SAT Overview

 

SAT is a standardized test administered by the College Board for admission into colleges and universities in the United States.

The SAT consists of three sections: Critical Reading, Math, and Writing. Effective scores on each section range from 200–800, with scores always being a multiple of 10 (i.e. 530, 780, never 654 or 723). The scores for each of the sections are added together for the composite score, with a 2400 being a perfect SAT score. Students do not need to get all answers on the SAT correct to get a perfect score. 

 

In addition to the nine sections that count towards the student's score, there is a 10th section that will not count but that the College Board administers to test questions for future SATs. This extra section does not count towards a student's score. During the test, students will not know which section will not count towards their final score, so they should treat each section as though it does count. What is known, however, is that the essay, which is always the first section on the SAT, and Section 10, which is always a 10-minute writing section, will always count towards a student's SAT score.

 

The SAT is administered seven times a year in the United States: in October, November, December, January, March (or sometimes April), May, and June. The SAT is usually offered on the first Saturday of the month for November, December, May, and June. Outside of the United States, the SAT is offered on the same dates as in the United States except for the first spring test date, which is either March or April.

 

SAT Organization

 

Critical Reading consists of three separate scored sections: 

• One 25-minute section with 24 questions: eight (8) sentence completions; four (4) short critical reading passage questions; twelve (12) critical reading questions from one passage

• One 25-minute section with 24 questions: five (5) sentence completions, four (4) short critical reading passage questions, Fifteen (15) critical reading questions from two distinct passages

• One 20-minute section with 19 questions: six (6) sentence completions, 13 Critical Reading questions from two related passages

 

Math consists of three separate scored sections:

• One 25-minute section with 20 Multiple Choice questions

• One 25-minute section with 18 questions: eight multiple choice questions, 10 grid-In questions (not multiple choice)

• One 20-minute section with 16 Multiple Choice questions

 

Writing consists of three separate scored sections:

• One 25-minute section with one Essay

• One 25-minute section with 35 questions: 11 improving sentences questions, 18 identifying sentence errors questions, six Improving Paragraphs questions

• One 10-minute section with 14 Improving Sentences question

 

Score Choice

Score Choice gives applicants the option to choose which SAT score (by test date) be sent to colleges - in accordance with a college's score-use practice. Score choice gives students the opportunity to show colleges the scores that best represent his/her abilities. Score choice is optional, so if a student does not actively choose to use it, all of the scores will be sent automatically. When the College Board sends out SAT scores, it sends scores from an entire SAT test - critical reading, math, and writing. Scores of individual sections from different test dates cannot be selected indipendently. One can send any or all scores to colleges on a single report.  

Students should be careful in taking the SAT multiple times, as some colleges require all previous scores be sent to them. For this reason, students should not take the SAT more than three times total during their high school years, and should be careful to study between these tests to make sure each successive score report shows an improvement over the previous. There is an advantage to taking the test more than once, however, as many universities will use super scores by combining the highest score for each of the sections across multiple test dates. For example, if you score 650 on the Critical Reading, 720 on the Math, and 680 on the Writing section the first time you took the SAT and 630 on the Critical Reading, 750 on the Math, and 730 on the Writing section many colleges will consider your total score to be the 650 for Critical Reading from the first time you took the SAT, the 750 for Math from your second SAT, and the 730 from your second SAT for the Writing Section.

 

The Importance of SAT

The SAT is required by most universities to be considered for admission. Though there are colleges that do not require it, all "brand name" universities and virtually all public ("state") universities do require it. In many cases, students can take the ACT rather than the SAT, and this decision often comes down to geography. Students in the Midwest tend to take the ACT, while students on the east and west coasts tend to take SAT. 

 

Other than being required for admission to many U.S. universities, the SAT is important for the following reasons:

• Many scholarships require a minimum SAT score.

• Many universities, especially state universities, will offer academic scholarships for students with a certain GPA and a minimum SAT score.

• The SAT is a great way to set yourself apart from the college admission crowd. Having a high SAT score will allow you to separate out from the thousands of other people applying to college.

 

For some students, taking both the SAT and ACT is a great option because they can submit whichever of the two scores is better (based on their percentile ranking) which then lets them increase their odds of acceptance in college admission. In general, taking both tests is highly recommended as students have little to lose but much to gain.

 

Scoring of SAT

Each of the questions within a section is ordered by difficulty, other than questions that follow the long and short reading passages that are organized with respect to where in the passage they refer. Thus a question referencing an early part of the passage will occur before a question asking about the passage's conclusion, regardless of difficulty.

Each question on the SAT is worth one point regardless of difficulty. Though most questions are multiple choice, 10 math questions require a numerical answer that the test taker must bubble in on his or her answer sheet. For each of the multiple choice questions, a correct answer will add one point to a student's "raw" score, an incorrect answer will deduct one-quarter of a point to the raw score, and a blank answer will yield zero points. For the 10 math questions that require a numerical answer, a correct answer adds one point to the raw score and an incorrect answer is worth zero points.

 

The total number of a student's correct answers (a student's "raw score") on a section gets compared to all other students who took that same test and converted to a "scaled score" from 200–800. We commonly think of this as grading on a curve.

 

Scaling is done to make sure that the same percentage of people on each test receive the same score to maintain consistency between SAT tests. This process of taking a raw score and computing the equivalent scaled score based on all students' performance on that test is what makes the SAT a standardized test.

 

For example, on one test date the test may be relatively easy so receiving 50 correct answers, 16 incorrect answers, and one blank on the Critical Reading section for a raw score of 46 (50 - (16*0.25)) on the Critical Reading section may be enough for an SAT score of 600, but on another test date the test may have been much more difficult and therefore the average student would have missed more questions. This means your raw score could be lower (say 44) but your scaled score would be the same, a 600.

 

The SAT Writing section is graded slightly differently than the Reading or Math sections, which simply have a raw score to scaled score conversion. The SAT essay is graded on a scale of one to six by two raters and their scores are added together for your SAT essay grade. This essay grade is then combined with your score on the multiple choice writing questions for your scaled Writing score from 200–800 based on a table the College Board uses. The SAT composite score is just the sum of the scaled scores for each of the three sections.