The SAT underwent its biggest transformation yet as it moved from paper and pencil to an all-digital format.
So what does this move change for students and for parents who want to help their children succeed?
The week before the digital test debut, I sat down with the man who wrote the book on the new digital SAT. Brian Stewart is the author of Barron’s Digital SAT Study Guide, which is a fantastic prep tool that we use with our Test Prep students here at Educational Connections.
Watch Interview with Brian Stewart, Author of Barron’s Digital SAT Study Guide (or read the transcript below):
ANN:
It seems like having a score is more important than ever before. And we’ve seen a couple of schools in the last week come out and say they want test scores and it could be leading the way for other scores schools to come forward. Where are we right now with this test-optional environment?
BRIAN:
I think in light of increased grade inflation at a lot of high schools and the fact that colleges are inundated with applications, they want to have a standardized metric they can use to evaluate the readiness that students have for colleges. And both Dartmouth and Yale have come out and indicated a couple of things about these standardized tests. Number one, that they do a great job of predicting how students will perform at the college level. And secondly, by utilizing the test scores, they’ve actually increased the diversity of their classes because they’re able to find students who may not have access to a lot of extracurricular activities, or maybe they’re not going to the most highly ranked high schools, but if they’re able to demonstrate their academic skills, their readiness for college-level work on the SAT, then when they get into a really prestigious college, they’re able to flourish.
So it’s a, it’s a big shift it’s sort of like applying for a loan without a credit score. I think it makes it a little more difficult. Having the test score, it makes things a lot smoother for everybody.
ANN:
That’s such a good analogy. You know this test really well. In your opinion, what are the biggest changes that people can expect?
BRIAN:
First of all, the test will be given on the computer. So that means students, where they are, s lot of students don’t have physical textbooks. They do things on their school-provided Chromebook or an iPad, so it will be a digital format.
And also a major change is that it will be adaptive. So the benefit of that is that instead of the test needing three or four hours for students to take, they will only need a little over two hours. That’s because students will start with a module that’s of average difficulty and, depending on how they do, if they do pretty well, usually 60-65% of the questions right, they go on to the more difficult module. If they don’t do so hot, they go to the easier module. So instead of students having to try questions from every level of difficulty over a four-hour period, they can get to the bottom of their readiness in a shorter period of time.
And along with that, the reading is a major change.
So in the previous SAT, there were just a few long reading passages. And now every reading and writing question is accompanied by a short text, no longer than 150 words. And a lot of students seem to like this change because they can focus on just that text, one thing at a time, instead of having to focus on a 750-word passage and go back and forth with that. So those are some of the major changes that we see.
ANN:
How can students prepare for this new format? What’s the best way?
BRIAN:
It does test general academic skills that someone would need for college. So grammar skills, reading comprehension, and math. So just bolstering those fundamental skills in school is probably the best thing to do.
But in addition to that, I think students can with the guidance of a tutor, they can remediate their weak areas. Because of the pandemic, a lot of students now have gaps in their math knowledge- Geometry and Algebra that tutoring could help.
And also they should make sure to practice with some of the free release tests from Bluebook. There’s a downloadable app that College Board will use for the digital SAT called Bluebook. And students can download that onto the same device they’ll use for actually taking the test and practice the way that they’ll actually take the test with that in the digital adaptive format. So those are a couple major things that students can do.
ANN:
Let’s switch gears for just a moment, Brian, if you don’t mind, and talk about how these tests are going to be scored. So we know the SAT is going to be scored on the same scale, but how will this work with superscoring on this new digital version?
BRIAN:
So superscoring will probably stay in place. All indications are that colleges that are using tests, which amounts to about 96-97% of colleges will accept tests if they’re submitted. Optional doesn’t mean they won’t look at it. That would be test-blind and that’s just a handful.
So with the superscoring, for those of you who may not know that, that’s taking the best score from each section over different tests. And so in general, a lot of private colleges tend to super score and some public colleges don’t. So that’s a generalization, but you can check with the college admissions office directly and see what their policy is. But I think for students taking the test, if they’re thinking about places that super score, then they don’t need to feel that all their eggs are in one basket with the whole test because it’s essentially two shorter tests. If you do well in the reading, writing on one day, then the next test you can do better on the math and then put those together and you’re all good.
ANN:
That’s really an interesting way of thinking about it in terms of the strategy behind preparing on that. Maybe you can piecemeal it a little bit more.
BRIAN:
So as far as the strategy with that, I think students can look at how they did on the PSAT for an indication of where they might need some improvement, and they could take the test. There’s one coming up in March. The first time it will be administered in this format in the United States. Then students shouldn’t look at, I need to get this over in just one test sitting. It’s probably wise to plan on taking it two or three times. ACT has indicated that 57% of students improve the second time they take a test and it starts to level off after the third time. So students should plan on taking it two or three times at least, is I think a wise move.
ANN:
I’m curious about the rollout. I remember the last couple of times the College Board changed the format of the SAT. It was a little bit chaotic. What are you expecting this time around?
BRIAN:
Well, it will be interesting to see how it all goes. I live in Ohio, and I had a number of students whose high school had to change the date of the PSAT because they had some issues with everyone logging in at once.
Hopefully, the College Board has worked out some of those kinks there, and this first time in March will go smoothly. Students internationally have indicated that it’s gone pretty smoothly, so I’m hopeful that that will go okay.
The app records where you are in case there is a problem with the power or the Internet. So students don’t need to worry about if their progress will be lost. But I would I think it’s reasonable to assume that as the year unfolds, things may get smoother and students may want to expect that there might be a few hiccups with that March test since it’s the very first time for everyone administering. Hopefully not, but prepare for the worst. Hope for the best. This is what we have to do I think.
ANN:
It’s such a huge undertaking to write the Barron’s book preparing kids for a brand new test the digital SAT What was your most challenging part in the whole process?
I think one of the most challenging parts was just trying to anticipate what College Board would do with their tests. So I ended up having to throw out a number of things that were my best guesses of what they would do once they released more materials. So that was a challenge. But you know, that’s what you got to do sometimes with these things. But fortunately with the SAT, they did release quite a bit of material that I was able to use and research to make sure that the book and the instruction fully aligned with what students will see on test day. So, it was a lot of work, but I think it’ll help students quite a bit.
ANN:
We use the Barron’s book for preparing our students. It’s been fabulous. Our Test Prep Tutors love it. It’s right on par for what the kids need to know. There’s plenty of practice problems. And then we really balance that with the Bluebook tests. So it’s a really a nice blend to make sure kids are practicing the digital format, but they still have the content there.
BRIAN:
That’s great. I tried to write it with tutors in mind where you think about what a student will need, and they need more review of this particular concept, and then you can go in-depth with that. It’s a pretty big book here, you know, it will take a long time to get through everything, but students can pick and choose what they want to focus on for sure.
ANN:
Thank you so much, Brian for sharing with us about the new test. We’re excited for a smooth rollout!
The first Digital SAT debuted in the US on March 9th. We recommend that students plan to take the test (SAT or ACT) 2-3 times to maximize their score. Here are the upcoming SAT test dates:
| Scheduled SAT Test Date | Ideal Time To Start Prep |
| March 9, 2024 | December 2023 |
| May 4, 2024 | February 2024 |
| June 1, 2024 | March 2024 |
| August 4, 2024 *anticipated date | May 2024 |
| October 5, 2024 *anticipated date | July 2024 |
If your child needs help prepping for a future test (SAT or ACT), our expert Test Prep Tutors are here for you!