SAT () is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and had two components, Verbal and Mathematical, each of which was scored on a range from 200 to 800. Later it was called the Scholastic Assessment Test, then the SAT I: Reasoning Test, then the SAT Reasoning Test, then simply the SAT.
The SAT is wholly owned, developed, and published by the College Board. The test is intended to assess students' readiness for college. Historically, starting around 1937, the tests offered under the SAT banner also included optional subject-specific SAT Subject Tests, which were called SAT Achievement Tests until 1993 and then were called SAT II: Subject Tests until 2005; these were discontinued after June 2021. Originally designed not to be aligned with high school curricula, "And a separate process that began in 1926 was complete by 1942: the much easier SAT—a test not aligned to any particular curriculum and thus better suited to a nation where high school students did not take a common curriculum—replaced the old college boards as the nations's college entrance exam. This broke the once tight link between academic coursework and college admission, a break that remains to this day." several adjustments were made for the version of the SAT introduced in 2016. College Board president David Coleman added that he wanted to make the test reflect more closely what students learn in high school with the new Common Core standards.
Many students prepare for the SAT using books, classes, online courses, and tutoring, which are offered by a variety of companies and organizations. However, preparatory courses rarely provide significant improvements in performance, and neither do elite secondary schools. For most of its history, the SAT was taken on paper; however, since March 2023 for international students and March 2024 for those within the U.S., the SAT has been administered using a computer program called Bluebook. The test was also made adaptive, customizing the questions that are presented to the student based on how they perform on questions asked earlier in the test, and shortened from 3 hours to 2 hours and 14 minutes.
While a considerable amount of research has been done on the SAT, many questions and misconceptions remain. Outside of college admissions, the SAT is also used by researchers studying human intelligence in general and intellectual precociousness in particular, and by some employers in the recruitment process.
Function The SAT is typically taken by high school juniors and seniors. "Most students take the SAT spring of junior year or fall of senior year." The College Board states that the SAT is intended to measure literacy, numeracy and writing skills that are needed for academic success in college. They state that the SAT assesses how well the test-takers analyze and solve problems—skills they learned in school that they will need in college.
The College Board also claims that the SAT, in combination with high school grade point average (GPA), provides a better indicator of success in college than high school grades alone, as measured by first-year college GPA. Various studies conducted over the lifetime of the SAT show a statistically significant increase in correlation of high school grades and first-year college grades when the SAT is factored in. The predictive validity and powers of the SAT are topics of research in psychometrics.
The SAT is a norm-referenced test intended to yield scores that follow a bell curve distribution among test-takers. To achieve this distribution, test designers include challenging multiple-choice questions with plausible but incorrect options, known as "distractors", exclude questions that a majority of students answer correctly, and impose tight time constraints during the examination.
There are substantial differences in funding, curricula, grading, and difficulty among U.S. secondary schools due to U.S. federalism, local control, and the prevalence of private, distance, and home schooled students. SAT (and ACT) scores are intended to supplement the secondary school record and help admission officers put local data—such as course work, grades, and class rank—in a national perspective.Korbin, L. (2006). SAT Program Handbook. A Comprehensive Guide to the SAT Program for School Counselors and Admissions Officers, 1, 33+. Retrieved January 24, 2006, from College Board Preparation Database.
Historically, the SAT was more widely used by students living in coastal states and the ACT was more widely used by students in the Midwest and South; in recent years, however, an increasing number of students on the East and West coasts have been taking the ACT. Since 2007, all four-year colleges and universities in the United States that require a test as part of an application for admission will accept either the SAT or ACT, and as of Fall 2022, more than 1400 four-year colleges and universities did not require any standardized test scores at all for admission, though some of them were planning to apply this policy only temporarily due to the coronavirus pandemic.
SAT test-takers are given 2 hours and 14 minutes to complete the test (plus a 10-minute break between the Reading and Writing section and the Math section), and the test costs US$60, plus additional fees for late test registration, registration by phone, registration changes, rapid delivery of results, delivery of results to more than four institutions, result deliveries ordered more than nine days after the test, and testing administered outside the United States, as applicable, and fee waivers are offered to low-income students within the U.S. and its territories. Scores on the SAT range from 400 to 1600, combining test results from two 200-to-800-point sections: the Mathematics section and the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section. Although taking the SAT, or its competitor the ACT, is required for entry to many colleges and universities in the United States, during the late 2010s, many institutions made these entrance exams optional, but this did not stop the students from attempting to achieve high scores as they and their parents were skeptical of what "optional" meant in this context. In fact, the test-taking population was increasing steadily, and while this may have resulted in a long-term decline in scores, experts cautioned against using this to gauge the scholastic levels of the entire U.S. population.
Weekend test scores are typically released around two weeks after the test, while those from school days can take up to four. Students may be able to cancel their scores up to one week after their exam.
Structure The current digitally-administered SAT has two main sections: reading and writing, and math. Each of these sections is further broken down into two equal-length "modules". (Until the summer of 2021, the test taker was also optionally able to write an essay as part of an additional test section. The essay was dropped after June 2021, except in a few states and school districts.) The total time for the scored portion of the SAT is 2 hours and 14 minutes.
A score for each section is reported on a scale of 200 to 800, and each section score is a multiple of ten. A total score for the SAT is calculated by adding the two section scores, resulting in total scores that range from 400 to 1600. In addition to the two section scores, several subsection "performance" scores (example subsections: "Craft and Structure" in Reading and Writing, and "Algebra" in Math) are also reported for each section. There is no penalty or negative marking for guessing on the SAT: scores are based on the number of questions answered correctly.
The essay, if taken as part of an SAT School Day administration, is scored separately from the two section scores. Two people score each essay by each awarding 1 to 4 points in each of three categories: reading, analysis, and writing. These two scores from the different examiners are then combined to give a total score from 2 to 8 points per category. Though sometimes people quote their essay score out of 24, the College Board themselves do not combine the different categories to give one essay score, instead giving a score for each category.
The optional essay was last featured nationally in the June 2021 administration. College Board said it discontinued the essay section because "there are other ways for students to demonstrate their mastery of essay writing," including the test's reading and writing portion. It also acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic had played a role in the change, accelerating 'a process already underway'.
Reading and Writing The reading and writing section consists of two equal modules, each 32 minutes long with 27 questions. The modules consist of short reading passages or passage pairs, each of which is followed by a single multiple-choice question. The passages are 25 to 150 words in length. Content domains of the reading and writing section include vocabulary, sentence structure and usage, and interpretation of tables and graphs.
Mathematics
The mathematics portion of the SAT is divided into two modules, each 35 minutes long with 22 questions. The topics covered are algebra (13 to 15 questions), advanced high school math (13 to 15 questions), problem solving and data analysis (5 to 7 questions), and geometry and trigonometry (5 to 7 questions). Roughly 75% of the math questions are 4-option multiple-choice; the remaining 25% are student-produced response (SPR) questions and require the student to type in a numerical response. The SPR questions may have more than one correct answer. Calculators are permitted on all questions in the math portion of the SAT. A Desmos-based calculator is available and built into the testing software; in addition, students may use an approved type of physical calculator.
A study of calculator use on SAT I: Reasoning Test math scores found that performance on the math section was associated with the extent of calculator use: those using calculators on about one third to one half of the items averaged higher scores than those using calculators more or less frequently. However, the effect was "more likely to have been the result of able students using calculators differently than less able students rather than calculator use per se." There is some evidence that the frequent use of a calculator in school outside of the testing situation has a positive effect on test performance compared to those who do not use calculators in school.
Style of questions Most of the questions on the SAT, except for the student-produced responses (SPR) in the math section, are multiple choice; all multiple-choice questions have four answer choices, one of which is correct. About 25% of the math section is SPR. They instead require the test taker to enter in a number.
Not all questions on each section of the SAT are weighted equally; students earn more scores for answering more difficult questions correctly. There are experimental problems which are used by College Board to test future test questions. Answering experimental questions, either correctly or incorrectly, does not impact the test score. Experimental questions are used for evaluating new types of questions for future SATs.
Section Average score 2025 (200–800) Time (minutes) Content
Reading and Writing 521 32 per module 64 in total Vocabulary, critical reading, sentence-level reading, grammar, usage, and diction
Math 508 35 per module 70 in total Number and operations; algebra and functions; geometry; statistics, probability, and data analysis
Logistics
Frequency