<p>I didn't grow up in the US. I took the "old" SAT in 2002 and didn't pursue my undergrad in an american college in the end. Now i need to tutor a kid who's going to take the NEW SAT. </p>
<p>Could someone explain the difference between the new and the old ones in a nutshell? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>From College Board’s website:</p>
<p>Some of the changes to the SAT include:
A student-written essay
Analogies eliminated
Shorter reading passages added
New content from third-year college preparatory math
Quantitative Comparisons eliminated</p>
<p>I recently wrote a brief history of the SAT; here was what I have for 2005:</p>
<p>The “Verbal Reasoning” section of the SAT is renamed “Critical Reading”, and the verbal analogy questions are dropped. Newly added is a writing skills section, with essay, based on the now discontinued SAT Subject Test in writing. Three SAT scores, for Critical Reading, Math, and Writing, each on a scale of 200-800, are reported, making the perfect score 2400 instead of 1600. </p>
<p>In SAT Math, quantitative comparison questions are dropped. Several new topics are added: sequences and series, including exponential growth; absolute value; functional notation; equations of lines; data interpretation, including scatterplots; rational and radical equations; and, manipulation of fractional and negative exponents. (The rational and radical equations as well as the fractional and negative exponents are added to reflect content from typical third-year high-school algebra courses.) Greater emphasis is placed on linear functions, and properties of tangent lines.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies. sounds more difficult than before… </p>
<p>do students still need to memorize the Barron’s word list?</p>
<p>^
No. For vocab, use Direct Hits</p>
<p>^^The test wasn’t made more difficult (a person scoring 500 in math on the old test would be expected to score the same on the new), but the topics covered were made more broad and certain question types were dropped.</p>