays to score beginning in 2005.

The first new SAT will be given in March 2005. The test fee, currently $28.50, will increase $10 to $12 to cover the cost of scoring the essay.

Many colleges will require the new SAT with the writing section, so I don’t see any advantage to taking the test early in the hope of avoiding the essay.

The ACT will also begin offering an optional writing test, so students will continue to have the option of submitting either the SAT or ACT to colleges.

The new version of the "Taking the SAT" booklet, which contains a full-length sample test, will be available at high schools and on Websites in the fall. My favorite SAT preparation, "10 Real SATs," will be updated for the new test and should be available in a few months.

If you have questions, please send them via e-mail to editor@theacorn.com or to the address on page 4, Attention: College Corner. I’ll answer as many as possible in future columns.

Audrey Kahane, MS, is a college admissions counselor in West Hills. She can be reached at (818) 704-7545 or via the Internet at audreykahane@earthlink.net.