College Board changes SAT to resemble ACT beginning in March 2016
Adjustments to the SAT will line up with common core and resemble the ACT after the College Board removed a mandatory essay, irrelevant vocabulary questions and penalty deductions for wrong answers, and changed the number of answer choices from five to four.
The ACT has been the dominant test in the past few years, so the College Board decided to revise the SAT to make it more competitive with the ACT. “Basically the test is going to be very similar to the current ACT,” college and career coordinator Debbie Prochnow said. “So it is going to be more of a measure of what students learn in school.”
The changes made will most likely help the students “because they’ve eliminated the whole vocabulary [section], so you don’t have to study vocab,” Prochnow added. The score scale has also been changed to 400 – 1600 because there are no penalties for wrong answers, which is a better scale for students.
“They are making the writing section what they call optional. When they say ‘optional’ though, do not be fooled–it is only sort of optional,” English and SAT prep teacher Sam Lee said. Students who are applying to colleges that do not require essays do not have to do it, but others do.
Changes like the new no-calculator part of the test, however, could be concerning to some students. “It is just there to see if you can do some really basic calculations on your own, [but won’t be anything] too terrible,” Lee added.
The SAT changes will not occur until March 2016, so senior Raymon Carter is looking to take the SAT before the changes begin. Carter is currently enrolled in the college prep class and said he would recommend it because ”It’s a pretty good class,” Carter said. “The areas you most struggle in, go into that area.” The class works every day by using practice tests to strengthen their weaknesses.
Junior Jordan Thomas is taking the new SAT as a challenge. “I study for like two hours a day, just from the reviews on the internet,” Thomas said. “We use Naviance and Khan Academy because they have a lot of prep tests, so you can do endless tests for free.”
The change will most likely help the SAT survive, but “no one knows what this test is going to look like,” Prochnow said. “Colleges aren’t even sure how they’re going to use it.” It will take a while for the SAT to get back to the top and challenge the ACT.
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