What Is The SAT?

The SAT is a standardized test that is designed to be taken by College Students in the United States. These tests are taken by High School Juniors and Seniors who are planning to attend College. On this test students can score anywhere from 600 to 2400, the higher the score the better off you will be. Colleges look at the SAT’s when determining admission applications. The basic idea of the test is to test students’ ability in literacy, numeracy and writing skills. These are three major sections of what College is based on.

Don’t panic, Colleges also look at Grade Point Averages too when trying to determine admissions. The SAT has three sections, the Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing. Each section on the test can be scored anywhere from 200 to 800. In the Critical Reading Section, back in the day it was called the Verbal Section, it has two sections that you are allowed 25 minutes each to complete. In this section you will find sentence completion, questions that are about the short and longer reading sections. The reading in these tests consists of Social Science, Humanities and even Physical Science.

In the Mathematics Section you will have 25 minutes to complete 20 Multiple Choice questions. The second question will consist of 8 more multiplechoice questions and 10 fill in questions. Then there is a 20minute section that is 100% multiple choices, this section has 16 questions. You won’t be penalized for wrong answers in this section because the chance of guessing is very limited.

Last is the Writing Section. This section will consist of a 30% essay and 70% multiple choices. The format had changed in 2005 after many Universities had made complaints that students had a lack of writing ability. These multiplechoice questions will include paragraph improvement sections, grammar and sentence improvement sections.

So basically the Writing Section, you have 60 minutes to complete and the content in this section will include Grammar, Usage and Diction. The Mathematics Section will include a 70minute time limit and will include Number and Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Stats and Probability. Last but not least, the Critical Reading Section you have 70 minutes to complete and it consists of Critical Reading and Sentence Level Reading.

In the United States, the SAT is actually given 7 times a year. Once in October, November, December, January, March, May and June. If you don’t do well the first time, you can take it over one time. There are College SAT Prep Courses that you can take in order to improve your score. These courses are taught separately and you will have to pay a fee to enroll. It is worth it to get the best score that you can get. Take advantage of the fact that you can take the test a second time. Most Colleges take a look at the scores to help them decide whether if that student would make a good fit to the school. Study and do the best that can do.