Big news for the Class of 2025! Starting in the spring of 2024, today’s 10th graders will be the first class to take a dramatically different SAT. The College Board is retiring the current three-hour paper-and-pencil SAT and introducing a shorter, digital, adaptive test that takes approximately two hours.
Say goodbye to lengthy reading passages, No. 2 pencils and bubble sheets, and waiting weeks for scores, and say hello to more time for questions, embedded calculators, and a faster turnaround on results.
Here is what students and parents need to know by grade level:
Current 11th Graders (Class of 2024) and 12th Graders (Class of 2023): Current juniors and seniors will not be impacted by any of these changes on national test dates.
Current 10th Graders (Class of 2025): Current 10th graders will be taking the PSAT/NMSQT in digital format in the fall of 2023 and then take the first new, shorter, adaptive digital SAT in spring 2024 in the US.
Current 8th through 9th Graders (Classes of 2026-2027): The College Board said all students will take the PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, and PSAT in a digital format starting in fall 2023.
The rollout will begin in spring 2023 for international test-takers.
Here is what we know about the new, digital, adaptive SAT arriving in 2024:
This new SAT will be two hours – one third shorter than the current three-hour paper-and-pencil test.
The test will be adaptive, meaning that the level of difficulty of each question changes based on the questions a student has gotten right or wrong in the first section.
Students can take the test on their own laptop or tablet or use a school-issued device. Tests will be given at a test center or school – NOT at home.
The test will still be scored on a 400-1600 scale, split between the Reading and Writing section and Math.
The Reading section will feature shorter passages with one question per passage.
Use of a calculator will now be permitted on all Math questions and the word problems will be more concise.
The test format will include an automated timing feature and an embedded calculator (although students can still bring their own calculator).
Digital testing allows for a much faster turnaround on scores – potentially days instead of weeks.
What’s next?
The College Board said it will provide more information and practice test options for the Class of 2025. We do know that most of today’s students are experienced in taking online, adaptive standardized tests, but there is a lot we don’t currently know about this new test. We have been tutoring students for similar adaptive standardized tests such as the GMAT and the GRE for more than a decade so not to worry. As this story develops, our team at Carnegie Prep will be working diligently to dig into the digital details and prepare our students for the brand new SAT in 2024.
