The redesigned preliminary SAT that debuts today won’t feature the infamous verbal section that made student rack their brains for the definition of words like spurious, recalcitrant, panacea or malediction.
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This summer, College Board President David Coleman unveiled a new SAT, the first major change since 2005, scheduled to roll out in March 2016.
The second was personal; I had two PSAT takers in the mix as my twins are 11th graders. Her older sister told her about the National Merit Scholarship program that awards money to students who score high on the test.
So, the College Board started redesigning the PSAT and the SAT three years ago, with a focus on skills and concepts that students will need for college and careers.
The new SAT (or PSAT) is meant to be more relevant to what students do in high school classes.
“It’s not OK to ask students to learn something only because it’s on a test”, College Board Chief of Assessment Cyndie Schmeiser said.
But rich kids’ score gains also come from alleged cultural bias in a few questions (asking students about “regattas,” for instance) and the overall, dramatic differences in the quality of schools attended by wealthier (and often whiter) students versus their disadvantaged peers.
Although there is little data from the past decade, previous studies suggest that test prep’s claims are inflated: on average, students who prep for SATs see gains of around 30 points, possibly minimizing the potential impact of the Khan partnership.
The PSAT is a preliminary version of the SAT, a standardized test given to high school students by the College Board and cosponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
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Civil rights and feminist groups have joined FairTest in criticizing the National Merit selection process for relying on a biased test to eliminate 99 percent of scholarship competitors, no matter how strong their academic records. Four dozen additional schools dropped admissions score mandates in the past two years.
