March 20th New SAT Recap

After gathering feedback from my SAT students about the March 12th exam, I can confidently state that there were no surprises. Students encountered one of the two following essay topics: "Is the opinion of the majority—in government or in any other circumstances—a poor guide?" or "Is creativity needed more than ever in the world today?". Furthermore, the math sections were riddled with problems that were easily solved with plugging in, and the reading section contained traditional SAT style passages and questions. Students who used the College Board practice tests - as I use in my SAT Program - felt really comfortable.

New SAT Overview

As I speculated since the NEW SAT marketing campaign started its infiltration of American households, the test is more a reorganization than a complete and monumental revamp. The College Board has simply taken the SAT II Writing Test of old and intermittently inserted its sections in between Reading and Math sections. While the Reading Section has rid itself of analogies and added short passages, the question types and sentence completions are identical to those seen on SATs for the last 10 years. Math has added Algebra 2 to its content roster, but SAT math still test your critical thinking skills more than your ability to handle difficult math concepts. In reality, the most challenging addition to the SAT is the extra 45 minutes of test-taking that each student will endure.