SAT changes curriculum for 2015, ACT goes digital

 

Freshmen, say goodbye to obscure vocabulary words like “acrimony,” “deleterious,” “pugnacious” and “obfuscate.” According to College Board president David Coleman, the new SAT to be unveiled in 2015 will be redesigned to “focus on the core knowledge and skills that evidence shows are most important to prepare students for the rigors of college and career.” 

Although the date and specifics of the new test have yet to be released, Rakhi Israni, president of Excel Test Prep, said that it will focus on more relevant vocabulary, a “less coachable essay” and multimedia representations of data, in an attempt to align with Common core standards.

“As stated by [Coleman], the main goal of the change is to create an exam that more closely mirrors the skills necessary to excel in college and later in a career,” Israni said. “However, they haven't announced any real specifics of how they plan to achieve those goals.”

These changes will likely not affect the classes of 2014, 2015 or 2016, but this year’s freshmen may have to take the new SAT their junior year, which could be released as early as spring of 2015.

Freshman Jenny Qian, who plans on taking the SAT her junior year, said she approves of the changes to the SAT that are underway.

“I feel like [the new SAT] is good because it would be easier for students learning the words because they could actually use them in real life instead of memorizing really weird SAT words [that have previously been on the test],” Qian said.

Qian added that although she felt relieved that the test will no longer require blind memorization, students might have to adjust to preparing for a more concept-based test.

“[The new SAT] could be hard to prepare for because the [current] SAT is usually just a set format that is the same every year,” Qian said. “I’m afraid that when they change it, it could be difficult to study for because of all the changes.”

However, Israni said it is too soon to tell how students should prepare for the new exam. 

“More concrete information will be necessary before we revamp [Excel’s] curriculum to meet those changes or make recommendations to students preparing for the new format of the SAT,” Israni said.

The ACT, another popular college-entry standardized test, also has big changes for 2015, when the test plans to go digital. The test will be available on the computer and on paper, incorporating free-response questions that require interaction with online images.

“A digital version of the ACT will be a great option for high school students, especially since anecdotal evidence shows that today's students tend to prefer technology to traditional paper-and-pencil testing,” Israni said. “It will provide much more convenient scheduling options for the busy high school students of today, as well as more instant results for better planning.

However, senior Allison Chang said that the ACT’s transition into the digital age might not be helpful for students, depending on the types of questions.

“I believe that the digitalization of the ACT could go either way,” Chang said. “It could make the english portions substantially easier to traverse, but may make math a bit more difficult.”

After the ACT surpassed the SAT in number of test takers nationwide this past year for the first time, Israni believes the redesigns of both standardized tests may be reflective of the testing companies’ ongoing rivalry.

“The SAT, as it stands, is neither a test of intelligence nor of general aptitude.  It is currently a very strategy-based exam,” Israni said. “With the number of ACT test-takers recently surpassing the number of SAT test-takers nationwide, it makes sense for the SAT to change. It should be more focused on the skills necessary to do well in college.”