A Look Back: As SAT enters a new era, students say the exam has improved

Washington Post by Nick Anderson NEW YORK — The SAT’s infamous guessing penalty is gone. Its vocabulary is less arcane, minus words like “lachrymose” and “obsequious” that students tended to memorize and then forget. Its essay is now optional. The perfect score — set in 2005 at 2400 — is reverting to the iconic standard […]

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Something you should know about the new SAT

(Washington Post, by Valerie Strauss & James Murphy)  ||   The College Board is about to unveil its newly redesigned SAT college admissions test, with the first students set to take it next Saturday. We already know a lot about the new exam, which was designed to align heavily with the Common Core State Standards and […]

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Will States Swap Standards-Based Tests for SAT, ACT?

( Edweek by Catherine Gewertz ) ||   High school testing is on the brink of a profound shift, as states increasingly choose college-entrance exams to measure achievement. The new federal education law invites that change, but it comes with some big caution signs and unanswered questions. The questions are hanging over a provision of […]

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The New SAT: Common Core Sealant

(Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ) by Robert Holland   National Common Core-aligned standardized tests for elementary and secondary schools are in the midst of a death spiral, despite the $360 million the Obama administration spent on the creation of the two consortia, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced, five years […]

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New, Reading-Heavy SAT Has Students Worried

(New York Times) By Anemona Hartocollis. BOSTON —  For thousands of college hopefuls, the stressful college admissions season is about to become even more fraught. The College Board, which makes the SAT, is rolling out a new test — its biggest redesign in a decade, and one of the most substantial ever. Chief among the changes, […]

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