Joanne Jacobs
Sep 27, 20171 min
Scores are up on the redesigned SAT, reports Education Week‘s Catherine Gewertz. That doesn’t mean students are better prepared: Apparently, it’s an easier test.
Only 46 percent of students are likely to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing college coursework, College Board estimated.
“In redesigning the SAT, the College Board aimed to build a more straightforward test that reflects the strengths students will need for college,” writes Gewertz. “It dumped obscure vocabulary words in favor of requiring students to justify their answers. It covers fewer math topics, but in more depth.”
There’s also no longer a penalty for wrong answers. That’s probably helped boost scores.
Seventy percent of Asian-Americans met the college-readiness benchmark, compared to 59 percent of whites, 31 percent of Latinos and 20 percent of blacks.
Studying for 20 hours on the free Khan Academy SAT practice site is associated with an average score gain of 115 points, regardless of gender, race, income, and high school GPA.