College Board adds written essay, makes other changes to SAT

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Heeding calls that the SAT should measure what students learn in class, College Board trustees voted Thursday to add an essay to the nation's most widely used college entrance exam, toughen its math section and eliminate analogy questions.

The head of the 170,000-student University of California system had at one point suggested dropping the SAT as an admissions requirement, arguing it failed to test student knowledge. But Richard Atkinson, president of the UC system, said he was delighted with the makeover and called it "a major event in the history of standardized testing."

College Board President Gaston Caperton said the new test, to be introduced in March 2005, "will be more aligned with curriculum and more aligned with state standards.

"I want you to think of this as a test of basic success skills, of reading, writing and math, connected with reasoning," he said.

This is the second major revision in less than a decade for the exam, taken at least once by 1.3 million of last year's high school graduates. The last reform also was aimed at better reflecting students' mastery of classroom subjects.

College Board officials said that some of the latest revisions had been proposed but not adopted in that 1994 revamping.

The present SAT is three hours of mostly multiple-choice questions. Its two sections, math and verbal, are each graded on a scale of 200-800 points.

The changes include:

-- Adding a third section that includes a 25-minute handwritten essay question and multiple choice grammar-usage questions modeled on the current SAT II writing test.

Also scored on a 200-800 scale, the new section will boost the top total SAT score to 2,400. Each student's essay will be read and scored, then scanned onto a Web site for college admissions officials to read on request.

-- Renaming the verbal section "critical reading," and dropping analogies while adding more, shorter prose passages to test reading ability. The passages will come from various academic disciplines, such as science, history and literature -- as well as popular sources.

-- Gradually adding questions to the math section from third-year high school math, specifically algebra II. The section will drop quantitative comparisons, such as asking a test-taker to use an algebraic equation to compare the volumes of similar geometric objects.

The new test will take up to 3.5 hours to complete. It's expected to add $10-$12 to the cost of the exam, which this fall rises to $26. The test also will include a feature to provide test-takers feedback on skills that need improving.

Details will be worked out as the changes are developed by Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., the nonprofit contractor that designs and administers College Board exams.

After Atkinson proposed dropping the SAT for UC system admissions, the UC Board of Regents decided to wait and assess the new version. Atkinson and other regents indicated Thursday it would be accepted, and a formal vote could come as early as September.

Among 2001 high school graduates, 1.3 million took the SAT at least once, many repeatedly. In the school year ending June 2001, 2.3 million SATs were taken.

Alessa Thomas plans to take the SAT this fall, when she'll be a high school senior in Gladstone, Mich. She'll take the current SAT, but sees advantages to the upcoming version. "They're taking out questions that didn't make any sense at all," she said. "Those tests can be really impossible."

Makers of the rival ACT, taken by nearly 1.1 million 2001 graduates nationwide, assert that their exam already tests what students have learned. But earlier this year, the nonprofit Iowa company said it would include an essay question for applicants to California universities -- and possibly begin adding it nationwide later.

Along with high school grades, the SAT is supposed to predict academic performance in the first year of college. Critics have long assailed the SAT as unfair, saying it tends to favor students who have wealthier families, attend better schools or have access to test-preparation courses and tutors.

While Atkinson was pleased with the changes, they were met with some derision by FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass.-based group that advocates making the SAT optional. Labeling the changes as "minor," Bob Schaeffer of FairTest argued they don't rectify what he charges is the SAT's bias and susceptibility to coaching.

Caperton, a former West Virginia governor, said that if there are disparities in test scores between groups of students, the root cause is in society. "There is an unequal education system in America," he said. "The SAT is a very fair test."

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