What is the SAT?
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test which is required for college admission by many colleges and universities in the United States. More colloquially, the test is usually just called “the SAT,” and the letters are actually a pseudo-acronym, meaning that they don’t stand for anything. As an alternative to the SAT, some colleges allow students to take the ACT another standardized test, and some schools have an “SAT optional” policy, meaning that students may submit scores, but they are not required. The first form of the SAT was administered in 1901, when the College Board tested just under 1,000 students. The College Board continues to manage the SAT today, along with an assortment of other standardized tests used in university admissions; the test itself is designed and published by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). Since 1901, the SAT has undergone a number of changes which were designed to streamline the testing process and to compensate for shifts in the education sys
Many college and universities require their applicants to take a three-hour and 45 minute standardized examination called the SAT, commonly referred to as the SAT test. Consequently, most of you as high school juniors and seniors will take this test as part of the college admissions process. The SAT purports to evaluate student’s reading, writing, and mathematical reasoning abilities. As a result, you will actually get three scores, a critical reading score, a math score and a writing score, each of which will lie between 200 and 800. For each part of the SAT test the median score is 500, meaning that about 50 percent of all students score below 500 and about 50 percent of all students score 500 or above.
The SAT Reasoning Test is this nation’s oldest, most widely used — and misused — college entrance exam. The SAT is composed of three sections, “Critical Reading,” “Mathematics,” and “Writing,” each scored on a 200-800 point scale. The 171 questions are nearly all multiple-choice; the exam now includes one brief essay, and ten math questions require students to “grid in” the answer. By design, the test is “speeded” which means that many test takers are unable to finish all the questions. The SAT Subject Tests, formerly “Achievement Tests”, are one-hour subject exams, entirely in a multiple-choice format. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), under contract to the College Board, is the primary producer and administrator of the SAT. Pearson Educational Measurement is responsible for scoring multiple-choice items and the essay.
