New SATs & PSATs

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

I’m a parent of a Sophomore and I’ve been privately tutoring SATs for the past 10 years. I am extremely concerned about the new test, yet so far all we have been hearing are marketing blurbs from CB about how awesome the new test will be, parroted by the media (I’m not exaggerating). It’s been close to impossible to get actual information on the test. Spring 2016 is perhaps far away, but CB has just announced that the upcoming PSATs in October, 2015 - that’s right, the ones that are used to qualify for Merit Scholarship- will be in the new format. Yes, you read that right.

You can look at samples of the new SAT now. It has only recently come out.

See here: https://www.collegeboard.org/delivering-opportunity/sat/redesign

And here: https://www.khanacademy.org/sat

For anyone with a Sophomore and younger, I urge you to look at the sites.

Why am I concerned? This is deeply personal for me: Besides being a tutor, I’m a parent of a Sophomore and I am not well off. The PSAT and SATs have been gateways for my children - thousands of children - to better colleges and more importantly, scholarship money. CB claims that this new test will even out economic disparity but I don’t see how this can be true. If the test is like the sample tests they are showing, the test will exacerbate economic disparity and will not reliably produce a bell shaped curve.

According to the marketing, this test is more aligned to Common Core (this is true), and more accurately assesses 21st century skills (sorta). What I don’t see it doing is evening out economic disparities as it proudly claims. More cogently, it doesn’t seem to be a good test. A test that is too hard is not going to be an accurate and reliable predictor of student achievement. It will not distribute predictably on a bell shaped curve. Imagine if I gave students a test entirely on, say, theoretical physics. So many people would do poorly, that the test would not accurately predict much of anything except that a lot of students don’t know theoretical physics. As it stands, I believe this situation is similar to the new SATs.

Again, based on their materials, the Math portion is far more difficult than it used to be, and requires a lot of reading, has sections without a calculator (and requires skills that many students are rusty in, mostly elegant and speedy simplifying), has much more emphasis on content, and requires that you went to a school that has high level Math teaching. Emphasizing content rather than deductive reasoning will exaggerate economic disparity, not diminish it as they claim. Even my honors students in an upper class district are having problems with some of the questions.

Also, the emphasis on reading, even in math, will handicap those students who are not verbal processors. The emphasis is much more on knowing the subject and then plowing through a lot of text. There are plenty of very bright students who are not verbal – people who code, engineers, etc. Why the very heavy emphasis in both subjects on verbal skills?

In the reading section: Gone are the vocab questions which involved reasoning skills. Now everything is incorporated into long texts. CB claims these are easier, but many passages are just as sophisticated as the old SAT passages (perhaps slightly lower vocab and syntax, but conceptually they are just as hard), only the questions require you to read the entire passage. They even include what they call 'evidence based questions." You answer an inference-based question (something not directly stated in the text). Then another question asks how you knew this, where it was said in the text. So if you get the first one wrong, you are likely to get the second question wrong. That doesn’t seem to be good testing. And once again, students who are not fast readers and/or who are not top verbal processors, will be heavily penalized here. Overall, the testing time is lengthened, but the questions will require a great deal of time to process, so I’m not sure how that will play out. Fast, strong readers will definitely have a huge edge. (Why is that skill tested so disproportionately?)

The new SATs come with a warning. According to CB, the practice tests are:“meant to illustrate the shifts in the redesigned SAT® and are not a full reflection of what will be tested. Actual questions used on the exam are going through extensive reviews and pretesting to help ensure that they are clear and fair and that they measure what is intended. The test specifications as well as the research foundation defining what is measured on the test will continue to be refined based on ongoing research.”

In other words, we still don’t really know what will be on the test and the test is still being statistically worked on. Yet the new PSATs are in October.

I’m writing because knowledge is power. And the awareness out there has been very subdued and muffled. I would encourage folks to take a look at the practice tests themselves and see for themselves. Don’t take my word for it.

I surely hope that the new SATs do heavily continue their research and ensure that the questions are ‘clear and fair’ and ‘measure what is intended.’ Right now I don’t think they are fair or clear.

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@generations You are preaching to choir here, I think most people that frequent CC are very aware of the changes to the PSAT/SAT, it’s the lack of awareness on the part of GC’s that has me concerned. I’d like to know if our school is going to offer the new 10th grade PSAT this spring and I have not been able to get an answer. My raising 8th grader needs to take the PSAT for his high school application (out of district) but the school hasn’t been able to tell me which of the now three different PSATs they want him to take and I strongly suspect that the admissions department wasn’t aware of the change until I asked.

Please remember that all students will be at the same disadvantage when taking the new PSAT and National Merit will still be the same percent of students in each state.

My S18 will be taking the new PSAT next year in 10th grade and has started prepping this month with the limited material available. His thought is that since they have reduced the multiple choice options from five to four that it will be easier to guess and that might cause more students to have higher scores making it harder to make the cut for National Merit. I don’t know if this is correct or not.

The College Board is releasing their new ‘official’ study guide at the end of the month, you might want to pre-order it from Amazon so you’ll have as soon as possible.

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What’s with this sky is falling? The material is different, but not harder. If you don’t like it, you can take the ACTs.

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@mathplustutornj I think the jury is still out on if the material is harder or not, it’s certainly different. I for one don’t like the new format of two part questions. If you miss the first one you are sure to miss the the second one so it’s a double whammy. S disagrees and says he can use the answer choice in the second of the two part question to help rule out some of the choices in the first part of the question.

I for one am always apprehensive about change. The OP and I are mainly concerned with National Merit so the ACT isn’t an option.

5

Thanks, 3scoutsmom–yes, I am concerned about the National Merit. That’s the ‘sky falling.’ As I said, like many others, I don’t have a whole lot of money and the NMF is a wonderful opportunity for scholarships.

As for not taking the SAT at all, yes, I may well advise my son and my students to do that until CB and ETS get all their kinks out of the system. They are well aware the test may not be statistically valid and predictable. That’s why they continue tweaking it. I’m not happy with their decision to introduce it this fall for PSATs. I’m pretty sure they are using kids as guinea pigs/free points of data for their own use.

As for the material being different but not harder–I respectfully disagree. Thats my whole point. As it appears to stand now, the test is certainly harder, particularly in math, and also tests different skills, with a far bigger emphasis on math content and also much more reading than before, and less logical deduction. Yes, of course it’s curved. But if a test isn’t well constructed, the curve can be off. I do think SAT needed to be revised, because too many people were too prepped in it so that for math and writing, you often had to get nothing wrong to get an 800, and one wrong would bring you down to around 750. That’s too steep a curve at the upper ends. I think this test - at this point - errs in the opposite direction, and also is going to be very unfair to lower income/regular middle class kids (I teach in a low income school so I feel passionate about this). ETS is worried about the same things, despite their marketing. The test may well change by spring, 2016. I’m pretty positive it will.

I wanted to let others know because of the lack of information out there. If you think I’m preaching to the choir or it’s not a big deal, no need to read my post. Not everyone is well informed, and many high school kids read this as well as parents.

6

The new SAT isn’t all bad, but there must be some pro’s and con’s to the current SAT, new SAT, and ACT?

Clearly the new SAT is very much in line with the current ACT.

In terms of break down, is this correct?
ACT is 25% Grammar, 25% Passages, 25% Math, 25% Science
New SAT will be 25% Grammar, 25% Passages, 50% Math

Grammar. New SAT and ACT grammar look identical, although SAT seems to have about 60% grammar usage question and the ACT seems closer to 70%. Current SAT is clearly much more grammar-rule oriented

Math. I’m struggling to see how the new SAT math will be easier for most students. New SAT will not test nearly as much geometry (actual or coordinate), but the amount of Algebra 2 and Pre-calculus on new SAT seems much greater. Though I’m looking at a question is supposed to be a medium-level non-calculator complex number on the new SAT, and I’ve never seen an ACT question nearly as difficult, even with the calculator. Some of the ACT word problems feel like I’m reading an entire novel and it will cover far more topics, but it seems like the SAT will have a greater share of advanced topics. Students who are accelerated in math might find the New SAT math ok, but I think a student who is not as accelerated can get further on the ACT math since there will be less topics to learn, at least less advanced topics? Both definitely are more advanced in topic than current SAT math

New SAT Passage I have no idea what to make of them. These passages seem like they might be easier than either ACT or current SAT. However, I’m finding that they are taking an incredibly long time, despite the additional time allotted. Perhaps that is because they are so different than both ACT and current SAT, so will just be an adjustment.

ACT Science. Is it an advantage to some folks? That ACT Math + ACT Science = SAT Math in the weighting for someone who doesn’t love math?

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@TestPrepGenius If I could distract you for a minute from posting on all the threads I have bookmarked, what does “We’ll have PSAT and more test materials released over the next few months” mean in terms a specific month? There are fewer than 3 months until the PSAT. Are there other materials on the market now that you’d recommend for PSAT prep until yours come out?