NORFOLK, Va. - When it comes to the SAT exam, students are getting closer to putting down the pencils and picking up the laptops.
The exam is going digital in 2024 and that means a lot of changes are on the way.
The idea is to make the practice assessments as close to the "test day experience" as possible. This is important for current freshman and sophomores who will likely be the first patch of students to use the digital platform.
News 3 Problem Solver Erin Miller spoke with College Board, the organization that develops the SAT.
They said to keep in line with the digial exam in 2024, students preparing can take a full-length digital practice test in Bluebook. Bluebook is a new digital adaptive test with the same interface, format, and scoring as the real PSAT and SAT exams.
This is important now because starting in Fall 2023, students taking PSAT-related exams will take the digital test. Registration for the SAT will also open in Fall 2023, though the test won't be available in the United States until 2024.
The hope is that these changes will make the test more fair.
"There are so many parts of the SAT that really test a student if they are a good test taker or not and a lot of people find that to be unfair, a lot of people have a big problem with that, so I think this is also an attempt by SAT to get rid of that and ease some of that and make it a lot more straightforward," said a test prep advisor.
Why is the SAT going digital? What are the benefits/challenges?
We always listen to educators and students and adapt to ensure we continue to meet their evolving needs. Students are now doing more of their learning and testing digitally, and the SAT shouldn’t be the exception. We’re listening to input and adapting to ensure we continue to meet the needs of students and educators.
We’re not just putting the current SAT Suite on a digital platform, though. We’re taking full advantage of what it means to deliver an assessment digitally. Going digital allows us to offer much more flexibility in terms of when, where, and how often the SAT is given, particularly for states, districts, and schools offering the SAT to all their students as part of SAT School Day. School Day is an important driver of access and equity and has been shown to lead to higher college-going rates for low-income and rural students.
How will this change education and testing going forward?
The SAT Suite (SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, PSAT 10, PSAT 8/9) will continue to measure the knowledge and skills that students are learning in high school and that matter most for college and career readiness. It will still be scored on a 1600 scale and be administered in a school or test center with a proctor. With the shift to digital, the test will be much shorter, closer to two hours compared with three hours, with shorter reading passages and calculators allowed on the entire math section. Students can test on devices they’re familiar with, including their own laptops and tablets or school-issued devices. The digital test will be easier to administer, more secure, and more relevant for students. The SAT continues to play a vital role in a holistic admissions process. When viewed within the context of where a student lives and learns, test scores can confirm a student’s grades or demonstrate their strengths beyond what their high school grades may show.
Most students want to take the SAT, find out how they did, and then decide whether they want to submit their scores to colleges. When surveyed, more than 80% students said they want the option to submit test scores to colleges.
What is the feedback so far for students who have taken the digital SAT?
We’ve piloted the new test with more than 30K students around the world and they say it’s easier to take. More than 80% of pilot students said the test experience was a better experience than the paper-and-pencil test. 98% of students who participated in recent digital SAT studies and pilots said they felt the Bluebook app —College Board’s new digital testing app—was easy to use.
How will the digital SAT change the way students study and prepare?
Practice resources will be even more closely linked to the test day experience. Students can take full-length digital practice tests directly in Bluebook, College Board’s new digital testing app, allowing them to get the full digital SAT Suite experience while familiarizing themselves with test content. A new, free, interactive course will be available on Khan Academy to help students focus on the skills needed to succeed on the test. Students can sharpen their skills with a library of thousands of practice questions, videos, lessons, and hints plus test-taking tips and strategies.
When can students in the U.S. expect to see the changes?
We will make the transition from paper and pencil to digital at international test centers in spring of 2023 and at U.S. schools and test centers in spring of 2024.
