Test Specifications for the Redesigned SAT - College Board
Test Specifications for the Redesigned SAT?
THE REDESIGNED SAT
The College Board
The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world's leading education institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success -- including the sat? and the Advanced Placement Program?. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators, and schools. For further information, visit .
? 2015 The College Board. College Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, SAT, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. Visit the College Board on the Web: .
00109_022
THE REDESIGNED SAT
2 Executive Summary
9 section i Behind the Redesign 9 Linking Assessment and Instruction 14 The Story Behind the Redesigned sat? 16 Principles Driving the Redesign 17 High-Level Design Changes for the sat 19 Scores Reported by the Redesigned sat 21 The Redesigned sat Score Summary 22 Concordance 23 Summary
25 section ii The Redesigned sat: Evidentiary Foundation 25 Evidentiary Foundation for the Redesigned sat's Evidence-
Based Reading and Writing Tests and Essay 33 Evidentiary Foundation for the Redesigned sat's Math Test 39 Summary
41 section iii Test Specifications: sat Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and sat Essay
41 A Transparent Blueprint
41 sat Reading Test
44 Test Summary
46 Key Features
55 Lower Text Complexity Example
57 Higher Text Complexity Example
59 sat Writing and Language Test
62 Test Summary
65 Key Features
70 sat Essay (Optional Component)
72 Test Summary
73 Key Features
81 Summary
82 Appendix B: Sample Test Materials: Reading,
Writing and Language, and Essay 82 Sample Reading Set 1
89 Sample Reading Set 2
98 Sample Reading Set 3
103 Lower Text Complexity Example 105 Higher Text Complexity Example 107 Sample Writing and Language Set 1 114 Sample Writing and Language Set 2
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THE REDESIGNED SAT
120 Sample Essay Prompt 1
126 Sample Essay Prompt 2
132 section iv Test Specifications: sat Math Test 132 A Transparent Blueprint 133 Test Summary 136 Detailed Description of the Content and Skills
Measured by the sat Math Test 158 Summary 159 Appendix B: Math Sample Questions 159 Sample Questions: Heart of Algebra 171 Sample Questions: Problem Solving and Data Analysis 176 Sample Problem Set 181 Sample Questions: Passport to Advanced Math 190 Sample Questions: Additional Topics in Math 196 section v Our Commitment
198 appendix a The Craft of Developing the sat: How We Do It 199 Guiding Principles 200 The Development Process for the Redesigned sat 201 The Test Development Process
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THE REDESIGNED SAT ? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Executive Summary
SECTION I
Behind the Redesign
SECTION II
The Redesigned SAT: Evidentiary Foundation
SECTION III
Test Specifications: SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and SAT Essay
SECTION IV
Test Specifications: SAT Math Test
SECTION V
Our Commitment
APPENDIX A The Craft of Developing the SAT: How We Do It
THE REDESIGNED SAT ? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Executive Summary
The sat? is the College Board's flagship college and career readiness assessment. For nearly a century, it has been used successfully worldwide in combination with factors such as high school gpa to assess student preparedness for and to predict student success in postsecondary education. Each year the sat is taken by more than 1.6 million students and used by thousands of high school counselors and postsecondary admission officers around the world.
Recent sat results tell a troubling story about students' readiness and likelihood for success in their postsecondary endeavors. Notably, 57 percent of sat takers in the 2013 cohort lacked the academic skills to succeed in college-entry, credit-bearing courses without remediation in at least one subject, and the success rates for such remediation leading to postsecondary completion are far too low. At the same time, the nature of life and work in the United States has transformed to the point where at least some degree of postsecondary education or training is increasingly required for access to middle-class jobs. In short, far too few students are ready to succeed in the kinds of education and training that they will need to participate effectively in an increasingly competitive economy -- a circumstance that represents a tragedy for those individuals whose potential isn't being realized and a serious threat to the nation's economy and democracy.
The Redesigned SAT This document is part of an ongoing series of materials describing the redesign of the sat being undertaken by the College Board. This initial release is intended to offer readers a detailed overview of the rationale for and the aims and nature of the redesign, as well as information about key elements of the various components comprising the new test. Subsequent releases in the series will provide additional information for various audiences on specific topics related to the redesign.
Recognizing that it can and must do more to help all students not only be ready for college and workforce training programs but also succeed in them, the College Board is committing to an opportunity agenda that is focused on propelling students into opportunities they have earned in high school. One of the major components of this agenda has been the redesign of the sat.
Drawing on extensive input and advice from its members, its partner organizations (such as the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which cosponsors the psat/nmsqt?), and postsecondary and k?12 experts, the College Board determined that the sat needed to meet three challenges. First, the test must provide to higher education a more comprehensive and informative picture of student readiness for collegelevel work while sustaining, and ideally improving, the ability of the test to predict college success. Second, the test must become more clearly
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THE REDESIGNED SAT ? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
and transparently focused on the knowledge, skills, and understandings that the best available research evidence indicates are essential for college and career readiness and success. Third, the test must better reflect, through its questions and tasks, the kinds of meaningful, engaging, rigorous work that students must undertake in the best high school courses being taught today, thereby creating a robust and durable bond between assessment and instruction. Undergirding these aims is the belief that all teachers and students must be empowered to focus on the real learning of vital knowledge, skills, and understandings through challenging, vibrant daily work rather than encouraged to cover vast swaths of material superficially or engage in narrow, short-term test preparation divorced from real learning. To these ends, the redesigned sat has been designed for greater focus, relevance, and transparency while retaining the test's tradition of being a valuable predictor of college and career readiness and success.
Based on a wealth of evidence about essential prerequisites for student success in postsecondary education, the redesigned sat requires students to:
? read, analyze, and use reasoning to comprehend challenging literary and informational texts, including texts on science and history/social studies topics, to demonstrate and expand their knowledge and understanding;
? revise and edit extended texts across a range of academic and careerrelated subjects for expression of ideas and to show facility with a core set of grammar, usage, and punctuation conventions;
? show command of a focused but powerful set of knowledge, skills, and understandings in math and apply that ability to solve problems situated in science, social studies, and career-related contexts;
? make careful and considered use of evidence as they read and write; ? demonstrate skill in analyzing data, including data represented
graphically in tables, graphs, charts, and the like, in reading, writing, and math contexts; and ? reveal an understanding of relevant words in context and how word choice helps shape meaning and tone.
The result is a profoundly meaningful assessment that is thoroughly transparent and aligned to critical high school outcomes and best instructional practices.
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THE REDESIGNED SAT ? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
All these changes are firmly grounded in evidence about what is needed for all students to be ready for and to succeed in college and workforce training programs. Research strongly supports the emphasis of the redesigned sat's English language arts/literacy components on (1) a specified range of text complexity consistent with college and workforce training requirements, (2) source analysis and skilled use of evidence, (3) data in informational graphics, (4) words in context, (5) language conventions and effective language use more generally, and (6) literacy across the disciplines. Evidence is equally supportive of the emphasis of the redesigned sat's math component on (1) a set of essential math knowledge, skills, and understandings in algebra, advanced topics, and additional topics in math, (2) problem solving and data analysis in addressing real-life problems (e.g., the ability to create a representation of a problem, consider the units involved, attend to the meaning of quantities, and know and use different properties of operations and objects), and (3) using the calculator as a tool, discerning when and when not to use a calculator to solve problems efficiently, and performing important mathematical tasks without a calculator.
To assess students' achievement in these and other areas, the redesigned sat is organized into four components: a Reading Test, a Writing and Language Test, a Math Test, and an Essay direct-writing task, which is optional.
The redesigned sat's Reading Test is a carefully constructed, challenging assessment of comprehension and reasoning skills with an unmistakable focus on careful reading of appropriately difficult passages in a wide array of subject areas. Passages are authentic texts selected from high-quality, previously published sources. One notable feature of the test is its use of texts representing a range of complexities to better determine whether students are ready for the reading challenge posed by college courses and workforce training programs. On each assessment, one passage will be drawn from a U.S. founding document (a text such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights) or a text that is part of the Great Global Conversation (a text such as one by Lincoln or King, or by an author from outside the United States writing on a topic such as freedom, justice, or liberty). Another feature of the test is its inclusion of informational graphics, which students must interpret and/or relate to passage content. Additionally, students must show a command of textual evidence, in part by identifying the portion of a text that serves as the best evidence for the answer to another question. Students must also determine the meaning of words and phrases in the context of extended prose passages and to determine how word choice shapes meaning, tone, and impact. These words and phrases are neither highly obscure nor specific
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