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The Redesigned SAT Is Saturday: What You Need To Know

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – On Saturday, March 5th, thousands of high school students in South Florida and around the country will take the brand "new" version of the SAT.

The College Board redesigned the test to better predict students' readiness for college, and to compete with its rival the ACT.

The new SAT is meant to reflect what students actually learn in high school.

THE CHANGES

Math questions will be more straightforward, and gone are those obscure vocabulary words like lachrymose and abstemious. Instead, students will be tested on their understanding of "relevant" words, used in context.

If a student doesn't know the answer, just guess. There's no more penalty for guessing.

The number of answer choices has also decreased from five to four.

The test will be three hours with an additional 50 minutes for the optional SAT Essay.

The test will now be scored out of 1,600 points instead of 2,400, with the optional essay scored separately.

The test will have two sections (3 with the optional essay). Those sections are Evidence-Based Reading & Writing and Math. These sections contain a total of 3 tests (4 with optional essay); Reading, Writing & Language, and Math.

OTHER CHANGES INCLUDE: 

A focus on the areas of math that matter most such as linear equations, complex equations or functions and ratios, percentages and proportional reasoning.

The exam will now include source documents from a wide range of subject areas, including science and social studies. This means every test will now feature a reading passage from one of the nation's "founding documents," such as the Bill of Rights.

The College Board has already announced that scores from the first test will be delayed, which means students won't receive them before they take the test when it's offered again in May. That's double the current wait time.

Another thing students need to keep in mind, the new test and the old test can't be superscored together. A superscore is when a college take's a student's highest subscores from different test dates for a new, higher "superscore."

 

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