Mechanical pencils on the SAT?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Is it ok to use mechanical pencils on the SAT if they're number 2? And can you use them to write the essay as well?</p>

2

<p>No. See [this</a> College Board web page](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/test-day/tips]this”>What to Bring and Do on Test Day – SAT Suite).</p>

<p>The primary reason given is:</p>

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<p>But this doesn’t quite “scan” for me, since it is easy to sharpen a regular pencil to a very sharp point. More likely, it is an anti-cheating rule, but this is purely speculation on my part.</p>

<p>Having said this, I am sure there are many people who have used, without any issues, the mechanical #2 pencils that look like real pencils.</p>

3

<p>No mechanical pencils; your scores will likely be invalidated if you are caught using one.</p>

<p>CB says that mechanical pencils could cause problems with the scanning, but I believe that they don’t want people putting cheat sheets in the barrel of the pencil (which some of my friends have done on school tests before, so the concern is definitely legitimate).</p>

4

<p>Wow cheating using mechanical pencils? That’s insane.</p>