SAT going fully digital

[Porridge]

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075315337/new-digital-sat-college-admissions-test-requirement-2024-us#:~:text=The SAT%2C a college admissions,calculator on the math section.
 

Sounds like the format will be changing. I assume this will change the way students should prep for the exam. 

Edited October 30, 2022 by WTM
Mistake

[Guest]

Just now, WTM said:

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075315337/new-digital-sat-college-admissions-test-requirement-2024-us#:~:text=The SAT%2C a college admissions,calculator on the math section.
 

Sounds like the format will be changing. I assume this will change the way students should prep for the exam. 

ETA — oops I misread the article. It’s not going fully digital in the US until next year

[Roadrunner]

So fed up with all this. I need to prep my kid before this dumb test changes. Sigh. 
And really not happy with test optional bull crap - either ask all kids to submit it or stop asking altogether. This is so much worse! 

[EKS]

It is definitely important to prepare specifically for the format that the test is taken in.  When I prepared for the GRE, I first used paper materials, including paper practice tests.  Then I tried taking a practice digital version.  My score went way down because the format change caused me to take a lot longer.  Then, after some practice, I got used to it, and my score bounced back up.  

I was surprised at how different the digital experience was compared to paper.  Possibly part of the reason is that I wear progressives, which wouldn't be an issue for youngins.

[regentrude]

I am not a fan of standardized tests, but shorter reading passages and calculator on math sounds like a major dumb down catering to the declining level of reading comprehension and math ability we observe in freshmen.  Is that what they mean by "more relevant "?

Edited October 30, 2022 by regentrude

[Miss Tick]

Another article I read said the test would be "adaptive", which seems like it could make comparisons difficult - which is really the whole point of the test.

I also imagine this might pose an obstacle for homeschool students finding seats? Perhaps not if you bring your own laptop for taking the test...

Agreeing whole-heatedly with @EKSand wondering when study materials will be made available

[kokotg]

My college freshman got paid by the college board to take a digital SAT a few weeks ago, so it's in the testing phase right now, I gather. I just texted him to ask what the experience was like--if it was much different. They won't tell him his score, I don't think (and it wouldn't be that informative anyway, probably, since he didn't do any prep for this one and was definitely out of practice with math at least). 

[kokotg]

He reports back that it was a lot easier....especially the math because they let them use desmos. Of course, I'm sure they're still calibrating and all that. 

[EKS]

25 minutes ago, kokotg said:

especially the math because they let them use desmos

They can use CAS enabled graphing calculators on the SAT now, so I suspect that the helps go beyond Desmos.

On the GRE we had use of a calculator for a subset of the problems.  My memory of it is that it was four function (or therabouts), but then again, the GRE tests pretty rudimentary math (middleish school and a bit of statistics).

I've actually tried to find old SAT practice tests (like from the 1980s, well before any of the changes) and have had no luck.  First there was the recentering and then the restructuring with the 2400 scoring system.  I'm pretty sure that was meant to de-emphasize math in an effort to equalize the scores for males and females (and I believe that that is the reasoning behind retaining it for the NMSQT scoring).  I find the SAT to be quite easy as it is now, much easier than it used to be.  I honestly can't imagine it getting any easier.  

[ScoutTN]

Very glad my Dd got to do paper.

[lewelma]

The article says it started in 2023 for internationals. I'm in NZ and tutoring a kid for the SAT that he has to get done by June 2023 for recruiting purposes. Where should I look for new materials?  This is going to make it very tight to prepare if the exam style and content is changing. 

[Miss Tick]

2 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Where should I look for new materials? 

Good question. None of the articles I've seen have mentioned this at all.

You might try this College Board page.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

So fed up with all this. I need to prep my kid before this dumb test changes. Sigh. 

We have longer - It goes digital for international students in March 2023, but not in the US until sometime in 2024.

https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/digital-sat-brings-student-friendly-changes-test-experience

[Farrar]

The Khan practice materials are bound to be the most up to date because they have the College Board deal.

Another approach may be to focus on the ACT instead if you have a kid who is going to end up in that first batch of digital SAT test takers, before everything has adjusted. Colleges genuinely don't prefer one or the other. Of course, some students do better on the SAT (or on the ACT) and sometimes there can be differences in accommodations or availability, but I do think that's one option to consider.

[Roadrunner]

Mine can’t read on screens. So glad DS got to take the paper version. It’s too bad my 10th grader won’t have that option as a senior. 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Roadrunner

[lewelma]

Found the content on Khan, but no practice tests that I can find, just example questions organized by topic. But that is a start. I just hate tutoring using an online platform as I can't mark it up, make comments, highlight etc.  So hard to go back and review what was missed a couple weeks later. I also can't easily tell what content has changed. And because of this, it will be hard to use the old SAT learning books for math and grammar.  What a muddle. This kid has to get it done by June for recruitment purposes. NZ does not teach any grammar at all, and no punctuation either, so there is quite a lot to do. 

[Farrar]

6 hours ago, lewelma said:

Found the content on Khan, but no practice tests that I can find, just example questions organized by topic. But that is a start. I just hate tutoring using an online platform as I can't mark it up, make comments, highlight etc.  So hard to go back and review what was missed a couple weeks later. I also can't easily tell what content has changed. And because of this, it will be hard to use the old SAT learning books for math and grammar.  What a muddle. This kid has to get it done by June for recruitment purposes. NZ does not teach any grammar at all, and no punctuation either, so there is quite a lot to do. 

Khan has about a dozen full tests. Just do a Google search. Some of them are printable… you could prep with paper, get the content down, then transition to computer for practice just with that.

[lewelma]

5 hours ago, Farrar said:

Khan has about a dozen full tests. Just do a Google search. Some of them are printable… you could prep with paper, get the content down, then transition to computer for practice just with that.

A dozen full tests for the new 2 hour version? I will look again. 

I can prep on paper but all the books are for the three hour version. Is the content the same?

[Farrar]

38 minutes ago, lewelma said:

A dozen full tests for the new 2 hour version? I will look again. 

I can prep on paper but all the books are for the three hour version. Is the content the same?

No. It's the old ones. But they have the newest versions and they've always had a way to print the full tests so I'd be surprised if they dropped that entirely.

[lewelma]

30 minutes ago, Farrar said:

No. It's the old ones. But they have the newest versions and they've always had a way to print the full tests so I'd be surprised if they dropped that entirely.

I've just looked again, and sounds like the math content will be very much the same so that we can prep with the old content, but that the reading/writing is very different. They currently have 'hundreds' of questions in the digital reading/writing style on khan, but there are no full length tests, and no print books that i can find. And I can't quite tell, but looks like khan may not host full length tests and that you need to do them with the bluebook app on the SAT website. But there are not any tests yet available.  This will make it very difficult to prep for the March exam.  sigh

[Malam]

On 10/30/2022 at 12:13 PM, regentrude said:

I am not a fan of standardized tests, but shorter reading passages and calculator on math sounds like a major dumb down catering to the declining level of reading comprehension and math ability we observe in freshmen.  Is that what they mean by "more relevant "?

Regardless of the difficulty of the format, the test will be scored relatively. Only x% of students will score in the (100-x)th percentile regardless of the format. The adaptive nature will likely increase the range at which the test is accurate, which is good for high achievers.

[silver]

Khan used to have printable tests that you could take on paper and then enter your answers for their system to score them. I couldn't find that. I found a link from Khan to College Board's downloadable paper practice tests:
https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/sat/practice-preparation/practice-tests/paper

 

Khan does seem to have practice material aimed at the new digital format. The site might verify that you are, in fact, looking for the prep material for the new format. They have test prep material, but point you to College Board for practice tests.
https://www.khanacademy.org/digital-sat/confirmed

https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/digital-sat

Practice tests through College Board's app: https://bluebook.app.collegeboard.org/

[Malam]

Interestingly enough, someone (who scored a 1400) on that subreddit said they found the adaptive version's Reading/Writing to be harder and the math to be roughly the same difficulty, which implies a higher reading/writing celling than before. That's not what I expected, but I guess it makes sense considering that the EBRW was also where the most difficult questions were in the original SAT. It makes sense that they would try to expand the ceiling on the EBRW side since there are a lot more super high-performers in math (via AMC training) than there are for reading comprehension (via a lack of reading comprehension olympiads)

[EKS]

7 hours ago, Malam said:

Interestingly enough, someone (who scored a 1400) on that subreddit said they found the adaptive version's Reading/Writing to be harder and the math to be roughly the same difficulty, which implies a higher reading/writing celling than before.

If the test is adaptive, perhaps both sections have a higher ceiling, but the person's reading aptitude is higher than their math aptitude, so the test fed them harder questions.

[lewelma]

I need to get a baseline for my student, mostly because I need to show evidence to the parent that the kid improved even if they don't get the score they want. I don't think I want to use up the few adaptive tests available. But I'm not sure. If I use the old exam to just get a ballpark (and scare the kid so he works harder), the score may just be really off. What do you guys suggest?

[Roadrunner]

Somebody explain to me - with adoptive tests does every kid hitting a certain level gets the same exact questions? 

[EKS]

Just now, Roadrunner said:

Somebody explain to me - with adoptive tests does every kid hitting a certain level gets the same exact questions? 

I think that in general, the answer is no.  My understanding is that there is a question bank containing questions of various levels.  For the MAP, for example, the computer selects the next question from the question bank based on how the student does on the current question.  For the GRE, there are two sections each for verbal and quantitative.  The first section is of average difficulty.  The second section will either be easier or harder depending on how the student did on the first section.  But I believe that the exact questions will vary from student to student.

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

I think that in general, the answer is no.  My understanding is that there is a question bank containing questions of various levels.  For the MAP, for example, the computer selects the next question from the question bank based on how the student does on the current question.  For the GRE, there are two sections each for verbal and quantitative.  The first section is of average difficulty.  The second section will either be easier or harder depending on how the student did on the first section.  But I believe that the exact questions will vary from student to student.

So to me when two kids aren’t taking the exact same tests, their scores shouldn’t be compared. 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Roadrunner

[EKS]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

So to me when two kids aren’t taking the exact same tests, their scores shouldn’t be compared. 

I believe that the field of psychometrics is advanced enough that its practicioners are able to produce item banks and testing protocols that generate scores that can be compared with reasonable accuracy.

Note that scores from different forms of the current SAT are compared all the time.

[Roadrunner]

6 minutes ago, EKS said:

I believe that the field of psychometrics is advanced enough that its practicioners are able to produce item banks and testing protocols that generate scores that can be compared with reasonable accuracy.

Note that scores from different forms of the current SAT are compared all the time.

Right but a given exam at least is scored for a bunch of people at a sitting. I just think comparable isn’t the same as “same.” 

[freesia]

6 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Right but a given exam at least is scored for a bunch of people at a sitting. I just think comparable isn’t the same as “same.” 

But the schools don’t take sitting into account. They don’t say—the Dec SAT was tough and Dan did better than Tony. The students have up to four years and six plus sittings. They basically assume they are all equal. 

[Roadrunner]

2 minutes ago, freesia said:

But the schools don’t take sitting into account. They don’t say—the Dec SAT was tough and Dan did better than Tony. The students have up to four years and six plus sittings. They basically assume they are all equal. 

And yet at least for that sitting, you are taking the same exam. So whatever the curve, it’s the same one for all. And you can do different sittings and each of those those would also be the same exam with the rest with the same curve. 
I understand what you are saying. I just think it makes field even more uneven than before. 

[EKS]

22 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Right but a given exam at least is scored for a bunch of people at a sitting. I just think comparable isn’t the same as “same.” 

There are a lot of good things about adaptive tests.  For example, they are potentially more secure, and they can have substantially higher ceilings and lower floors while taking far less time.  Having a substantially higher ceiling is desperately needed for the NMSQT.  As it stands now, high ability students are being separated by their ability not to make silly errors.

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

There are a lot of good things about adaptive tests.  For example, they are potentially more secure, and they can have substantially higher ceilings and lower floors while taking far less time.  Having a substantially higher ceiling is desperately needed for the NMSQT.  As it stands now, high ability students are being separated by their ability not to make silly errors.

That could have been achieved by making the test harder, and still giving everybody the same test. I am not sure they are going to increase the difficulty of test questions though even if it’s adaptive. 

[EKS]

48 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

That could have been achieved by making the test harder, and still giving everybody the same test. I am not sure they are going to increase the difficulty of test questions though even if it’s adaptive. 

But there are conflicting goals for the test.  How am I going to do on the SAT versus NMSQT.

That said, you're right, they may not increase the difficulty.  And they may not change the NMSQT.

Edited November 4, 2022 by EKS

[Roadrunner]

7 minutes ago, EKS said:

But there are conflicting goals for the test.  How am I going to do on the SAT versus NMSQT.

That said, you're right, they may not increase the difficulty.  And they may not change the NMSQT.

My feeling is they are trying to make it easy for kids to keep making money. Personally I think every redesign makes them less relevant. 

[EKS]

21 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

My feeling is they are trying to make it easy for kids to keep making money. Personally I think every redesign makes them less relevant. 

That is probably true.

[Farrar]

One thing I've seen some test prep folks say about the new one a couple of times now is that it has a lot more interpretation questions. Which best sums up the feeling of this passage type things. I assume that will benefit some students and hurt others. As is the case with any decision or change they make, of course.

Again I'll say... ACT if you want to know for sure what you're getting. For now.

[Malam]

20 hours ago, lewelma said:

I need to get a baseline for my student, mostly because I need to show evidence to the parent that the kid improved even if they don't get the score they want. I don't think I want to use up the few adaptive tests available. But I'm not sure. If I use the old exam to just get a ballpark (and scare the kid so he works harder), the score may just be really off. What do you guys suggest?

I would suggest the "old" (post-2015) SAT exams. They should be similar enough. You can find a lot here

16 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

That could have been achieved by making the test harder, and still giving everybody the same test. I am not sure they are going to increase the difficulty of test questions though even if it’s adaptive. 

The CollegeBoard already gets a lot of flak from 90% of students due to how hard the questions can be. Making it harder would be a PR disaster. And to answer one of your earlier questions, while it's generally not true that to equally performing students will get identical sets of questions on each test, it is true that each question will be given to many different students, allowing the collegeboard to accurately gauge the difficulty of the question and curve student's scores appropriately.

17 hours ago, EKS said:

As it stands now, high ability students are being separated by their ability not to make silly errors.

There's a "dirty trick" where prospective NMSQT-takers can opt to use the SAT (which has a higher ceiling and allows multiple attempts) by writing in and asking: https://www.mcelroytutoring.com/blog-post.php?id=4899 https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=424

(I've got a little chip on my shoulder because I assumed I wouldn't be able to apply for the NMSQT because I attended an online school for 11th grade which wasn't able to administer the PSAT)

Edited November 4, 2022 by Malam