Recently, College Board has announced that they are redesigning the SAT.  The announcement has raised a debate among middle school, high school students, high school graduates and most of all, the parents.  The new redesigned test will be administered for the first time in spring 2016, and the structure focuses more on skills that are used more often in college classrooms.  Incorrect answer choices will no longer count against you, and the math incorporated in the problems with be math that "matters most."  No longer based on a 2400 point scale, the new exam will be on a 1600 point scale and based more on real-world problems that incorporate science and history.  In a way, the new SAT test somewhat resembles the ACT.  Along with a plethora of other changes that are in favor of the test taker, the new SAT has been, for lack of a better wording, dumbed down.
Over the past years, high school students have struggled to find a way to conquer the SAT with its esoteric vocabulary words such as "bucolic" and "obdurate" and the seemingly impossible reading comprehension section questions. The new SAT will now use vocabulary that is more likely to actually be used in a college classroom and ask reading comprehension questions that aren't filled with flowery and difficult to understand answers.
The opinions on the SAT test change are controversial.  The people who are struggling right now to get a good SAT score are upset and wish the new test would go into effect now, while the current eight graders are excited to take the brand new test.  Thousands of dollars have been spent by students' families on SAT preparation courses such as Testmasters and PrepMe.  Now, it almost seems like it was a waste to some people.  In other words, the odds are definitely against the past test takers of the SAT.

Claire Weddle
Staff Writer