As soon as the redesigned 2016 SAT Guide was released, I grabbed a copy and made my way through all four tests. The College Board has raised the bar—significantly. Here are my impressions!
The SAT is Even Harder Than It Was
Overall, the test is much harder than both the current SAT and the ACT. Students are given approximately 40% more time to answer each question, but we anticipate students will need all that extra time. Although we won’t know for sure until the first batch is graded in 2016, we expect a pretty generous curve, allowing students to miss many questions and still do well. It may, however, be much more difficult to get a perfect score—and therefore, higher scores will mean a great deal more to colleges.
The Reading Section is Harder
Although students may have rejoiced when they heard there were no Sentence Completion vocabulary questions on the 2016 ACT, they’re not quite off the hook: the SAT reading passages have become more difficult and include plenty of advanced vocabulary.
Because the test is 55 minutes, pacing matters more than ever. And since the passages are drawn from a wider array of sources and literary periods, slaving away on an easy passage might prove foolish when the next passage is heavily philosophical, laden with scientific jargon, or written in the English of a bygone century. Passages on DNA structure and replication, honeybee colony collapse disorder, as well as writings by Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Charlotte Brontë, Talleyrand, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley are all featured in the 2016 SAT Study Guide. This isn’t the AP English test or the SAT Literature Subject Test, but it sure feels like it in places! And whereas the ACT Science section tests students’ abilities to read and interpret charts and graphs, the science passages on the SAT require a deeper understanding of the concepts that they cover.
Happily, the new Reading section has placed a greater emphasis on evidentiary support. Too often, and especially on the current SAT, students choose answers to critical reading questions based on a feeling or inkling—but on the new SAT, questions such as “Which lines provide the best evidence for the previous question?” force students to turn back to the text, which is always a very good thing.
The Writing Section: Is This the ACT?
The Writing section has undergone a makeover designed to render it nearly indistinguishable from the ACT English test. Gone are the isolated sentences, replaced by passages with underlined text that students must edit. In addition to testing students’ knowledge of the rules and conventions of grammar, the writing test now places a heavier emphasis on diction, idioms, and structure. Although the Writing section now features significantly more advanced vocabulary than did its predecessor, it is still by far the easiest (and briefest) section. So long as students take pains to learn and repeatedly practice the rules of grammar, they’ll be fine—but my experience with students has been that high schools rarely prepare them for the task of exercising sound judgment insofar as grammar, usage, and mechanics are concerned.
Math’s More Difficult and Seems to Last Forever
A section on which students aren’t able to use a calculator begins the math portion, and at its most difficult, it’s highly conceptual. Students who have relied on the calculator as a crutch are likely to do poorly, especially in the latter half of the section. A long section on which calculators are allowed follows. Both sections are much more heavily focused on algebra, with less of an emphasis on geometry despite the addition of trig. It’s important for students to know how to cleverly interpret equations on a conceptual level and manipulate them on a practical level. Students who are familiar with the current SAT will find many questions and concepts they haven’t seen before, as well as a significant increase in the number of word problems. Even students who are adept at performing math tasks will struggle on the test if they don’t understand math on a conceptual level. The section has become much more competitive, and I personally doubt most high school students will have received enough preparation to excel on it.
The Essay is Harder and Requires More Critical Thinking
A source of many students’ frustration will inevitably be the new, more challenging essay—made optional (though most colleges will require it) and moved to the end of the test. Students will have 50 minutes, rather than 25, but their charge will require advanced analytical skill. Rather than crafting a go-through-the-motions argumentative essay of their own, with no textual support to reference, students in 2016 will instead read and analyze arguments made by established writers and thinkers. It’s fairly easy to convince someone that creativity is important—it’s far more difficult, however, to analyze how Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others use evidence, reasoning, and rhetoric to structure and sustain an argument. After taking a three-hour test, students are likely to balk at the level of engagement a successful essay of this kind requires.
Endurance Matters More Than Ever
In every section—but particularly in Reading and Math—endurance on the SAT matters more than ever. Students seeking to do well must develop a keen sense of pacing, lest they find themselves obsessing over an easy reading passage with a hard one just around the corner. They should develop a conceptual understanding of math, lest their skill at following instructions be wasted on questions without a clear way forward. No longer are the sections interspersed: on the new SAT, they’re immersive, and this will pose serious challenges.
Which Test Will Students Take?
The reality is that, at this point, the ACT is a stable, known entity. Ironically, although the SAT has clearly undergone its redesign to keep up with the ACT and reclaim some of its market share, the 2016 SAT may have students flocking to the ACT—at least initially. Some might do so for logistical reasons—the College Board will likely take longer to score and develop the curve for the new SAT. However, because the 2016 SAT is now the hardest standardized admissions test on the market, I predict that it will gain popularity among the most competitive students: those seeking admission at America’s top colleges and universities. A stellar score will mean much more on this test than it will mean on its predecessor, or on the ACT. As such, expect the 2016 SAT to emerge as the top choice for ambitious, talented students—and expect the ACT to become the safer, easier option.
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