For those of you who have taken the new practice SATs released by the college board, how close was it to the actual new SAT test?
CollegeBoard practice tests are the exact same thing as the actual test. With one exception: scoring.
Anecdotally, I scored a 1480~1490 consistently on the practice test, but got a 1510 on the real thing. And that was on a bad day, when I didn’t sleep for a minute the night before, and the person in front of me was flirting with me.
Practically speaking, I studied hard with CB official materials (Khan, the app, the book) for months, and boosted my score by a lot. 200 points, I think.
My D3 used two of the SAT practice tests (#1 and 2) for the PSAT and another two (#3 and 4) for the March 2016 SAT. Her actual SAT was higher than her two practice tests. I recall that the scaled scoring varies from test to test to reflect different degrees of difficulty and I thought the tests got more difficult as you progressed through them but now I can’t remember that for sure (and we tossed D3’s practice tests after she took the SAT).
When she was finished with the real test I asked her how it went and whether there were any surprises. She said it was easier than she expected and that there was nothing out of the ordinary compared to the practice tests. This was the very first revised test.
The practice tests and Kahn may still be the best resources at this point.
The one difference that concerns me–as I’ve written before–is that there are question types on Khan that aren’t on the four official practice tests, namely Except (“which of the following is NOT mentioned by the author as a reason for…”) and Analogy (“the situation in lines 54-62 is most similar to which of the following”) questions.
These Qs were very common on the old SAT, but it’s still unclear if they even exist on the new one, and the CB’s inconsistent materials (if you believe its claims that KA material is CB-produced) muddy the waters.
@marvin100 do we know whether any of those were on the real tests?
I don’t, no.
@Mamelot
@marvin100
An analogy question appeared on the practice PSAT on #9 released by the collegeboard. I would assume it would appear on the SAT as well, probably infrequently.
Interesting, @YoLolololol – the four official released exams don’t have any such Qs, but all of the Khan Academy exams feature them very frequently. Was that PSAT an actually administered exam or just a practice test?
@coterie - I’ve heard differently. What is the basis for the statement above?
@CHD2013 read my entire post.
I did read your entire post. The fact that you got similar scores does not mean the tests were the same. Is there any other basis for the statement?
@marvin100
There is an analogy question on the official practice PSAT released by the CB. This was a practice test, not a real administered test.
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/psat-nmsqt-practice-test-1.pdf
Take a look at #9
Nice catch, @YoLolololol – very odd that the four released rSATs don’t include analogies…any “Except” Q’s on that PSAT?
@marvin100
I didn’t notice any NOT, EXCEPT questions on that PSAT.