How to Interpret Your SAT Scores

In case you missed it, last week we posted a blog about how to interpret your ACT scores. But if you're among the hundreds of thousands of students who just took College Board's first administration of the newly designed SAT©, you may need even more help interpreting the scores than ever. As a reminder, the newly designed SAT® is a 3 hour test (not including the now-optional essay, which adds an additional 50 minutes to total test time). The SAT® consists of a Reading test (52 questions in 65 minutes), a Writing and Language test (44 questions in 35 minutes), and a Math test (58 questions in 80 minutes) plus the optional essay (1 prompt, 50 minutes). Even though the SAT® is longer than the ACT®, the average amount of time per question is slightly higher (1 minute, 10 seconds on the SAT® vs 49 seconds per question on the ACT®). So how is the scoring different for the newly designed SAT®? First, and perhaps most importantly as this is a major change from the SAT exams administered prior to March 2016, only your correctly answered questions are counted toward your raw score. Similar to its counterpart, the ACT, the newly designed SAT does not penalize for incorrect answers. The raw scores are then converted to scale scores, using a scale of 200-800 per subject (Evidence-based Reading and Writing and Math). The essay* is scored by two separate readers, each of whom will award the essay with 1 to 4 points on the following dimensions: reading, analysis, and writing. So you will receive three (3) essay scores (one for each dimension) ranging from 2-8. *The essay is now an optional test component of the SAT®; although, it is strongly recommended you submit the essay to better demonstrate your English Language Arts mastery to your potential colleges. Similar to the ACT®, your SAT® Score Report will also tell you where your scores fall among your peers, according to national score results for students taking the test on the same day. If you’re trying to determine how your scores will help with your college acceptance rates, you can usually look up a college’s freshman profile and find out the average scores for incoming freshmen, by major, by visiting the college’s web site. The College Simply web site also has a wealth of admissions data for U.S. colleges, and is worth a visit. For a more detailed explanation about how the SAT® test scores are calculated, visit https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/scores/understanding-scores/interpreting. For help preparing for the next SAT®, so that you can maximize your scores, call Club Z! today at 888-434-2582 and ask about our proven test prep programs.