Are you just a little more stressed than you already were…
About your in-school SAT at the end of the month…
Because you just found out it’s going to be a pilot of the…
New digital version rather than the traditional paper and bubble-sheets version?
Relax, I bring good news 🙂
Just when you thought JUNIOR YEAR couldn’t get any crazier: your course work in your most challenging year to date is plummeting to its deepest depths; your upperclassperson roles in activities from sports to music to robotics to community service are heating up toward major culminating events; your important final exams and final projects are suddenly looming; proms and other end-of-year social engagements you’ve been hearing about your whole life are almost here; and, darn it, your preparation for and energy to manage the stress around SATs and ACTs to best position yourself for competitive college admissions are starting to crescendo.
And as many students and their sympathetic families in Connecticut and other states and schools that offer an in-school SAT (as part of the CollegeBoard’s SAT School Day program), you’re probably doing your best to carve out time to take practice tests and study the material the exam covers. Then, Bam! You find out your test is going to be DIFFERENT from all those the CollegeBoard and Kahn Academy currently make available (and they’re the only ones who legally can make them available!).
ALL students understandably hate the too common experience of preparing for an exam only to discover the actual exam is different from what they had been led to believe and expected. And now…imagine that feeling multiplied by the general standardized test significance and stress factors.
Awe. Some.
As my most conscientious current students will tell you, the CollegeBoard isn’t making it easy to know the details of the new digital SAT. I have personal and professional experience of this general MO dating back to the 1980s whenever the company rolls out a major revision of an exam that has paved a road to college for millions of students globally. Current high schoolers with older siblings might remember the last major revision was March, 2016, a time of similar heightened stress, when diligent students, concerned parents, and frustrated educators all scrambled to piece together clues about the actual form and content of the new exam culled from the CollegeBoard’s stated pedagogical, philosophical, and social goals underlying the changes and from the miserly few official sample questions it made available… until the first few rounds of national exams were administered, followed shortly by the publication and wide distribution of the best-selling Official SAT Guide.
History is repeating itself.
Only this time it’s different in one fundamental way: it’s not the content that’s changing but the format, mostly surrounding shifting from pencils, exam booklets, and bubble sheets to screens and pixels. And, this time, it is the basis for some very good news!
I did my best to play Sherlock Holmes American style, trying to get a sense of what the actual in-school, digital version of the SAT in 2022 will be like. I had the audacity to set such a lofty task for myself because, frankly, it felt like I’d been here and done this a couple times before. I read the official material on the CollegeBoard and on CT official state websites, which, from a competitive student’s perspective, are lame and lamer; rightfully so, they’re more concerned with administration, access, social justice, and fairness than they are revealing details about the specific form and content of exam items. It also leaves the test writers the most wiggle room to make changes after they collect data. The CollegeBoard excels at using current students as guinea pigs for its next-generation exams, and historically it has screened tested questions in its “experimental” sections that look and feel part of an exam but don’t actually count toward any score. I also watched YouTube videos of colleagues and read social media articles and what professionals are saying in interest groups. Most importantly, I went through all the questions from each of the three sections—Reading, Writing and Language (aka Grammar), and Math—the CollegeBoard has made available. Where’s Watson when you need him?
AND HERE COMES THE GOOD NEWS
Unlike in 2016 I have a VERY GOOD SENSE of what the new digital exam experience will be like in 2022 and what that means for students and how it should impact their study plans.
For especially interested parties, I elaborate below on some of my rationale based on available clues, but here in an executive summary of what I deduced to solve the mystery of the 2022 Digital SAT:
- The changes in format and those inherent in shifting forms pencils to pixels make the oOVERALL EXAM MORE USER-FREINDLY AND LESS BEASTLY. I predict most (all?) students will find it fairer and easier overall.
- While still long by high school standards, THE EXAM WIL BE SHORTER, CLOSER TO TWO THAN THREE HOURS. Total time will vary student to student because the test is adaptive, meaning it uses statistical analysis to assess performance as the test unfolds to serve individuals appropriate questions. The shortest tests will be taken by those who get every question right or every one wrong. The longer tests will taken by those who are closer to the middle of the pack.
- THE TECHNOLOGY MAKES MOST PROBLEMS EASIER, not harder (as it did in the early versions of the CollegBoard’s digital exams in the 1990s. An excellent example follows below of the most commonly asked Reading question!)
- The CONTENT AND LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY ARE IDENTICAL to those of the current SAT, so no worries about any prior study time investment or finding new study materials (beyond #5 below).
- TESTERS DO NEED TO GET FAMILIAR WITH THE TECH TOOLS (5-10 min should do it ;)), especially the calculator and text annotation tools. Last thing you want to do is waste time and energy looking for the COS key to solve a simple SOHCAHTOA problem (you remember SOHCAHTOA, right? The not-as-famous cousin of POCAHONTAS (joke creds: Jake Youmans).
Some Elaboration
This past fall, the CollegeBoard officially announced its plans to roll out a completely digital version of the SAT in 2023 abroad and 2024 in the U.S., but—surprise!—digital SATs that can still count toward college admissions are being piloted NOW, in 2022, including every March 23 and march 30 SAT in CT about which I’ve heard.
Aside from the shock factor, because the changes aren’t to the CONTENT but to delivery medium (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to trade in #2 pencils and bubble sheets for online devices, assuming the technology helps rather than hinders?), it’s not as big a deal as students might be inclined to think. When I took the digital GRE (essentially the SAT on steroids for college students applying to graduate school) in 1993 (hard to believe, eh?), the technology was not up to snuff, without any of the slick, smooth, and helpful tools about which the digital SAT can boast now in 2022.
Here’s a great example of how the technology makes the exam more user-friendly and ultimately easier. The most commonly asked question in the Reading section (and on the entire SAT in its current iteration) will appear five to seven times VERBATIM: “Which choice provides the best evidence to the answer to the previous question?” This represents the flagship item in the SAT’s last major revision in 2016, when the CollegeBoard changed the official name of the section to “Evidence-Based Reading and Writing.” One of the biggest challenges for this item on the paper/pencil exam is literally locating each of the four possible sentences, one of which will provide the best evidence, from their first and last word and line numbers given in the answer (see image at left). Not kidding. But look at how easy it is to identify the appropriate text with the highlighting the digital version automatically provides! That, my friends, is good use of the technology and students will LOVE it. Watch.
Some of the tools, though, require students to call them up, like the Calculator, and I have to admit it took me a couple of minutes to get comfortable with knowing where every function I might need to use is located. It’s free, it’s easy, and here’s a link to where you can play with it, so no excuse. Get playin!
Need Help?
No shame in that. Many students now at their first choice colleges needed help, too. So did Dr. Yo back in the, gulp 80s. Here to help, so call 413-329-7540 or visit CollegePrepExpress.com and check out how we might be able to help your college dreams com true!