College board SAT pratice tests vs the actual SAT test

Since I’ve heard many opinions about how the actual SAT test is harder/easier/the same difficlty compred to the college boeard practice test … I’ve decided to share this discussion so that we can know how the sat scores vary compared to the sat pracitce test
What scores did y’all get on the official practice tests and what did you score on the real SAT?

Official Practice Tests #5-8 were actual prior administrations of the SAT. #8 was given in Jan 2017.

College Board tends to give a new batch of test forms in June to small portions of test takers, I believe as part of the scaling process, and then uses those forms throughout the following school year. Since last June (with the exception of August, which was a reuse from the prior year), the tests have had fewer difficult questions, per the SAS, with harsher scoring scales in comparison to tests from the prior school year. It’s unclear how long this will continue going forward; it could change in June.

There are also some more recent tests that you can find on reddit which may give you a better idea of what the more recent tests are like.

Often there can be variation based on the environment in which the student takes the test. The questions may not be any harder, but the stress, noise level, time of day, etc. If you want to get an accurate estimate on how you are doing, try to emulate actual test conditions - take the same breaks, eat the same snacks, etc. Best of luck.