<p>Here is the CNN article:</p>
<p>I understand the rational for reusing questions, but I don't undertand why they don't mix and match the sections or even better questions within the sections. The way they are doing it now they practically guarantee that some will have seen the entire exam before and some will have seen none of it. How fair is that?</p>
<p>I generally like the work of this AP reporter (not named in the CNN byline, but named in another version of the story posted here earlier). I think that reporter has interviewed me on occasion. But there are a couple of things that are anomalous in this story. One is that I received an email on 12 October 2006 from Brenda Lane of ETS that said this: "Effective August 11, 2006, ETS no longer services the SAT Program." Indeed, an inquiry that I made about a different issue through the ETS online question forum was forwarded to College Board after I received that reply. So I'm not sure that ETS is the current test design contractor to contact about how the SAT I is constructed. The second thing that is anomalous about the article is that it is sourced mostly to a representative of Princeton Review, which has a business interest in taking the position on the SAT I taken in that article. I would await more fact-gathering before concluding that there is really a problem here, since it has been known all along that some questions are recycled in each SAT I administration.</p>
<p>I agree with mathmom. I hope they did not reuse the whole previous test.</p>
<p>wzzzzz, That was the whole point. They did reuse a test, and routinely reuse tests. There were several threads here on CC proclaiming that the recent SAT was the exact same test used in Dec 05. According to the article, tests that are reused are not made available to the public, but test prep companies routinely recreate the tests and the tests are also routinely dissected online right here on CC. </p>
<p>My favorite line from the article was:
[quote]
So it reuses some exams to keep test-development costs -- and prices for taking the exam -- down.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>HA HA!! That's a good one, isn't it??</p>
<p>There are almost ALWAYS CC threads claiming that each time's SAT I test is just exactly like some earlier test, and there have been claims that sometimes Saturday tests are given on Sunday the next day, but so far there has been very little confirmation of those claims. This AP article is the most by way of evidence that I have ever seen about one of these claims. At least one previous CC instance of complaining about a Sunday test being the same as a Saturday test was denied by the College Board, implicitly, when it posted which sections appeared in those two tests on its Web site, as College Board routinely does after test scores are released. There seem always to be at least two test versions (as to section order, at least) used on each test date. Exactly what is recycled, and how thoroughly, is an interesting issue, but an issue that still needs some more fact-finding.</p>