After an international rollout last year, the College Board’s SAT exam will be administered to U.S. high schoolers digitally on Saturday. Another digital SAT will be held in May.
On its website, the College Board explained that the 2024 move to an all-digital SAT, or standardized admission test, was meant to adapt to the increasing amount of technology used in education.
“Students are now doing more of their learning and testing digitally, and the SAT shouldn’t be the exception. … Going digital allows us to offer much more flexibility in terms of when, where and how often the SAT is given,” the College Board explained.
The not-for-profit College Board received positive feedback following the first pilot digital SAT exam in 2021, with 80% of students surveyed saying it was more relaxing and 100% of educators saying they had a good experience proctoring the exam.
“It felt a lot less stressful and [a] whole lot quicker than I thought it’d be. The shorter passages helped me concentrate more on what the question wanted me to do,” Natalia Cossio, a Fairfax County, Virginia, resident who took the exam as a junior, said in a 2022 College Board release about the pilot digital SAT.
As opposed to the traditional pencil-and-paper SAT, the digital version is two hours long instead of three, has shorter reading passages with one question each, and calculators are allowed for all portions of the math section.
Another new wrinkle in the SAT is adaptive testing. After a student does the first module of the reading, writing or math sections, which have questions of mixed difficulties, the second module of the section will be easier or harder depending on his or her performance.
The College Board contends that students “won’t be disadvantaged” by easier second modules, which will be “tailored for [their] abilities.”
Students will be able to take the exam on their own devices or on tech tools provided by the school or College Board. The exam uses the Bluebook app, which is compatible with iPads, school-issued Chromebooks, and both Mac and Windows computers.
Scores for Saturday’s SAT are due to be released to students on March 22. Registration for the May SAT ends on April 19, and that exam is scheduled for May 4.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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