Why the SAT is getting another makeover
This week marks the last chance students have to take the current SAT. Coming in March: a new version of the test that the College Board says will be more closely in line with what high school students actually learn in high school.
There will be more math, more reading, and fewer “abstruse” vocabulary words.
One big reason the SAT is changing is that it has fallen behind its rival college admissions test: the ACT.
“They’re trying to catch up basically and make some changes so the SAT can be more marketable,” said David Benjamin Gruenbaum, co-owner of test prep company Ahead of the Class.
But those changes may actually help the competition, at least in the short-run. “This spring, right now, more than 85 percent of the families we are working with have chosen the ACT,” said Adam Ingersoll, co-founder of Compass Education Group, another test prep company. Basically because they don’t want their kids to be guinea pigs for a new test.
Ingersoll thinks College Board is making a longer-term-play here; it’s marketing its new SAT to states and public school districts, to be administered to all students as a broader assessment of what they’ve learned and what they haven’t.
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