For weeks now students have been preparing for the new SAT. ODA junior, Greta Holland has been studying for the past month to achieve her goals on the new SAT.

“I feel like I have prepared myself and worked my hardest. My tutor has been a great support.”

Naviance, college counseling, tutoring, and torturous Saturdays are all part of the college process juniors have just embarked on. On March 5, the juniors took the first step in the college process by also taking the new and redesigned SAT.

The new SAT is similar to the ACT. There are now two sections (Math and Evidence-Based Reading and Writing), with a total score of 400-1600. The length of the test without an essay is three hours. With the essay is three hours and 50 minutes.

Changes Students Will Love:

• 4 answer choices instead of 5 (Like the ACT).
• No penalties for wrong answers (Like the ACT).
• Students will be more accustomed to the vocabulary.

Changes Students Won’t Love:

• Questions necessitate multiple steps to get an answer.
• Reading passages include those with difficult structure and vocabulary.
• Foundational math skills, reasoning and critical thinking skills are pivotal.
• There are fewer sections on the new SAT, but the sections are longer than they used to be.

Here are what some students thought of the new SAT.

“I thought it was fine. I worked on some Kahn Academy for a week before the SAT. I thought that the non-calculator was easy and I think I did really well overall. My goal is a 1300+,” says junior  Cody Cheney.

“I thought the non-calc was really hard but besides that it was easy. My goal is to get 1200 on my first try,” says junior Chloe Ruppert.

“The new SAT was interesting and I found it slightly more challenging than the previous SAT because the sections were longer making you have to concrete for longer periods of time. Also, the way the breaks are spread out made it seem like there aren’t any! Adding a non-calculator math section and making the essay 55 minutes instead of 25 really made me find this SAT more exhausting,” reflects junior Chris Robinson.

“It was my first time taking it so I thought it was really hard. I didn’t like that you had to read a passage and write about it. I also didn’t have a tutor so I did most of my preparation on Kahn Academy,” says junior Savannah Alario.

“The prompt for the essay was literally stupid and physically impossible. It was a waste of my Saturday morning. I had to wake up at 6am to take a dumb test that I didn’t know one question on,” reflects junior Jason Fineberg.

Laborious Saturdays spent taking the SAT are now a monthly occurrence so it’s time to gear up and set your sights on that perfect 1600!