The old SAT we all know and love so well is on its way out, to be replaced by a more comprehensive test that will hopefully leave students more prepared for college.

This is the last year to take the traditional SAT. As of next March the new SAT will take over. The College Board is changing it in hopes of changing the longstanding underpreparedness of those who take the SAT. Historically, close to half of the students who take the SAT are not prepared for college. Others who are college ready aim for colleges within their capabilities, but they are often unable to afford it; with the help of the new SAT more economical opportunities will be available, a virtue of the more extensive analytical capabilities of the test.

A mere change in format would not be enough though, so changes in the classroom are expected to be made. It is expected that hard work in the classroom and productive use of time will yield a much higher level of college preparedness in students.

Perhaps the least liked part of the exam is the extremely brief essay portion. The new SAT will not require that the students write an essay at all, and if they do decide to do so, they will be given a full fifty minutes to do so. Not only that but the prompt will pertain more to real-world problems, making it easier to write. It comes as highly recommended from Mrs. Hacker that students write the essay as that it is what colleges will be looking for. Oddly enough, there was a split in college admissions officers: many found the essay section to be useful, while others found it to be rather extraneous.

The old SAT with a timing of three hours and 45 minutes will be cut down to three hours, with an additional 50 minutes to complete the essay for those who so wish to do so. This time may be subject to another cut as the redesigners are still in the process of researching the most appropriate time allotment.

The scale will be changed from the previous range of 600-2400 to a more moderated 400-1600. Wrong answers will no longer negatively affect scores and points will be given solely to correct answers.

Questions will prompt students to use a higher level of thinking, such as deeper understanding of words and evidence-based reading questions. These questions were redesigned so that the vocabulary seen will more closely reflect quotidian vocabulary rather than asking for obscure words buried in the deepest depths of some unabridged dictionary. As put by our own Mrs. Hacker, “they wanted to make it more realistic for the students.

The redesigned SAT will help college admissions to gain a more complete picture of a students academic capability. It will, with some form of luck, be able to more accurately gauge the strengths and weaknesses. This will, in turn, help students to choose the college that will most suit their particular affinitie