The SAT college exam will undergo sweeping changes on what's tested, how it's scored and how students can prepare, College Board President and CEO David Coleman said Wednesday. Standardized tests have become "far too disconnected from the work of our high schools," Coleman said at an event in Austin, Texas. They're too stressful for students, too filled with mystery and "tricks" to raise scores and aren't necessarily creating more college-ready students, he said. The SAT to be released in spring 2016 is designed to change that, he said. The test will include three sections -- evidence-based reading and writing, math and an optional essay -- each retooled to stop students from simply filling a bubble on the test sheet. "No longer will it be good enough to focus on tricks and trying to eliminate answer choices," Coleman said. "We are not interested in students just picking an answer, but justifying their answers." The test will shift from its current score scale of 2400 back to 1600, with a separate score for the essay. No longer will test takers be penalized for choosing incorrect answers. To prepare students for the test, the College Board will partner for the first time with Khan Academy to provide free test preparation materials, starting in spring 2015. Afterward, income-eligible students will receive fee waivers to apply to four colleges for free. Why the test is changing The last major changes to the SAT came in 2005, when it altered some question formats, added a written essay and changed its score scale from 1600 to 2400. For this change, Coleman cited the need to create more opportunities for students, rather than obstructing them with test questions that felt detached from their educations and the preparation colleges needed. Coleman, who joined the College Board in 2012, has spoken critically of his organization's test and discussed how it could be improved. "Admissions officers and counselors have said they find the data from admissions exams useful, but are concerned that these exams have become disconnected from the work of high school classrooms and surrounded by costly test preparation," Coleman said. In recent years, another exam, the ACT, has gained popularity as several states adopted it as part of their standardized testing programs. And while the majority of four-year colleges require an exam score for admission, hundreds of schools have shifted to test-optional policies that allow students to decide what to submit -- or whether to share a test score at all. Indeed, students' grades and the academic rigor of their courses weighs more heavily in college admissions decision than standardized test scores, class rank or professed interest in a particular school, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling's 2013 "State of College Admission" report released in January. The report was based on surveys sent to public and private high schools, postsecondary institutions and data from the College Board, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Census Bureau. "I'd like to be optimistic and believe some of this is going to be good," said Steve Syverson, a member of the NACAC board and dean of admissions emeritus for Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin -- a test-optional school. "I just don't know how it will work out." Syverson was part of NACAC's Commission on Standardized Testing that in 2008 urged standardized test makers to adhere more closely to school curricula, colleges to consider more about applicants than seductively simple test scores and society to stop rating schools based on standardized test scores. Syverson was intrigued by the Khan Academy partnership, he said, and pleased with the direction Coleman seemed to be taking the test. He wonders whether fee waivers and others changes are meant to draw back students and schools that have turned away from the SAT or testing in general. Until he sees the passages students will be reading, the questions they're answering and the way colleges react, he has to remain skeptical. "Some of this is just words. They had a lot of great language around the last change," in 2005, Syverson said. "The angst about the exams has just continued to grow." How the test will change Sections of the redesigned SAT might sound similar to the current test, but the changes are significant, Coleman said. The reading and writing sections will include questions that require students to cite evidence for their answer choices, and will include reading passages from a broader range of disciplines, including science, history, social studies and literature. Test takers will no longer be asked to complete sentences with obscure words they might have memorized from flash cards. Instead, students will have to consider the context of how words like "synthesis" and "empirical" are used. They're not "SAT words" as they've come to be known, Coleman said, but words students are likely to encounter again.

• published: 06 Mar 2014
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