The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test) Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in The United States. This test takes three hours and forty-five minutes to take. Possible scores range from 600 to 2400, combining test results from three 800-point sections (math, critical reading, and writing).
The SAT measures literacy and writing skills that are needed for academic success in college. It assesses how well the test takers analyze and solve problems – skills they learned in school that they will need in college.
Historically, the SAT has been more popular among colleges on the coasts and the ACT more popular in the Midwest and South. There are some colleges that require the ACT to be taken for college course placement. Nearly all colleges accept the test.
Structure
SAT consists of three major sections: Critical Reading, Mathematics, and Writing. Each section receives a score on the scale of 200-800. All scores are multiples of 10. Total scores are calculated by adding up scores of the three sections. Each major section is divided into three parts. There are 10 sub-sections, including an additional 25-minute experimental section that may be in any of the three major sections. It does not count toward the final score. The test contains 3 hours and 45 minutes of actual timed sections, although most administrations, including orientation, distribution of materials, completion of biographical sections, and eleven minutes of timed breaks, run about four and a half hours long. The questions range from easy, medium, and hard depending on the scoring from the experimental sections.
Critical Reading
The Critical Reading section of the SAT is made up of three scored sections: two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section, with varying types of questions, including sentence completions and questions about short and long reading passages. Critical Reading sections normally begin with 5 to 8 sentence completion questions; the remainder of the questions are focused on the reading passages. Sentence completions generally test the student's vocabulary and understanding of sentence structure and organization by requiring the student to select one or two words that best complete a given sentence. The bulk of the Critical Reading questions is made up of questions regarding reading passages, in which students read short excerpts on social sciences, humanities, physical sciences, or personal narratives and answer questions based on the passage. Certain sections contain passages asking the student to compare two related passages; generally, these consist of shorter reading passages. The number of questions about each passage is proportional to the length of the passage, and they go in the order of the passage. Question sets towards the beginning of the section are easier, and question sets towards the end of the section are harder.
Mathematics
The Mathematics section of the SAT is widely known as the Quantitative Section or Calculation Section. The mathematics section consists of three scored sections. There are two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section, as follows:
• One of the 25-minute sections is entirely multiple choice, with 20 questions.
• The other 25-minute section contains 8 multiple choice questions and 10 grid-in questions. The 10 grid-in questions have no penalty for incorrect answers because the student guessing isn't limited.
• The 20-minute section is all multiple choice with 16 questions.
The SAT has done away with quantitative comparison questions, leaving only questions with symbolic or numerical answers.
• New topics include Algebra II and scatter plots. These changes have resulted in a shorter, more quantitative exam requiring higher level mathematics courses relative to the previous exam.
Calculator Use
Calculator programs are allowed although graphing calculators are preferred, especially for geometry problems and questions involving multiple calculations.
Writing
The writing section of the SAT includes multiple choice questions and a brief essay. The essay subscore contributes about 28% towards the total writing score, with the multiple choice questions contributing 70%.
The multiple choice questions include error identification questions, sentence improve-ment questions, and paragraph improvement questions. Error identification and sentence improvement questions test the student's knowledge of grammar, presenting an awkward or grammatically incorrect sentence; in the error identification section, the student must locate the word producing the source of the error or indicate that the sentence has no error, while the sentence improvement section requires the student to select an acceptable fix to the awkward sentence. The paragraph improvement questions test the student's understanding of logical organization of ideas, presenting a poorly written student essay and asking a series of questions as to what changes might be made to best improve it.
The essay section, which is always administered as the first section of the test, is 25 minutes long. All essays must be in response to a given prompt. The prompts are broad and often philosophical and are designed to be accessible to students regardless of their educational and social backgrounds. No particular essay structure is required. Two trained readers assign each essay a score between 1 and 6, where a score of 0 is reserved for essays that are blank, off-topic, non-English, not written with a Number 2 pencil, or considered illegible after several attempts at reading. The scores are summed to produce a final score from 2 to 12 (or 0). If the two readers' scores differ by more than one point, then a senior third reader decides.
Style of questions
Most of the questions on the SAT are multiple choice with five answer choices. The questions of each section are generally ordered by difficulty except questions that follow the long and short reading passages, that are organized chronologically.
The questions are weighted equally. For each correct answer one raw point is added, and for each incorrect answer one-fourth of a point is deducted. No points are deducted for incorrect math grid-in questions. The final score is derived from the raw score.
Taking the test
The SAT is offered seven times a year in the United States; in October, November, December, January, March (or April, alternating), May, and June. The test is typically offered on the first Saturday of the month for the November, December, May, and June administrations. In other countries, the SAT is offered on the same dates as in the United States except for the spring test date (i.e., March or April), which is not offered.
Students with verifiable disabilities, including physical and learning disabilities, are eligible to take the SAT with accommodations. The standard time increase for students requiring additional time due to learning disabilities is 50%.
Students receive their online score reports about three weeks after test administration. Mailed, paper scores are recived about six weeks after test administration.
