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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

College Board redesigns SAT, students reevaluate it

College+Board+redesigns+SAT%2C+students+reevaluate+it

The College Board will implement a redesigned SAT starting March 5, 2016. The last date to take the old version of the SAT is Jan. 23.

To help prepare students for the new SAT, the College and Career Center is ordering new test prep booklets, said Center director Allison Bly.

Current juniors have the option of taking the old SAT, new SAT or the ACT  to apply to college, Bly said.

This year, a majority of students are choosing to take the ACT because they do not know how to to prepare for or what to expect from the new SAT, Bly said.

“[Students] don’t know how colleges are necessarily going to interpret their scores,” Bly said.

The redesigned SAT will include significant changes to the scoring scale. Tests will be scored on a scale ranging from 400-1600, whereas the current SAT is scaled from 600-2400. There will be no penalty for guessing.

Colleges will accept scores from both SATs, however colleges that superscore will superscore the two tests separately, Bly said.

“[The redesigned SAT] is rumored to be more difficult than the previous SAT,” Bly said.SATgraphic

On the other hand, most current juniors have not taken the old SAT, therefore they cannot compare the two, Bly said.

In the redesigned SAT, students will be given three hours to complete the mandatory sections: reading, writing and language, and math. The optional essay is 50 minutes.

Key content changes to the SAT include less vocabulary emphasis, more interpretation of evidence, problems and passages grounded in real world situations, more focus on algebra and a revised essay prompt.

The changes were made in order to better align the new SAT with Common Core, counselor Amanda  Carlson said.

“The [English teachers] are focusing more on finding evidence in the text to support your answers and that will be the same with the new SAT,” Carlson said.

Another reason that might have spurred the SAT’s redesign is the ACT, assistant principal Eric Mapes said.

“Competition means that you have to continually update what you do, or you will get surpassed,” Mapes said.

The old SAT was accused of creating disadvantages for certain groups of people, Mapes said. A 2009 College Board study showed a direct correlation between  high SAT scores and higher socioeconomic status.

“They’re trying to make it more equitable,” Mapes said.

An example of this effort is the College Board’s partnership with Khan Academy, Mapes said.

Junior Danny DeBare said that a free study resource gives everyone an equal chance at performing well on the test.

“Standardized testing isn’t always an accurate depiction of how well you can work,” DeBare said. “It should be testing our knowledge, not how well we can study or how much money we have to prepare.”

The PSAT, which juniors and sophomores took on Oct. 28, was   tailored to the redesigned SAT.

Junior Yuka Matsuno said that before taking the PSAT she was originally planning on taking the ACT, but now she is considering the new SAT.

“I realized that it was basically the ACT, but you get more time, and it doesn’t have a science section,” Matsuno said.

DeBare said he used Khan Academy to practice for the PSAT, and discovered that the new SAT suited him better than the ACT.

Bly corroborated this method and advises students to try both ACT and SAT practice questions.

“A growing number of schools are becoming test optional,” Bly said. “It is sort of a sign of the direction testing is going.”

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