The SAT has long been considered a right of initiation among high school students—everyone has to take it, and everyone hates it. But this classic test has a whole slew of changes coming its way, which have been met with mixed reactions from students and teachers.
On March 5, the Collegeboard announced that it would be reverting the SAT back to its original 1600 point form, and dropping wrong answer penalties, revamping the vocabulary words, and making the reformatted essay optional.
Freshman Tess Herdman is not happy about the impending change.
“I did significantly better in the reading and English sections when I took it before, and since they’re changing it from them being two separate sections into one that’s combined, I think it’s going to bring my score down,” said Herdman.
Currently the test is scored on a scale of 2400 points, with three sections – critical reading, math, and writing—each worth 800 points. To change the scale, Collegeboard will combine the critical reading and writing sections into a single “Evidence-Based Reading and Writing” section.
English teacher Lindsay Coppens, who teaches the English portion of the SAT prep course offered at ARHS, has her own reservations about the changes.
“I’m disappointed in the idea of the essay being optional because I think writing is one of the most important skills across the subject areas,” Coppens said.
The vocabulary section will also be getting a facelift, with more “college-relevant” words replacing those that may be archaic and outdated. But, not everyone is as happy about this as one might think.
“I’ve spent a long time studying the vocab words, and I think changing the vocab is going to erase a lot of people’s progress. I know people who are taking Latin specifically for the SAT vocab,” Herdman said.
Coppens also expressed concerns about the impending modification.
“There are some SAT words that, quite frankly, most human beings don’t use. But, there’s a part of me that fears that the changes to the vocabulary component are a dumbing down,” Coppens said.
Even students that have already finished their standardized tests have opinions about the changes.
“I think that getting rid of the penalty for wrong answers is going to inflate the scores, so I don’t know how colleges are going to react,” senior Tim Shay said.
“I’m just really glad they changed it after I took it,” senior Laura Sui said.
But to all those out there nervous about the upcoming change, guidance has a few words of wisdom.
“This is one day in your life… Regardless of what Collegeboard does with the SAT, the single greatest factor in the admissions decision is your performance in school,” head of guidance Lisa Connery said.