Next weekend, many high school students across the country will sit to take the new version of the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
Blue Valley West High School junior Meera Aravinth will be among the first to take the new version of the SAT. It didn't take much for the ambitious 17-year-old to notice the differences. The math section of the new SAT features more word problems.
"The real challenge is not the math part, but figuring out what the problem is asking and trying to work it out," Aravinth said.
The sentence completions on the old SAT are now gone. Instead, the SAT reading section will have questions that build on each other.
"Really the vocabulary that's going to be tested on the SAT is much more contextual, mostly focused on kind of the different meanings of the same word," said Caleb Pierce, president of Get Smarter Prep, a company based in Leawood, Kan.
Some other changes coming to the SAT include:
- The writing section is optional.
- The 2400 grading scale is reverting back to 1600.
- There are no penalties for wrong answers.
- Instead of five answer choices for a question, there are now four.
Should students be stressed about this new test?
"I use to think this is like everything that's going to determine my future and it really isn't. It's not the end of the world," Jack Ingram, a senior at Blue Valley West High School, said.
University of Missouri-Kansas City Admissions Director Tamara Byland agrees.
"We do know that the high school student's GPA and how they're performing in the classroom on a daily basis is a really strong indicator on how they're going to perform in college," Byland said.
What is Aravinth's best advice for her classmates getting ready for the SAT?
"Take more practice tests. Just get used to how the new test is written because that's the biggest difference," Aravinth said.
Try out practice tests for the new SAT: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/full-length-practice-tests
Her guidance counselor, John Stone, has been gearing kids up for this change for months.
"We used to talk about if you're going to the East or West Coast, maybe taking more of the SAT, and that's not really the case anymore," Stone said.
If you cannot afford to pay a tutor for your child to get test prep, don't worry. The College Board, who administers the SAT, has partnered up with Khan Academy to provide free SAT prep. For more information, visit https://www.khanacademy.org/sat
Watch an extended interview with Pierce, president of Get Smarter Prep. If you cannot see the video player below, click here to watch.
------
Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com.
