The New SAT®
Important
Information for
High School
English Teachers
The New SAT Focuses on
College Success™ Skills
• Critical Reading
• Mathematics
• Writing
The SAT® tests students’ reasoning based on knowledge
and skills developed through their course work.
It measures their ability to analyze and solve problems
by applying what they have learned in school.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Time Frame
• October 2004: New PSAT/NMSQT®
• March 2005: New SAT
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Time Frame
Class of 2006 will take new SAT
• Class of 2005—current seniors
Current SAT as seniors in fall 2004
New SAT as seniors in March 2005 (if necessary)
• Class of 2006—current juniors
New PSAT/NMSQT as juniors in fall 2004
New SAT as juniors in March 2005 and later
New SAT as seniors
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Has the SAT Ever Changed Before?
• Yes, the SAT has changed several times since
it was first administered in 1926.
• The SAT evolves to meet the changing needs
of students, teachers, and colleges.
• The most recent changes were made
in 1994. (Adding writing to the SAT was
recommended but not possible in 1994 due to
inadequate technology and lack of large number
of readers needed.)
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Why Is the SAT Changing?
• To better reflect today’s classroom practices and
curriculum by replacing analogies with short
reading passages and quantitative comparisons
with more math problems, some including content
from third-year college-preparatory math
• To reinforce the importance of writing skills
• To help colleges make better admissions and
placement decisions
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Will the New SAT Be Harder?
• No, the new SAT will be designed so that a student who could score a
500 on the math section (for example) of the current SAT could score
a 500 on the math section of the new test.
• 97% of college-bound students complete 3 years of math so the test
will more closely measure the math they are already studying.
• Extensive field trials confirmed that students are taking more upper
level math, which is why the overall difficulty of the test is not affected.
• While the test is longer, field trials also confirmed that the increased
length of the test has no impact on the students’ scores.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Changes to the SAT and the
PSAT/NMSQT®
Verbal
• Name will be changed to critical reading.
• Analogies will be eliminated.
• Short reading passages will replace analogies
and will measure the kind of reasoning formerly
measured by analogies.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Changes to the SAT and the
PSAT/NMSQT
Analogies will be ELIMINATED
CLAY:POTTER::
(A) stone:sculptor
(B) machines:mechanic
(C) hems:tailor
(D) bricks:architect
(E) chalk:teacher
Correct answer: A
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Example of passage-based analogical reasoning items
The relationship between the “spectroscope” and a
“star’s chemical composition” (lines 37–38) is most
like the relationship between
(A)
a periscope and a submarine
(B)
a microscope and a cellular structure
(C)
a generator and an electrical charge
(D)
a test tube and an experiment
Correct answer: B
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Changes to the SAT and the
PSAT/NMSQT
Math
• Quantitative comparisons will be eliminated.
• The content is being expanded to reflect the mathematics that
college-bound students typically learn during their first three years
of high school.
• The reasoning aspects of the test together with the expanded content
will more effectively assess the mathematics necessary for student
success in college.
• Math content on the PSAT/NMSQT will also be enhanced, but it will
not include Algebra II because most students will not be familiar with
that level of math.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Changes to the SAT and the
PSAT/NMSQT
Quantitative comparisons will be ELIMINATED
The Roadside Diner cuts its cakes into 12 servings each.
A.The number of these cakes
needed to make 78 servings
B. 6
(A) The quantity in column A is greater;
(B) The quantity in column B is greater;
(C) The two quantities are equal;
(D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
Correct answer: A
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Changes to the SAT and the
PSAT/NMSQT
Writing
• Multiple-choice grammar and usage questions
• Will measure the student’s understanding of how to use language in a
clear, consistent manner, how to revise and edit, and how to recognize
an error in a sentence.
• Student-written essay (SAT only)
• Will measure the student’s use of language: logical presentation of
ideas, development of a point of view, and clarity of expression under
timed conditions.
• Essay practice tool provided AT NO COST to all schools administering
the PSAT/NMSQT.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Changes to the SAT and the
PSAT/NMSQT
Skills Feedback
• The PSAT/NMSQT provides individualized
feedback to students through its Score
Report Plus.
• The College Board is developing a similar tool
for the SAT.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Skills
Feedback
Score Report Plus
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PSAT/NMSQT
Score Report Plus
• Tells students how their scores compare with those of
other sophomores or juniors
• Tells students what SAT score ranges they can expect
• Includes a question-by-question breakdown
• Helps students identify strengths and weaknesses, and
provides tips on how to improve specific skills
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
PSAT/NMSQT Score Report Plus
New in 2004
Students will use their Score Report Plus code to access free
enhancements online at www.collegeboard.com/psatextra for:
• Complete explanations for all answers, including why some
answers were wrong.
• Full explanations of answers for additional higher-level math
practice SAT questions on the back of the PSAT/NMSQT
score report.
• Entire SAT essay scoring guide, plus actual sample essay papers
at every score point for the practice essay on the back of the PSAT/NMSQT
score report.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Skills Feedback
Score Report Plus
Improve Your Skills—Examples
• Being precise and clear
• How to improve: Learn to recognize sentence elements that are
ambiguous and confusing. In your writing, choose words carefully and
connect them for clear meaning. See questions 4, 6, 8.
• Understanding geometry and coordinate geometry
• How to improve: Review geometry units in your textbook involving
perimeter, area, volume, circumference, angles, lines, and slope.
Familiarize yourself with the formulas given at the beginning of math
sections of the set. See questions 7, 13, 19.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Time Specifications
PSAT/NMSQT
Current PSAT/NMSQT
Critical
Reading
Math
Writing
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New PSAT/NMSQT
2 hours 10 minutes
2 hours 10 minutes
50 minutes
50 minutes
Two 25-minute sections
Two 25-minute sections
50 minutes
50 minutes
Two 25-minute sections
Two 25-minute sections
30 minutes
30 minutes
One 30-minute
multiple-choice section
One 30-minute
multiple-choice section
The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Time Specifications
SAT
Current SAT
Critical Reading
Math
3 hours
3 hours 45 minutes
75 minutes
70 minutes
Two 30-minute sections and
one 15-minute section
Two 25-minute sections and
75 minutes
70 minutes
Two 30-minute sections and
one 15-minute section
Two 25-minute sections and
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one 20-minute section
one 20-minute section
60 minutes
Two multiple-choice sections
(one 25-minute section and
one 10-minute section) and
one 25-minute essay
Writing
Variable Section
New SAT
30 minutes
25 minutes
The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Test Content and Question Types
Current SAT
Critical
Reading
Sentence Completion
Sentence Completion
Critical Reading: Long reading passages
Critical Reading: short and long reading passages
Analogies
Multiple-choice items, student-produced
responses, and quantitative comparisons
measuring:
Math
New SAT
Number and Operations
Algebra I and Functions
Geometry; and Statistics, Probability,
and Data Analysis
Multiple-choice items and student-produced responses
measuring:
Number and Operations
Algebra I, II, and Functions
Geometry; and Statistics, Probability,
and Data Analysis
Multiple-choice items: Improving sentences and
paragraphs, and identifying sentence errors
Writing
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Student-written essay: Effectively communicate a
point of view on an issue, supporting a position with
reasoning and examples
The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Test Scores
Current SAT
New SAT
Critical Reading
V 200–800
CR 200–800
Math
M 200–800
M 200–800
W 200–800
Will include 2 subscores:
Writing
(Subscores)
Essay
2–12
(1/3 of writing score)
Multiple-choice 20–80
(2/3 of writing score)
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
College Board Curriculum Survey
The changes reflect national practice
• The College Board conducted a survey of high
school and college teachers on various questions
related to reading and writing curricula.
• Purpose of the survey: Collect data in order to
examine alignment of new SAT critical reading
and writing sections to high school and college
curricula and instructional practices.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
College Board Curriculum Survey
The changes reflect national practice
The survey investigated the following:
• How frequently certain reading and writing skills are
taught in class
• The importance of these skills for students entering their
first year of college
• The kind and frequency of reading and writing activities
done in and out of class
• Reading and writing proficiency of college freshmen
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
College Board Curriculum Survey
The changes reflect national practice
The survey was completed by 2,351 teachers:
• 914 high school English teachers
• 393 high school English department chairs
• 814 college English professors
• 230 college professors in other disciplines
(including professors of history, political science,
psychology, and biology)
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
College Board Curriculum Survey
The changes reflect national practice
The survey revealed the following:
• Persuasive/argumentative writing was rated most important and assigned
most often in the classroom.
• Teachers rated almost all of the 14 grammar and usage skills included on
the survey high in importance, but survey results indicated that classroom
work does not focus heavily on these skills.
• High school teachers assigned significantly more fiction and poetry
reading than did college instructors.
• High school teachers tend to administer multiple-choice tests more often
than do college teachers. Most teachers administer short-answer tests,
and almost all teachers administer essay tests.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
College Board Curriculum Survey
The changes reflect national practice
Reading skills rated most important in the survey are those tested on the
critical reading section of the new SAT:
• Identifying and/or summarizing the theme or central argument of a text
• Making inferences and drawing conclusions
• Understanding organizational strategies, such as introduction, supporting
examples, and summary
• Writing skills rated most important in the survey are those emphasized in new
SAT Essay and Scoring Guide:
• Writing a clear and coherent essay
• Using supporting details and examples
• Developing a logical argument
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
A Closer Look
at the Critical
Reading and
Writing Sections
of the New SAT
Critical Reading
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Strengthens alignment with classroom practices
• Measures knowledge of genre, cause and effect, rhetorical devices,
comparative arguments, and the ability to recognize relationships
among parts of a text
• Long and short reading passages are taken from different fields:
• Natural sciences
• Humanities
• Social sciences
• Literary fiction
• Short reading passages, which replace analogies, measure the kind
of reasoning formerly measured by the analogy section.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Strengthens alignment with classroom practices
Measures critical reading skills as shown in student’s ability to:
• Determine word meanings
• Analyze sentence structures
• Analyze organizational structures of longer passages
• Synthesize longer passages into summaries, main points, or themes
• Make inferences, draw conclusions, recognize implications
• Recognize tone
Continued
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Strengthens alignment with classroom practices
Measures critical reading skills as shown in student’s
ability to:
• Analyze and evaluate author’s purpose, audience, and rhetorical strategies
• Compare or contrast ideas in a passage or in a pair of related passages
• Analyze and evaluate ideas, opinions, and arguments in a passage or in a pair of
related passages
• Distinguish conflicting viewpoints in a passage or in a pair of related passages
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Strengthens alignment with classroom practices
Analogy items
• The new SAT critical reasoning section will no longer
include analogy item types.
• Critical reading items will embed analogical reasoning
tasks within the context of reading and analyzing texts,
which is a more authentic measure of how students use
analogical reasoning to support critical reading, both in
and out of the classroom.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Strengthens alignment with classroom practices
Analogy items
• Analogy items measure both vocabulary knowledge and analogical reasoning skills—
the ability to see a relationship in a pair of words and to recognize a similar
or parallel relationship in another pair of words.
• Analogy items take the form A:B::C:D, where a student is given the words A, B, and C
in the item stem and is asked to select D from among five options. The student must
first establish the relationship between the words A and B and then select D such that
the same relationship exists between C and D.
• While research has shown analogical reasoning to be a valuable skill, the format of
the item type is considered artificial and not aligned with authentic critical reading
tasks.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Strengthens alignment with classroom practices
Measuring analogical reasoning without the analogy item type:
• Sentence Completion items measure both word knowledge and the ability to infer
word meaning from context.
• Application and Analogy items ask students to understand an idea or relationship in a
passage and then select a parallel idea or relationship from among five hypothetical
relationships involving different contexts presented in the response options.
• Bridging items ask students to understand an idea in one passage and then compare
it with an idea in another passage.
• Bridging items ask students to understand an author’s point of view in one passage
and then infer what the author would think about an issue or idea expressed in
another passage.
• Comprehension questions ask students to explain analogies, metaphors, and other
comparisons in passages.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Revised SAT Verbal Section–
Renamed Critical Reading
Example of passage-based analogical reasoning items
The relationship between the “spectroscope” and a
“star’s chemical composition” (lines 37–38) is most
like the relationship between
(A) a periscope and a submarine
(B) a microscope and a cellular structure
(C) a generator and an electrical charge
(D) a test tube and an experiment
Correct answer: B
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Critical Reading Section
Example of new short-paragraph reading items
Line 5
Dinosaurs have such a powerful grip on the public
consciousness that it is easy to forget just how
recently scientists have become aware of them.
A two-year-old child today may be able to rattle off
three dinosaur names, but in 1824 there was only
one known dinosaur. Period. The word “dinosaur”
didn’t even exist until 1841. Indeed, in those early
years, the world was baffled by the discovery of
these absurdly enormous creatures.
(continued)
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
The Critical Reading Section
Example of new short-paragraph reading items
1. The reference to the “two-year-old child” (line 4) primarily serves to
(A) challenge a popular assumption
(B) highlight the extent of the change
(C) suggest that a perspective is simplistic
(D) introduce a controversial idea
(E) question a contemporary preoccupation
Correct answer: B
2. The statement “Period” (line 6) primarily serves to emphasize the
(A) authoritative nature of the finding
(B) lack of flexibility in a popular theory
(C) stubborn nature of a group of researchers
(D) limited knowledge about a subject
(E) refusal of the public to accept new discoveries
Correct answer: D
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Writing
New SAT Writing Section
Additional measure of an important college success skill
• Essay section measures a student’s ability to develop and express
ideas effectively using standard written English.
• Essay prompts and Scoring Guide are designed to measure critical
thinking, insight, and complexity of thought as student develops a
point of view on an issue.
• Essay is a direct measure, under timed conditions, of the kind of
writing that is expected in most college courses—writing that
engages an issue critically and develops a point of view in a
thoughtful, coherent, and cogent essay.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Additional measure of an important college success skill
Multiple-choice items
3 types of multiple-choice writing questions:
• Identifying Sentence Errors
• Improving Sentences
• Improving Paragraphs
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Examples of Multiple-Choice Writing Items
Identifying Sentence Errors
It is likely that the opening of the convention center,
previously set for July 1, would be postponed because of
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
the bricklayers’ strike. No error.
(E)
Correct answer: C
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Examples of Multiple-Choice Writing Items
Improving Sentences
Although several groups were absolutely opposed to the outside
support given the revolutionary government, other groups were as
equal in their adamant approval of that support.
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
were as equal in their adamant approval of
held equally adamant approval of
were equally adamant in approving
had approved equally adamantly
held approval equally adamant of
Correct answer: C
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Examples of Multiple-Choice Writing Items
Improving Paragraphs
(1) At one point in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, the evil archaeologist
Belloq shows the heroic Indiana Jones a cheap watch. (2) If the watch were
to be buried in the desert for a thousand years and then dug up, Belloq says,
it would be considered priceless. (3) I often think of the scene whenever I
consider the record album–collecting phenomenon, it being one of the more
remarkable aspects of popular culture in the United States. (4) Collecting
record albums gives us a chance to make a low-cost investment that might
pay dividends in the future.
[Excerpt from longer three-paragraph passage]
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(continued)
The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Examples of Multiple-Choice Writing Items
Improving Paragraphs
In the context of the first paragraph, which revision is
most needed in sentence 3?
(A)Insert “As a matter of fact” at the beginning.
(B)Omit the words “it being.”
(C)
Omit the word “scene.”
(D)
Change the comma to a semicolon.
(E)Change “think” to “thought” and “consider” to “considered.”
Correct answer: B
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Additional measure of an important college success skill
Encourages writing in schools
Essay
• Students will read a short excerpt, or two quotations, and respond
to a prompt that frames an issue.
• Students must first think critically about the issue presented in the
essay assignment and then define and support their point of view,
using reasoning and evidence based on their own experiences,
readings, or observations.
• The essay will be similar to the type of on-demand writing that is
typically done in college.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Writing Section
Prompts
• Prompts will be written to be easily accessible to the general testtaking population, including students for whom English is a second
language (ESL), and to be free of figurative, technical, or specific
literary references.
• Prompts will be relevant to a wide range of fields and interests, not
narrowly related to specific topics.
• Prompts will be tested to ensure that they do not carry
any bias across subgroups.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Essay Prompt
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following quotations and
the assignment below.
1. While secrecy can be destructive, some of it is indispensable in human lives.
Some control over secrecy and openness is needed in order to protect identity.
Such control may be needed to guard privacy, intimacy, and friendship.
Adapted from Sissela Bok, “The Need for Secrecy”
2. Secrecy and a free, democratic government, President Harry Truman once said,
don’t mix. An open exchange of information is vital to the kind of informed citizenry
essential to healthy democracy.
Editorial, “Overzealous Secrecy Threatens Democracy”
Assignment: Do people need to keep secrets, or is secrecy harmful?
Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue.
Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading,
studies, experience, or observations.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Essay Prompt
• The essay will not be coachable since
students must respond directly to the
assigned topic.
• Essays not written on the assigned topic
will receive a subscore of zero for the essay
portion of the writing section.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
How Will the Essays Be Scored?
Readers will
• understand that the essay is a first draft;
• read quickly to gain an impression of the whole essay relative to the holistic
Scoring Guide and the sample range-finder essays;
• read the entire essay before scoring and then score immediately;
• read supportively, looking for and rewarding what is done well rather than
what is done badly or omitted;
• not judge an essay by its length or the quality of handwriting;
• understand that grammar is not an overriding factor in determining an
essay score; and
• consider spelling only when errors are so persistent that they interfere
with meaning.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
How Will the Essays Be Scored?
• Readers for the new SAT writing section will be trained
to recognize and reward a wide variety of writing styles
and strategies for developing a point of view at each score
point.
• The new SAT essay will neither reward nor punish
formulaic approaches to writing, such as the fiveparagraph essay.
• Prompts and the Scoring Guide call for directly relevant
responses that cannot be coached or memorized ahead
of test time.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Scoring Guide
Score of 6
An essay in this category is
outstanding, demonstrating
clear and consistent mastery,
although it may have a few
minor errors. A typical essay
• effectively and insightfully
develops a point of view on
the topic and demonstrates
outstanding critical thinking, using
clearly appropriate examples,
reasons, and other evidence to
support its position
• is well organized and clearly
focused, demonstrating clear
coherence and smooth
progression of ideas
• exhibits skillful use of language,
using a varied, accurate, and apt
vocabulary
• demonstrates meaningful variety
in sentence structure
• is free of most errors in grammar,
usage, and mechanics
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Score of 5
Score of 4
An essay in this category is
effective, demonstrating
reasonably consistent mastery,
although it will have occasional
errors or lapses in quality.
A typical essay
• effectively develops a point
of view on the topic and
demonstrates strong critical
thinking, generally using
appropriate examples, reasons,
and other evidence to support
its position
• is well organized and focused,
demonstrating coherence and
progression of ideas
• exhibits facility in the use of
language, using appropriate
vocabulary
• demonstrates variety in sentence
structure
• is generally free of most errors in
grammar, usage, and mechanics
An essay in this category is
competent, demonstrating
adequate mastery, although
it will have lapses in quality.
A typical essay
• develops a point of view on
the topic and demonstrates
competent critical thinking, using
adequate examples, reasons, and
other evidence to support its
position
• is generally organized and
focused, demonstrating some
coherence and progression of
ideas
• exhibits adequate but inconsistent
facility in the use of language,
using generally appropriate
vocabulary
• demonstrates some variety in
sentence structure
• has some errors in grammar,
usage, and mechanics
The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
New SAT Scoring Guide
Score of 3
Score of 2
Score of 1
An essay in this category is inadequate,
but demonstrates developing mastery,
and is marked by ONE OR MORE of
the following weaknesses:
• develops a point of view on the
issue, demonstrating some critical
thinking, but may do so
inconsistently or use inadequate
examples, reasons, or other
evidence to support its position
• is limited in its organization or
focus, or may demonstrate some
lapses in coherence or progression
of ideas
An essay in this category is seriously
limited, demonstrating little mastery, and
is flawed by ONE OR MORE of
the following weaknesses:
• develops a point of view on the
issue that is vague or seriously
limited, demonstrating weak critical
thinking, providing inappropriate
or insufficient examples, reasons, or
other evidence to support its
position
• is poorly organized and/or focused,
or demonstrates serious problems
with coherence or progression of
ideas
• displays very little facility in the use
of language, using very limited
vocabulary or incorrect word choice
• demonstrates frequent problems
in sentence structure
• contains errors in grammar, usage,
and mechanics so serious that
meaning is somewhat obscured
An essay in this category
is fundamentally lacking,
demonstrating very little or no
mastery, and is severely flawed
by ONE OR MORE of the
following weaknesses:
• develops no viable point
of view on the topic, or
provides little or no evidence
to support its position
• is disorganized or
unfocused, resulting in a
disjointed
or incoherent essay
• displays developing facility in the
use of language, but sometimes
uses weak vocabulary or
inappropriate word choice
• lacks variety or demonstrates
problems in sentence structure
• contains an accumulation of errors
in grammar, usage, and mechanics
• displays fundamental errors
in vocabulary
• demonstrates severe flaws
in sentence structure
• contains pervasive errors
in grammar, usage, or
mechanics that persistently
interfere with meaning
Essays not written on the essay assignment will receive a score of zero.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Scoring Procedures for the Essay
• Procedures will be similar to those for the current
SAT Subject Test in Writing.
• Essays will be scored by trained high school English teachers and
college professors with experience teaching writing.
• Each essay will be scored independently by two readers according
to the holistic Scoring Guide in conjunction with sample essays
selected for training.
• Essays will be scored on a scale of 1 to 6 by each reader
(total score of 2 to 12).
• Essays will be scanned and distributed to readers via the Web.
• Scoring and reader supervision will take place online.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Essays Will Be Scored
Fairly and Accurately
• If the two readers’ scores differ by more than one
point, the essay will be read by a third reader.
• Based on the College Board’s experience in
scoring the SAT Subject Test in Writing, the
rigorous reader training and qualification process,
and continuous monitoring of readers as they
score, the College Board expects that less than
8 percent of all essays will call for a third reader.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Colleges Requiring a
Standardized Writing Test
• Colleges that accept the SAT will continue to
do so, and all will receive the writing score.
• Many colleges have announced that they will
require or recommend that students taking any
college admissions exam must submit a writing
score (including an essay) beginning with those
entering college in the fall of 2006.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Additional Research on the New SAT
Survey of Admissions Directors
• A recent College Board sampling of 774 four-year
colleges indicates that 59 percent of the
institutions sampled will use the writing score
for admissions and another 31 percent are still
considering its use.
• The colleges varied by admissions selectivity
and size, and represented a good cross-section
of higher education institutions.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Additional Research on the New SAT
Survey of Admissions Directors
The findings
• 74 percent of respondents say they will use the new SAT
writing score in admissions decisions.
• 68 percent of respondents plan to download and print
applicants’ essays.
• 35 percent of these respondents said they would read
all essays, and 19 percent said they would read most essays.
• 32 percent of respondents will use the essay for course
placement.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Additional Research on the New SAT
Survey of Admissions Directors
The reasons most often cited by those respondents
saying that they plan to read applicants’ essays were
• To provide additional information about a candidate’s
writing skills.
• To compare and verify an application essay.
• To use as an additional placement essay.
Students may view their essay online.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
Additional Information about
the SAT Subject Tests
• January 2005: The SAT Subject Test
in Writing will be administered for the
last time.
• All other SAT Subject Tests will continue,
including Math I and Math II.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
How Students Can Prepare
Students should
• Challenge themselves throughout high school by taking rigorous
courses, including at least 3 years of math.
• Read and write as much as possible—both in and out of school.
• Familiarize themselves with the SAT, so they know what to expect
on test day.
• Familiarize themselves with the different types of questions on the
SAT, the directions for each type of question, and how the test is
scored, so they know what to expect on test day.
• Take the new PSAT/NMSQT in October 2004—the new
PSAT/NMSQT will be the best preparation for the new SAT.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
ScoreWrite™: A Guide to the
New SAT Essay
How ScoreWrite works
• Students write essays on topic included in
ScoreWrite™ under the same test conditions and
time limit as the new SAT essay.
• Teachers learn to read and score these essays using
the same techniques and scoring guide that will be
used by scorers of the new SAT essay.
First version mailed to all schools
in January–February 2004
New version mailed every August to all
participating PSAT/NMSQT schools
Added feature of the new version will be
a matrix showing students how to get a
projected SAT writing score range by
combining their PSAT/NMSQT score with
their ScoreWrite essay score.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
How Students Can Prepare
Availability of Sample Questions
• The PSAT/NMSQT Student Bulletin, a free booklet that includes a
full-length practice test, will be available in early fall 2004.
• The 2004 PSAT/NMSQT Score Report Plus will be sent to schools
in December 2004 and will include explanations for every question
(available online to any student who takes the PSAT/NMSQT in
2004).
• The 2004 PSAT/NMSQT Score Report Plus mailing will include
advanced math sample questions.
• The new SAT Preparation Booklet™, (the successor to Taking the
SAT), the free booklet that includes a full-length practice test, will
be available in fall 2004.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
How Students Can Prepare
Availability of Sample Questions
• The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT ™
will be available in fall 2004.
• The Official SAT Online Course™, the successor to
One-on-One with the SAT®, will be available in fall 2004.
• The online SAT Learning Center® at
www.collegeboard.com will include new
SAT sample questions beginning in fall 2004.
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
www.collegeboard.com
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers
www.collegeboard.com
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The New SAT®: Important Information for High School English Teachers