College Connection: Get ready for the new PSAT and SAT in 2024
Students preparing for the SAT exam have seven opportunities to take the current test in 2023: March, May, June, August, October, November, and December.
Then, in March of 2024, a brand-new test with a totally different format will be launched.
College Board is once again revamping the SAT exam, which was first administered in 1926 and has undergone many revisions through the years.
The change is big news to the nearly three million students who take the SAT each year at some seven thousand test centers in more than 170 countries.
The newly formatted test will first be introduced at international test sites in 2023, before launching at U.S. test sites in March of 2024. The most significant changes are its format, which will switch from paper to digital, and its length, which will shrink from three hours of testing material to two hours.
The new test will also reduce the length of reading passages and allow for the use of a calculator on all, rather than just some, of the math problems.
Another interesting quality of the new test is that it’s "adaptive," choosing students’ test questions, as they move through the exam, based on how well they are doing on the earlier test questions. Adaptive tests ask harder questions when previous questions are answered correctly, and easier questions when previous questions are answered incorrectly. Of course, students’ scores are impacted accordingly. The SAT will continue to be scored on a scale of 400-to-1600 points.
Although the new test will be digital, students will not be able to take the exam at home but will be required to report to an official test center − typically a local high school.
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High school students who are currently juniors or seniors will not be impacted by the change, as they will either be seniors or will have graduated by the time the new format is introduced. Current freshmen and sophomores will have the opportunity to take both the existing and the upcoming SAT, and ultimately use their most impressive scores on their college applications.
Students will have an opportunity to experience the new testing format on the October 2023 PSAT, which is available (depending on one’s high school) to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. It basically acts as a practice test for freshmen and sophomores, and serves as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Exam for juniors.
A book with practice exams for the new SAT has not yet been published by College Board.
Susan Alaimo is the founder and director of Collegebound Review that, for the past 25 years, has offered PSAT/SAT® preparation, essay editing, and private college advising by Ivy League educated instructors. Visit CollegeboundReview.com or call 908-369-5362.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: College Connection: Get ready for the new PSAT and SAT in 2024
