In the Spring of 2016, the College Board decided to shift the grading scale of the SAT from 2400 to 1600 and made a significant change in the content of the test. The intention of these changes is to make the exam more accurately reflect the expectations that colleges have for students. In order to do so, the exams were developed by two state consortia that based their curriculum around the Common Core.
In order to understand what this entails, it is best to compare practice problems that exist from the old and new SAT exam.
The problem above comes from the SAT Practice Test #1, published in 2015 on the College Board website. When analyzing standard word problems such as this one from an old SAT exam, it is important to note a few things. The question is a standard algebraic problem in which students must understand how to interpret parts of an equation. Even though the problem has four sentences, it is fast to recognize that only the last two sentences are needed in order to answer the problem. Much of the older SAT math problems, like this one, do not require much depth of understanding nor time in order to solve the problem. Most of the old SAT math problems cover concepts that exist in Geometry and Algebra II.
This sample problem above comes from the new SAT, available on College Board’s website. Simply viewing the question, it is evident that the five sentences in this problem are longer. But, what is more significant is that in this problem, the entire paragraph is needed in order to fully understand the scenario and solve the problem. Also, the problem requires students to conceptually understand a more advanced math concept from statistics called margin of error, and what happens to the margin of error when a sample size becomes bigger or smaller.
In the new SAT, it is similar to the old SAT in that it covers concepts that exist in Geometry and Algebra II. But, the application of Common Core expects students to understand how to apply mathematical concepts into real-life scenarios and understand when to use multiple mathematical concepts at once. Also, the Common Core State Standards have started to put more emphasis on Statistics, a topic that is usually not covered thoroughly in schools, if at all.
Due to these reasons, I recommend the following for students who are in their earlier years of high school and plan to take the new SAT:
1. Practice on speed reading and reading comprehension. What this means is that students must learn how to read and comprehend many words in an efficient and effective way.
2. Students should consider taking Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics earlier in their high school years, or at least set time to thoroughly practice on different statistical concepts that are covered on the SAT.
3. Start practicing the SAT early. The more practice that students get on the SAT, the faster that students can learn from their mistakes and score higher. This also gives students more time to figure out what concepts that they do not know and address their weaknesses.
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