Our tutoring team enjoyed taking the second administration of the new SAT on May 7. Here were some of our most important observations:
- The test is the same difficulty as the four tests released by the College Board and the four tests developed by Marks Education, available to our students and soon to be released in our book and on our website. Practice with the College Board’s and our free tests, and you will be in very good shape.
- The new SAT feels very long, and test takers need to be very well rested and prepared adequately with food! My test started one hour late (at 9:30 a.m. instead of 8:30 a.m.) and ended at 2:30 p.m. We were required to be at the test center at 7:45 a.m. That means almost seven hours of testing time! Eat a big breakfast and take a filling snack with you!
- Geometry! We all enjoyed the problems, including the tough Geometry questions. Remember that even though the College Board has reduced sharply the number of Geometry questions on the test, the Geometry questions that do appear can be very challenging. If you’re having trouble with the harder questions on this section, consider using Khan Academy and our practice tests as a guide.
- The Calculator Math section was fun! Even though I left my calculator at work (please don’t do this!) and Kate Hallgren kindly loaned hers to a student who had forgotten his, we very much enjoyed the challenging problems on this section. The appropriate way to think about the new SAT is that it’s a fun challenge. If you practice regularly, with the College Board’s and Marks Education’s free resources, you will do well.
- Evidence-Based Questions: The almost universally hated evidence-based questions on the Reading Comprehension section can be cracked; they just take strategy and practice. However, we all agreed that on a couple of questions, there was no good answer choice: we just had to pick the answer that was least incorrect.
- Remember that on the new SAT the Reading and Writing combine to form one score, and that the Writing is weighted more heavily than the Reading. So don’t waste a lot of time on one or two very challenging Reading questions. If you’re struggling with a Reading question, just circle it in your test book, guess and move on. If you have time later, come back to it.
- Our tutors really liked the 50 minutes allowed students on the essay section; it felt like plenty of time compared to the 25 minutes allowed on the essay for the old SAT. We felt that with adequate planning our students could write very strong essays – but we were all tired by the time we got to that section. In my room, the essay started when we were almost 6 hours into the test!
- Proctoring makes a big difference. Register early to have the greatest choice of test centers, and ask your Marks Education tutors about centers near you they can recommend. We have a list of area test centers that are usually reliable and well organized. For example, many of our students appreciate the timers projected onto screens in classrooms at Walter Johnson High School. For other students, it can be an advantage to take the test at their own high school, where they feel very comfortable.
We want every student to reach his or her best score on the new SAT! Please don’t hesitate to call one of our tutors for a free 20-minute consultation on how you can improve your scores on the June or October SAT.