Scores from the first-ever digital SAT exam, administered on March 9 across the U.S., are in for thousands of anxious American teenagers.
"Results are flooding in," said Philip Bates, a former high school principal who is director of content at the Texas-based SAT tutoring firm UWorld.
Its too early to talk trends, Bates said, but one perk of the digital SAT is the quick turnaround in score delivery — between 10 days and two weeks. "Students don't have to stress about scores for weeks and weeks," he said.
Bates said Friday that he was seeing a range of results.
"You're seeing some students who are super happy and they've raised their scores, you're seeing some who dropped their scores compared to the old test, and some the same," he said.
Results have most to do with how students prepared for the digital test, Bates said. "I would speculate that if you have a student who used old preparation and wasn't looking at the new style of test, their scores probably dropped, because of how the content is presented, and the style of particularly the verbal questions is so different," he said.
"Students who increased their scores probably did a lot of practicing with online content, instead of paper, and got used, for example, to the new format of the test, including using the in-app Desmos calculator for math," Bates said.
Emotional reactions filled an online Reddit thread discussing the score releases for the March 9 digital test, including a survey comparing scores on the College Board's sample tests and the actual one. One mom said about her daughter, "she & everyone she knows agrees that the Math Mod 2 was INSANELY hard, so we weren’t surprised when her official math score was below her practice numbers."
More than 200,000 students took the digital SAT at 3,000 test centers in 173 countries on March 9, the College Board said in a press release. Among SAT Weekend digital test takers, 99.8% successfully completed their exam and submitted their results. Over 400,000 students took the digital SAT, PSAT 10 and PSAT 8/9 during the school day that week, the board said.
Because the College Board published only four digital tests for preparation, some tutors used digital tests from major test prep companies to further prepare their students. "The practice material from test prep companies we were using was not commensurate with the difficulty level of the College Board's practice tests in both math and English," said Sarah Burton of Aspen Tutoring in Ridgewood, who runs the center with English teacher Meaghan Ozaydin.
One New Jersey test prep educator who did not want to be named until they took a more thorough look at the results for their clients said the adaptive nature of the math portion of the digital SAT saw some students run out of time, unlike with the previous paper versions. All-digital test takers got a harder module of math questions in the second portion of the test if they did well in the universal first module that all test takers took.
It's too early to tell how scores compare with the paper version, but dramatic changes to the test in its digital version have made for jitters and excitement as results come in.
New adaptive math module, shorter test overall
The biggest change in the digital version was the adaptive second module in math, which was harder or easier depending on how well a student performed in the first math module. Other changes included a shorter test length overall, shorter reading passages in the English portion, and the built-in digital calculator in the testing app.
The adaptive math portion caused many students to worry. Did the harder module mean they could expect high scores? Or did it mean they messed up?
Also unexpected is the College Board's inclusion of school, district and state averages for the digital score. If you're a student viewing your score right now in New Jersey, the College Board provides averages of scores for comparison.
New Jersey's average score was 1171
New Jersey's average score was 1171 on the first digital SAT. The U.S. average score was 1166, and the average for all test takers, including international ones, was 1176. These numbers are taken from a score report delivered to a student who took the test on March 9. Scores from paper tests did not provide this at-a-glance comparison.
Disappointed with your scores? Definitely retake the test, said Bates, of UWorld. This is important because many top-tier colleges are reversing their positions on the SAT and asking students to submit scores in a new, test-flexible college application format, a shift from the post-pandemic trend of test-optional applications.
Students typically take the SAT twice or more so they can "superscore" their math and English results by adding up the best scores for each subject for college applications.
