The SAT announces another big change

On January 25, 2022, the College Board announced a significant change to the SAT. The test will be administered digitally beginning in March of 2024. The PSAT/NMSQT will be administered digitally beginning in the fall of 2023. You can read the official College Board announcement here: https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/digital-sat-brings-student-friendly-changes-test-experience 

On January 28, 2022, TPAPT, a national consortium of tutors and college admissions professionals organized an informal meeting to discuss the change. 

 Here is some of the information shared at the meeting: 

The digital version of the test will not simply be the current test delivered digitally. It will be a computer adaptive test (or CAT). Each student will see a unique set of questions. Which questions a student sees later in the test will be determined by how well the student did early in the test. There are multiple ways to approach computer adaptive testing, and we have been told that the revised SAT will use the method that is currently being used for the GRE - the test many students need to apply to graduate school. In this method, the test material is delivered in "chunks", or groups of questions. Student performance in the first chunk will determined whether the second chunk will be easy, medium, or difficult. Whereas the scaled score on the current SAT counts all questions as being equal in value, the scaled score on the new version will be affected by the difficulty of the questions in the second chunk. 

A calculator of some kind will be allowed on all math questions. (The current version has a calculator-inactive section.) The rumor that was shared is that students would have access to DESMOS - an online graphing calculator app - during the test. If true, this would represent an improvement for most students since DESMOS has become the primary graphing calculator used in schools, supplanting the TI-84. 

The reading section will be combined with the writing and language section. It is unclear what this will look like. 

Some questions were raised to which we do not yet have answers: 

Will the scores on the revised test have a normal curve similar to that of the current test? More specifically, would a particular individual score on the new test be roughly equivalent to the same score on the current test? Is that even a goal that they will consider as they design and write the new test items and as they set the scaling algorithms? 

Will the scaling algorithm be transparent?  In the past, the College Board has released tests along with the scaling table for that test.  The scaling algorithm was clearly spelled out:  so many correct answers = this particular scaled score.  If every individual student has a unique set of test questions, we likely won't have any released tests.  They've promised "practice material" on Khan Academy, which will likely include full simulations of practice tests along with a scaled score at the end, but will they share the scaling algorithm?  

Will the students be issued scratch paper? 

Pilot testing went well - both students and proctors were pleased. However, what will happen as they scale up and have to contend with the inevitable technology snafus? 

Will the two chunks of verbal questions be given back to back, or will there be a chunk of math in between? 

How will this affect the advanced math student who hasn't seen the material in the first math chunk since middle school? Will that prevent them from being presented the difficult math questions that reflect their current course work? 

I'm sure we'll be getting more information over the coming months, and those of us who are gearing up to prepare students for this new challenge will be watching for the promised prep material!

Which calculator should you use on your SAT or ACT?

Until 1994 you couldn’t use a calculator on the SAT.  The test was designed to be taken without a calculator and top students have made it a point to take the test without one.  That will change in March of 2016.  With the addition of precalculus problems, a scientific calculator will become necessary so that the test-taker can find the Arctangent of 3.2 or the natural log of 17.  This has been true for the ACT for years.

Which calculator will serve you best on your college entrance exam?  If you are a top math student, you probably already own a scientific calculator.  As long as your calculator will find sines,  cosines and their inverses, as well as logarthms and natural logarithms, you should be fine.  Don’t try out a new brand of calculator on the test.  Use the one you are familiar with.

Using a familiar calculator is even more important if you are not a top math student.  However, if you have plenty of time before your test, it might be worth your while to get familiar with a better calculator.  It might even be to your advantage to take more than one.

Texas Instruments has had a near monopoly on the school calculator market with their TI-83, TI-84, and TI-NSpire calculators.  (Note that the TI-NSpire CAS model is not approved for the test.) Most schools have classroom sets of one of these models and some require all students in certain math classes to rent or purchase one of these calculators.  While these are versatile little machines, they aren’t as efficient for certain functions.  If you struggle to finish in time, you might want to supplement with a different model.

A student recently introduced me to the CASIO fx-991ES.  I was impressed by how intuitive it was to use.  It takes fewer key-strokes to use certain key functions, and there are fewer instances in which you have to remember which menu to use.  Its only drawback is that it is not a graphing calculator.  However, at under $20, it is an affordable addition to your test-taking arsenal.

What SAT/ACT prep books are still on my shelf? (SAT edition)

With the transition to the “new” SAT and the somewhat less comprehensive changes to the ACT, my prep resources have undergone a change.  Some books have been culled out or replaced with updated editions, and several new titles have been added.  This is the SAT edition.  Click here for the ACT edition.

Here are the winners:

For the overall test:

The Official SAT Study Guide, 2018 edition

The only parts I ever use are the practice tests.  These are available for free online, but you would need to print them out.  Depending on your printer, it might be cheaper to buy the book.  This was not true of last year’s book, which only contained 4 tests.

For SAT reading comprehension:

The Complete Guide to SAT Reading, Third Edition by Erica Meltzer

This book, which anchored my SAT shelf in the “olden days”, has been completely overhauled for the revised SAT.  It’s really all you need.

For SAT writing and language:

The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar, Fourth Edition by Erica Meltzer

Again, this guide was a staple prior to the SAT overhaul.  Ms. Meltzer was proactive in getting an overhauled guide to the test-prep community as quickly as possible.  That haste meant that there were a number of errors.  With this edition, those problems have been dealt with.  I do supplement with the ACT version (see below) for some students.

For SAT Math:

I really haven’t settled on just one.  Which book I recommend varies from student to student, and, while I generally have students acquire just one, a given students will end up using most of these while working with me, even if it’s just one set of exercises.

Kaplan’s Math Workbook for the New SAT

This is the one I use with students who are currently scoring less than 600 on an SAT or PSAT.  I like the way it starts off with linear equations and systems, and I like the way it divides the problems into easy, medium and hard so that we can work on the problems that will appear at the beginning of the test and avoid frustrating the student with those end-of-test problems that he or she will likely guess on anyway.

The College Panda SAT Math: Advanced Guide and Workbook by Nielson Phu

This book is first off the shelf for students who are already scoring 600+ and would like to score 700+.  It has a TON of problems in it, and I really like the treatment of probability and statistics which is one of the main areas those students need to concentrate on.

PWN the SAT Math Guide, Fourth Edition by Mike McClenathan

A previous edition anchored my SAT math section prior to the SAT revision.  Mr. McClenathan  helpfully published this quickly, but subsequent released tests have added some insight that indicates this book is a little off-the-mark.  I’m hoping for an update soon.  It is designed for students who have always done really well in math class, and are then surprised and disappointed by a less-than-stellar math SAT score.  As I tell my students, the problems go from zero to sixty in under 6 seconds.  There’s not a lot of easy or medium practice in there.

A Guide to the Math SAT by Richard Corn

There are some excellent problems in here, but I don’t pull it out quite as often because the book is weakest in the areas in which my students need the most help.   That wouldn’t necessarily be true for everyone, though – my students tend to be clustered at a handful of schools, so they share a lot of characteristics.

The losers:

Top 50 Skills for a Top Score by Brian Leaf

I used this one for certain students back in the day, but the updated version for the new SAT just doesn’t cut it.

Dr. John Chung’s New SAT Math, 2016

The bulk of this book is 10 complete practice tests.  Back when this book came out, we only had 4 official practice tests and extras were appreciated even if they weren’t quite as good as the official tests.  Now that we have more official tests, I don’t use this anymore.

Study Materials Review: A Guide to the Math SAT

Richard Corn has updated his SAT math guide to reflect the revised test.  (Full disclosure - he sent me a copy to review.) This guide has a number of things I like.  First, I like the organization.  The topics are grouped in a logical manner.  Second, I really like the variety and range of difficulty level of the problems.  There is some really good practice in here.  Third, this guide includes tips on getting the best use out of your calculator which most guides leave out.  There are one or two topics I would have like to see covered more fully, but Mr. Corn has promised to add updates as released tests warrant.

When I reviewed Mr. Corn's guide for the "old" SAT, I mentioned that the formatting and explanations weren't particularly "friendly" and that the book might not be the best choice for a student working on his or her own.  I am happy to report that the explanations are much improved in this book.  There are some nice examples, some solid advice, and plenty of targeted practice.  I have uncovered a few typographical errors, but only one might affect your ability to understand or work the problems, and the author has promised to post a list of errata on his website.

This guide is an excellent resource for students who are working with or without a tutor.  I plan to purchase another copy or two for my resource shelf.  

Study Materials Review: College Panda SAT Math

I am often introduced to a new resource by my students.  That's how I became aware of The College Panda SAT Math Advanced Guide and Workbook.  The students was one for whom I would usually recommend PWN the SAT Math Guide: an advanced math student who has covered most of the material but who needs practice with looking at problems from different angles.  He had already been through PWN the SAT and was looking for more problems.  Somehow he stumbled across College Panda.

The tag line on the back of the book reads, "If it's not in this book, it's not on the test," and that's pretty nearly true.  This is a comprehensive book with a LOT of problems.  The problems represent a wide range of styles and difficulties and are nicely divided into categories so you can target your problem areas.  The problems also "feel" right.  The most difficult problems in each sections tend to be a tad more difficult than the most difficult problems on the SAT.  That's a good thing.  (Actually, in a few spots the problems resembled those on the SAT Math II subject test.)

The book does not include any practice tests to work on strategy or timing, so you will need access to some practice tests for that purpose.  (The same company has helpfully provided a book of practice tests in case the 7 - as of this writing - provided by the College Board aren't enough.  I haven't taken a good look at it, yet, so you can expect a review of that eventually.)

If this book has one weakness, it is that it is light on strategy.  It consists of examples, practice problems, and annotated answers.  There is little in the way of advice about timing, approaching multiple choice questions, or anything else that might fall under the category of "testing tip."  The author, Nielson Phu, seems to feel that the road to a perfect math score shouldn't involve any sign-posts for students who can't answers questions through sheer math prowess.  While I agree with that in principle, even the best math students needs a toolbox of techniques to pull out for when she or he doesn't immediately see how to approach a problem.  Students in the 600's to low 700's might get the most out of this book when used in conjunction with a tutor.

Study materials review: PWN the SAT Math Guide, 4th edition

It has taken me far too long to review the latest update of PWN the SAT Math Guide.  Author Mike McClenathan went to a great deal of trouble to update the guide for the new SAT.  My hesitation was, in part, due to the low number of clients taking the new SAT last spring.  I just didn't have as much call to use SAT materials in general, so I didn't get to see how the book worked out with actual students.  That is gradually beginning to change, and I'm beginning to get a feel for how much I'll be using this book and with whom.

Like earlier editions, the book is designed to be used in conjunction with the practice tests that were released by the College Board.  (These were once compiled in a book that we in the test prep field referred to as The Blue Book.  The book is now teal, but the tests can also be accessed online here.)

I reviewed the 2nd edition - for the old SAT - in April 2013. At the time I said, "PWN the SAT is well-organized, comprehensive and entertaining.  It introduces a concept or technique, provides some practice problems, and then supplies a list of relevant problems in the Blue Book. You are encouraged to use the Blue Book tests for testing practice, but if nothing else the length of the list will tell you how likely you are to run into that type of problem on the SAT.  At the end of the book is a breakdown of all of the problems in the Blue Book tests with difficulty level and techniques or concepts needed along with PWN page numbers for those techniques."

These things are still true.  There are, however, a couple of things that will keep my copy of this book from becoming as well-worn as it's predecessors.  First, the problems in the former additions "felt like" SAT problems.  Many of the problems in the 4th edition don't feel like new SAT problems.  They are excellent exercises that will build skills, but their application to the test is less direct.

Second, the previous book worked well for students who had been scoring above 550, but wanted to be scoring above 600.  Many of the problems in this book are too difficult for a large portion of my students.  I would recommend it for students who

• are strong math students who are underperforming on the SAT AND
• are currently scoring at least 650 on the math section.

The price makes this book a good value and there are additional resources available online for people who purchased a copy.

Vocabulary work for the reluctant reader

I've posted before on the fact that many of our students have small vocabularies and that this hampers their reading comprehension.  (You can read that post here.)  By far the best way to increase your vocabulary is to read a wide variety of materials - particularly books or articles at a challenging reading level.  I have also posted on the fact that it is difficult to get students to actually do this.

Vocabulary building needs to begin - well, from birth really.  However, college bound students should consciously work on their vocabularies beginning no later than middle school.  How can you get a reluctant reader to work on his or her vocabulary without reducing it to rote memorization?  Comic books can be a great method.  Calvin and Hobbes is a great comic series with some terrific vocabulary words in it.  It appeals to everyone age 10 and up.  The artist, Bill Watterson, has retired, but compilations of the strips are still in print.  You can also find them online.

I recently discovered another great vocabulary-building book series.  Stephan Pastis, who draws the nationally syndicated comic strip "Pearls Before Swine", has also written a series of books about an elementary school character, Timmy Failure.  The series is aimed at students in late elementary school, but I have enjoyed them, and I'm 53.  These chapter books are in the style made popular by the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. "Pearls" doesn't tend to be filled with SAT-level words, so imagine my surprise and delight when I encountered the following in the first Timmy Failure book, Mistakes Were Made:  rigorously, depiction, alleviated, stipulations, assent, prudent.  And that was just the first 50 pages!  Each book in the series is entertaining - a quick, easy read.  Unlike Calvin and Hobbes, which some children would need to read with a dictionary, many of the words in the Timmy Failure books are defined by the characters as you go, although in both series you could get the basic gist of many words from their context.

These books make great holiday gifts!  

Study Materials Review: Kaplan New SAT Premier 2016

As soon as the College Board announced changes to the SAT, people began publishing study materials for it.  The more responsible ones waited until after the practice tests had been published.  These materials are now finding their way to book store shelves.  I recently examined Kaplan's offering.

As a general rule, I like Kaplan's stuff better than Barron's or Princeton Review so I was hopeful that this would be a viable option.  Like most of the stuff out there, it's better for some things than for others.  Here are some impressions:

First of all, this thing is HUGE.  1337 pages, PLUS a DVD, PLUS access to online materials.  The sticker price is also relatively large at $36.  (It's a lot less on Amazon.)  I haven't read the whole thing, and I haven't examined the DVD or the online materials, so keep that in mind.

About 1/3 of the book is math review.  They assume nothing about the student's preparation: they begin with PEDMAS.  In my opinion this is a waste of space.  A student who needs help with PEDMAS needs help from a human, but whatever.  I did appreciate that there are a wide variety of targeted exercises for each section.  This book is quite useful for the student who has seen the material in class, but may not have been exposed to all of the different ways he or she could be asked about the material.  For each section there is also an estimate of how likely the topic is to appear on the test. The sections on statistics are quite nice for the strong math student who just never covered those topics, and I like the fact that they included instructions on how to use the statistical features on the TI-84 graphing calculator.  That will be useful for a lot of students.

The second third of the book is reading and grammar.  I thought the passages were well-chosen, and they advised the student to mark up the passage and take notes in the margins.  However, they didn't go into enough detail about what the student should be marking.  Then they actively discouraged re-reading the text while answering the questions on the grounds that there wouldn't be enough time.  I really have done much to work with students on this test, but my impression is that only the slowest students should be pressed for time.  Maybe I'll change my mind this spring.  The practice questions didn't feel like SAT questions.  So far we only have four practice tests to go on, but still....  They were just "off."

The last third of the book consists of 2 practice tests and then answers and explanations for the tests and all of the practice questions.  I got disgusted and quit midway through the reading test.  The questions were just strange. I really haven't examined the grammar, yet.  I though the math questions were the right style, but I haven't decided if their mixture of questions and topics makes for a good practice test.  I thought the tests released by the college board were uneven, so it will take a few administrations of the real thing to really know.

Anyone wishing to start studying for the reading or grammar sections should order Erica Meltzer's books.   Kaplan's New SAT Premier 2016 might work well for the math while we are waiting for Mike McClanathan's new edition to be published.  Hopefully, the math portion of this tome will be published separately - and at a cheaper price.

Hello, Founding Documents!

When revisions to the SAT were first announced, there were several changes proposed for the reading section.  One of the changes was the elimination of the fill-in-the-blank vocabulary section that started off each reading section.  I thought that was an interesting choice at the time because, as unpopular as the vocab questions were, testing vocabulary is an easy way to assess reading comprehension.  Vocabulary knowledge is a reliable predictor of reading comprehension and vocab questions are a lot easier to write.  In addition, testing vocabulary, as opposed to passage-based testing, allows more questions to be asked in the time allotted, which should allow for finer differentiation among test-takers.

The reasoning offered at the time was that being familiar with "obscure" vocabulary did not predict success in college.  In the very same announcement, Daniel Coleman said that the reading passages would include "the founding documents."  At this point, the test-prep tutoring community responded, "Ummm.....have you actually READ the founding documents??"  Talk about obscure vocabulary.  I sat down and compiled a list of obscure or antiquated words from the Constitution ALONE that numbered in the hundreds.  Then the practice PSAT was posted without any founding documents in it, and I figured the College Board members had come to their senses.

Shortly after that, ETS posted four practice SAT tests.  I took the first one, and then I got busy.  REALLY busy.  It's been a crazy summer in test-prep land.  All the tutors I know have been swamped.

The first practice SAT had a pretty easy reading section.  Lovely.  There was plenty of time, and the most difficult section had a passage that had clearly been written for grownups but wasn't ridiculously challenging.  I didn't take tests 3 and 4 until this week, and HOLY CRAP!!  Hello, founding documents!

So there is a lot we could say here about the wisdom of including founding documents in some tests, but not others, including that fact that this would be a perfectly valid reason for avoiding the revised SAT.  However, if you are going to take it, you need to show up prepared to interpret writing that is 300 years old, obscure vocabulary and all.

Use the summer for reading!

I tell my students that it is most time-consuming to raise their scores on the reading sections of the college entrance examinations because they need to read.  A LOT.  Then I tell them that summer is the perfect time to work on this.

This is my annual post to encourage reading.  I was inspired to get off my duff and write this year's edition by this article.

The article looks at what students are reading.  There is good news and bad news.  The good news:  reading is not dead.  Quite a few kids are reading and some of them read quite a bit.  The bad news:  too many kids read hardly anything, and when they do read, they choose books that are written at an easy reading level.

The article includes a plea for students to read the classics and includes an argument for a students reading list to include both fiction and non-fiction.  It points out that raising your reading level requires work - which is probably why kids are avoiding it - but that when students make the effort they enjoy the more difficult books.

Here's the thing.  Students who read regularly and who can comprehend material at a 11th grade level or higher will have a tremendous advantage on their college entrance exams, in college and later in life.  For a quick-and-dirty estimate of the reading level of a piece of writing, see this previous post.

Impressions on the new practice PSAT

A few days ago the College Board posted a new PSAT practice test.  This is the practice test for the redesigned PSAT to be given in October 2015.  It is also a glimpse of what the redesigned SAT might look like. 

There has been a great deal of speculation about the redesigned test.   A number of people have opined that the new test would be an “ACT clone.”  I, myself, have speculated that the new test would be designed as more of a high school exit exam than a college entrance exam.  Quite a few pundits have pointed out that the SAT was losing market share to the ACT and thought that the redesign might be an effort to gain that share back.

Upon looking over the test, I am now prepared to make the following statements:

The writing section IS barely distinguishable from the writing portion of the ACT.  Otherwise, this test is in no way an ACT clone.  On the other hand, I do feel that this test represents a fundamental shift in purpose.

There are a number of possible purposes for giving a standardized exam.  (This would be as opposed to a teacher-made assessment.)  Here are a few:

• To document student learning (or lack thereof) of particular skills and concepts
• To distinguish among (or rank) students
• To drive the curriculum*

Prior to 2015, the PSAT’s fundamental purpose has been a balance of the first two items.  As the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test it has been used to distinguish top students from the pack, and it has documented whether or not students have a grasp of particular skills and concepts.  It has NOT been used to drive the curriculum...until now.  In my opinion, several of the changes were specifically designed to have an impact on the nature and content of classroom instruction.

One of the elements of Common Core language arts is a focus on having students read critically.  In an effort to have the students respond to what the author actually said – as opposed to how they feel about what they think the author said – students are being asked to point to pieces of the text as “evidence.”  In the PSAT critical reading portion, students are asked to choose the best evidence for almost every question.  Now I’m not a language arts teacher, and I don’t have any special critical reading or psychometric expertise.  However, it seems to me that this is about the same as asking the same question twice.  In other words, if you correctly answer the original question, then the answer to the “evidence” follow up is trivial.  If you missed the original question it would be impossible.  Will there be some kind of scoring mechanism that uses this question-pairing to determine when the correct answer was obtained by guessing?  Maybe.  It is more likely an attempt to make sure teachers require their students to give evidence in class.

Here is another example from the math section.  Months ago, when the sample questions were released, I noticed that some of the questions were much longer and more involved.  This represents a distinct shift.  Up until now I have told my top students, “If you are more than 3 steps into an algebra process, you probably missed something.”  One of my main criticisms of some of the test prep books out there has been that too many of the math questions can ONLY be solved with the application of tedious algebraic steps and are thus not representative of the real thing.  However, this has changed with the PSAT practice test.  It’s interesting.  If I’m a professor of mathematics or engineering I’m interested in multiple different aspects of their math skills.  I want them to have a solid grasp of the concepts, good number sense, AND I want them to be able to keep track of what they are doing through a long problem that requires many steps and sub-steps to solve.

Up until now, the major college entrance exams did a decent job of testing the first two. (The SAT was better than the ACT in my opinion.) They really haven’t attempted to do the third.  This is largely because a multiple choice or single final answer exam format is a TERRIBLE way to assess that third skill.  If the student’s answer is incorrect, you don’t know if he really can’t negotiate the process or if he just made a silly error in the middle.  Graded homework and teacher-made assessments where partial credit is given are much better means of determining whether or not the student can handle a long problem.  Both of those would be reflected in the students’ grades.  By trying to test it in this format, you add no new information.  The only reason I can come up with to include problems like this is to encourage math teachers to have students practice longer, more complex problems.

When the College Board first announced that the SAT would be re-designed, an admissions officer at a small, selective school wondered in an online forum, “Will the rSAT do a better job of distinguishing among students at the top end of the spectrum?”  This was what she was hoping for.  Other users of the forum predicted that it would not.  To do so would require a test with a wider standard deviation, and a large contingent of the (math-challenged) public believes that a wide standard deviation is inherently “unfair.”  In fact, the speculation was that the new test would do a worse job of highlighting differences among students.  Given that the redesigned test appears to have abandoned that goal altogether in favor of driving the curriculum, I’d say that admissions officers at selective schools will be plumb out of luck.

The practice PSAT is posted here: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat-suite-assessments/practice/practice-tests

* You may be wondering what it means to have a test “drive the curriculum.”  Let’s look at an extreme example.  Throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s North Carolina had a state writing assessment.  In fourth, eighth and tenth grades students had to write a timed essay and send it off to be scored by specially trained “experts.”  After several years of dismal results, some statisticians called “foul.”  They pointed out that the scoring methods were severely flawed, and thus that the scores were ultimately meaningless.  (By the way, the scoring methods used to score the ACT and SAT essays have some of the same issues.)  The state’s surprising response?  “Yes, we know.”  Students (and by extension their teachers and parents) suffered through this test for YEARS.  Why?  Because if there’s a writing test – even a flawed one - teachers will spend time teaching writing.  The average amount of classroom time spent on writing instruction quadrupled.  Prior to the test, some teachers had spent ZERO time teaching writing.

To pre-order the practice book for the redesigned SAT:

Euclid is rolling over in his grave.

Standardized testing has killed geometry.  All that’s left to do is plan the funeral.  True, geometry had been ailing for some time and was too weak to put up a fight.  Still, theoretical mathematicians should pause for a moment of silence and then figure out what to do next.

The objective of geometry was never understood by most modern folks.  They tended to dismiss it as the study of “shapes” and to wonder why it was included in the curriculum.  But geometry was never about shapes.  Shapes were merely intended as the vehicle for making deductive reasoning more accessible to students.  Students tended to find formal proof to be very challenging, and as the self-esteem movement grew and grade inflation ran amuck, math teachers were under more pressure to gloss over the proofs that made the subject so difficult.  Eventually, many, if not most, high school students went off to college without ever having done a formal mathematical proof.

Still, geometry problems tended to involve informal deductive reasoning:  “I know these two lines are parallel, therefore these angles must be congruent.  If that’s true, then this thing is a parallelogram and these two line segments are congruent.”  In addition, geometry continued to be a class where you had to be careful and precise about how you talked about something.  Definitions were important.  Leave out a phrase, and everything changes.

The problem is that formal deductive reasoning can be difficult to test.  Informal deductive reasoning is easier to test, but requires a great deal of background knowledge about “shapes.”  Thus the layperson thinks that “shapes” was the concept being tested in the first place, and does anyone really need to remember that a midsegment of a triangle is half the length of the side to which it is parallel?

So now the Common Core Standards and the SAT have essentially gutted geometry from the curriculum.  Only the bits about shapes that are essential to trigonometry and to transformations (since there is an increased emphasis on graphing functions by transformations) have been kept. Formal definitions and proof are no longer included.  For true mathematicians this means that real math is no longer taught in kindergarten through 12^th grade at all.  What’s left is just the arithmetic and modeling needed for science and statistics.  Where will our future mathematicians come from?

The new SAT: the Essay

This is the third post in a series on the redesigned SAT.  The first two were on vocabulary and the math section, respectively.

It was interesting to see what the news media chose to focus on when they did their bullet points for the redesigned SAT.  As headlines and/or sound-bites, many chose variations on “The new SAT will drop the essay requirement!”  That they would trumpet this particular change is understandable.  The SAT essay has been widely loathed since it was first introduced in 2005.

Criticisms of the 25-minute essay section abound:  Writing a coherent essay in such a short period of time on a random prompt that was sprung on you at the last second is a very artificial task.  How often does that come up?  Even college blue-book exams – the closest real-world situation - will have essay questions specifically on the course material.  And don’t get people started on how they are scored.  Anecdotes abound about how kids who can afford coaches are at an enormous advantage because coaches teach you how to use really bad writing to get a top score.  Dropping the essay requirement was popular and a good marketing move.

However, "drop the essay requirement" may be misleading.  The SAT still has an essay.  However, now the style of essay has changed and it is "optional."  Changing the style of the essay is a good move. The new style is much more the kind of writing that you might expect to do in the workplace:  Take this data and write a quick position summary.  ETS has already test-driven this essay style on the GRE, so they should be able to implement it on the SAT with few hiccups.

As far as being "optional" goes, the more selective colleges will "require" it, just as they now "require" the "optional" ACT essay.

While it is true that the method of scoring the essay has always had issues - and likely still will - there are two points to consider here:  First, American kids need to be writing more and when you include essays in assessments, the curriculum will include more writing instruction.  Second, colleges have always been able to read a student's actual essay.  They don't have to rely on the score as a measure of an essay's quality.  In fact, the essay score has always had only a slight impact on the students Writing component score in addition to being reported as a separate score.  Many colleges disregard the entire Writing component score altogether while others downplay it.  Yet, they have required the essay anyway. Keep in mind that this will probably be the only sample of writing accessible to the admissions committee that is guaranteed to have been written by the applicant.  Admissions officers all claim they can spot an adult-written essay from a mile off, but can they really?  And what is to prevent a student from paying his classmate to write a better essay?

So the essay is still there and those applying to selective colleges are stuck with it.  However, the task should be a better example of a real-world writing situation, and practicing for it may pay off even after the SAT is over.