Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, the College Board spews out another monstrous creation: the new SAT.

The new SAT, debuting in March 2005, will be composed of three parts: critical reading, math and writing. That means there will be two English sections and only one math section — a clear advantage for the English buffs. Even given the fact that there will be harder math questions in the math section on the new SAT, math fans will still end up getting the short end of the stick because there’s going to be an essay in the writing section.

Let’s face it; although this test is new and improved, it is definitely going to be more of a challenge than the old SAT. They’ve added an essay, a new writing section and harder math, including Algebra II. They’ve taken out the analogies (thank you) and quantitative comparisons. Their reasoning behind taking out the analogies is that success with the analogies requires mindless vocabulary memorization, which is definitely not what they’re aiming for (if only they’d thought of that for the previous graduating classes).

Remember, the SAT is an aptitude test, not an achievement test; it tests your ability to learn, not what you have learned. The College Board is doing their best to emphasize that with this new SAT.

The New SAT will take 3 hours and 45 minutes to complete; 45 minutes more than before. It begins with the 25 minute essay (just so your mind will be fresh and not worn out) and then moves onto critical reading, math, and writing, respectively. Each section is worth 200-800 points.

Here’s how each section breaks down:

Critical reading section
-Time: 70 minutes (two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section)
-Content: Critical reading and sentence-level reading
-Item types: Reading comprehension, sentence completions and paragraph-length critical reading

Math section
-Time: 70 minutes (two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section)
-Content: Number and operations; algebra and functions; geometry; statistics, probability and data analysis
-Item Types: Five-choice multiple-choice questions and student-produced responses

Writing section
-Time: 60 minutes
-Content: Grammar, usage and word choice
-Item types: Multiple choice questions (35 minutes) and student-written essay (25 minutes)

To find out more information including a chance to see a sample test, go to www.collegeboard.com.

-Return to March 2005 Issue-