Making the test easier is not going to cause more people to score over 600 or over 700 or whatever. Colleges will evaluate the score based on percentiles. I still don’t see how more basic material will result in more people doing well. Nothing can result in more people doing well.
@epiphany Have you looked at the entire test or just the Grammar and/or Passages sections? Then what difference does it make if the Verbal will be a lot easier and the Math a lot harder. Perhaps the Math will become so hard that the new SAT will not be worth it
The math is more advanced but less tricky, so I don’t see that it is harder overall.
@sattut The math might be less tricky but some of it is based on material that is not taught until late into junior year or early senior year. Likewise, the lack of calculator for half of it makes it a bit overwhelming. Have you tried any of the questions yet?
Just curious if any of you SAT pros out there are signed up to take the new SAT in March or do you think your experience with the released practice tests will be enough for you to help your students?
@3scoutsmom There seems to be a lovefest with the new SAT. I don’t care what organization or test it is. We still don’t quite know what the new test will be like. A grading scale hasn’t even been released yet.
They used to advertise the new math with a long question about rupees, but I haven’t seen a question like that anymore. By that token, it seems like they still haven’t figured out what will be on the new math
I’m indifferent to the new SAT, it is what it is. I had one take the old SAT, one could have gone either way but picked the new SAT because he’ll have to take the new PSAT, third one will have no choice. Our family favors SAT over ACT because of National Merit.
I’m just curious as a parent that uses books/services of SAT professionals, if any of you plan to take the new SAT yourself or if you will base your instructions, recommendations, curriculum off the released practice tests.
@3scoutsmom – that’s a good question. Overall, I just feel too old to go sit for a full test. So I will use the released tests and then look at QAS as students bring them to me. Honestly, I am surprised that they don’t try harder to keep obvious non-students from sitting for these tests.
Don’t count on QAS being around anymore: it’s all about Khan now.
The QAS is not going anywhere. By law, tests have to be released to the public.
Yep. @mmk2015 has it.
Even the Khan tests just released are available on the CB site, without any Khan registration, btw.
I haven’t seen a fresh QAS since last October . My students who took the January 2015 were denied theirs on account if a snow storm rescheduled test . Still waiting on may 2015. I do believe this pool is drying up.
My D’s came a few weeks ago. Seriously, I don’t think this is an optional thing for the college board. I believe it goes back to the “truth in testing law” that was passed in New York State a long time ago.
The May 2015 QAS is out
The 4 tests are supposed to tell all of the content for the new test, and we’re supposed to assume everything tested will come from 1 of the 4 tests? I’m highly skeptical given what happened with the AP US History test that was also new this year
Is this thread still alive? I was going to start a new thread to talk about the new SAT but I won’t if people are still using this one.
How would you compare the difficulty of the new SAT to that of the ACT? Most of the earlier posts said that people thought the new SAT verbal was much easier than the old SAT verbal. To me they seem about the same. I like the passages better on the new test though. The readings are more interesting. Not that they’re page-turners…
Do you think the verbal is easier than the ACT verbal? To me the verbal and the writing parts looked a little harder on the new SAT than on the ACT, but I am not sure.
I did see some slightly trickier questions among the sample non-calculator questions on the CB website.
I also wonder whether the released practice tests are really as hard as the real tests will be. I feel like something is being held back. Is it possible that CB left out the hardest questions from these tests? They are not actually administered tests. I find it implausible that this is it. No matter how steep the curve (and the current math curve is already steep at the top), people who get none wrong will have to get 800, and that is going to be a lot of people if there aren’t some harder questions. And if one or two questions wrong makes you lose 100 points, people are not going to take the test. It will seem too unfair.
^^^^^^^^ glued to this thread! Mom of class of 2021 kid who (both mom and kid) wanting NMF… working on building foundations at this time.
Hopefully the Class of 2021 will have a reasonable amount of official practice material. CB should make the QAS’s available to everyone. The people who have access to it have an unfair advantage.