What is SAT?

Nearly every college in America accepts the SAT or Subject Tests as a part of its admissions process. That's why more than two million students take the SAT every year.

SAT Reasoning Test
The SAT Reasoning Test is a measure of the critical thinking skills you'll need for academic success in college. The SAT assesses how well you analyze and solve problems—skills you learned in school that you'll need in college. The SAT is typically taken by high school juniors and seniors.

Each section of the SAT is scored on a scale of 200—800, with two writing subscores for multiple-choice and the essay. It is administered seven times a year in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories, and six times a year overseas.

For more online sample questions and preparation materials, visit the SAT Preparation Center.

SAT Question Types
The SAT includes a Critical Reading, Mathematics, and Writing section, with a specific number of questions related to content.

The Critical Reading SectionOverview

The critical reading section, formerly known as the verbal section, includes short reading passages along with the existing long reading passages. Analogies have been eliminated, but sentence-completion questions and passage-based reading questions remain.

The Critical Reading Section measures:

Sentence Completions

Sentence Completion questions measure your:

knowledge of the meanings of words
ability to understand how the different parts of a sentence fit logically together

Directions
Each sentence below has one or two blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Beneath the sentence are five words or sets of words labeled A through E. Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Example:

Hoping to ------- the dispute, negotiators proposed a compromise that they felt would be ------- to both labor and management.

 (A)  enforce . . useful
 (B)  end . . divisive
 (C)  overcome . . unattractive
 (D)  extend . . satisfactory
 (E)  resolve . . acceptable

Explanation
One way to answer a sentence completion question with two words missing is to focus first on just one of the two blanks. If one of the words in an answer choice is logically wrong, then you can eliminate the entire choice from consideration.

Look at the first blank in the example above. Would it make sense to say that "negotiators" who have "proposed a compromise" were hoping to enforce or extend the "dispute"? No, so neither (A) nor (D) can be the correct answer.
Now you can focus on the second blank. Would the "negotiators" have proposed a compromise that they believed would be divisive or unattractive to "both labor and management"? No, so (B) and (C) can be eliminated, and only choice (E) remains.
Always check your answer by reading the entire sentence with your choice filled in. Does it make sense to say "Hoping to resolve the dispute, the negotiators proposed a compromise that they felt would be acceptable to both labor and management"? Yes.

Passage-based Reading

The reading questions on the SAT measure a student's ability to read and think carefully about several different passages ranging in length from about 100 to about 850 words. Passages are taken from a variety of fields, including the humanities, social studies, natural sciences, and literary fiction. They vary in style and can include narrative, argumentative, and expository elements. Some selections consist of a pair of related passages on a shared issue or theme that you are asked to compare and contrast.

The following kinds of questions may be asked about a passage:

Vocabulary in Context: These questions ask you to determine the meanings of words from their context in the reading passage.
Literal Comprehension: These questions assess your understanding of significant information directly stated in the passage.
Extended Reasoning: These questions measure your ability to synthesize and analyze information as well as to evaluate the assumptions made and the techniques used by the author. Most of the reading questions fall into this category. You may be asked to identify cause and effect, make inferences, recognize a main idea or an author's tone, and follow the logic of an analogy or an argument.

Approaching Passage-based Reading
Below are samples of the kind of reading passages and questions that may appear on your test. For each set of sample materials, you should:

read the passage carefully,
decide on the best answer to each question, and then
read the explanation for the correct answer.
Directions
The passages below are followed by questions based on their content; questions following a pair of related passages may also be based on the relationship between the paired passages. Answer the questions on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passages and in any introductory material that may be provided.

The questions below are based on the following passage.

  "The rock was still wet. The
animal was glistening, like it was
still swimming," recalls Hou
Xianguang. Hou discovered the
Line 5 unusual fossil while surveying rocks
as a paleontology graduate student
in 1984, near the Chinese town of
Chengjiang. "My teachers always
talked about the Burgess Shale
 
Line 10 animals. It looked like one of them.
My hands began to shake."
Hou had indeed found a Naraoia
like those from Canada. However,
Hou's animal was 15 million years
Line 15 older than its Canadian relatives.

Some of the reading passages in the SAT are as short as a paragraph or two, about 100 words in length. You will also find one or more pairs of related short passages in each edition of the test. Such material can be followed by two to five questions that measure the same kinds of reading skills as are measured by the questions following longer passages.

Practice Questions
Some questions ask you to recognize the meaning of a word as it is used in the context of the passage.

In line 5, "surveying" most nearly means

 (A)  calculating the value of
 (B)  examining comprehensively
 (C)  determining the boundaries of
 (D)  polling randomly
 (E)  conducting a statistical study of

Explanation
The word "surveying" has a number of meanings, several of which are included in the choices above. In the context of this passage, however, only (B) makes sense. A student in the field of "paleontology" is one who studies prehistoric life as recorded in fossil remains. One of the activities of such a student would be to examine rocks carefully and "comprehensively" while looking for fossils.
(A), (C), and (E) are incorrect because someone who studies fossils would not calculate the "value" of rocks, or determine the "boundaries" of rocks, or conduct a "statistical study" of rocks.
(D) is wrong because "polling" rocks makes no sense at all.

Correct answer: (B)

You may be asked to make an inference or draw a conclusion about a statement made in the passage.

It can be inferred that Hou Xianguang's "hands began to shake" (line 11) because he was

 (A)  afraid that he might lose the fossil
 (B)  worried about the implications of his finding
 (C)  concerned that he might not get credit for his work
 (D)  uncertain about the authenticity of the fossil
 (E)  excited about the magnitude of his discovery

Explanation
In the passage, Hou states that the fossil that he found "looked like" certain other fossils that his "teacher always talked about." He understands almost immediately, therefore, the significance of what he has found, and so (E) is the correct answer: Hou's hands were shaking because he was "excited about the magnitude of his discovery."

(A) is wrong because there is no suggestion that Hou was "afraid that he might lose the fossil."
(B) and (C) are wrong because Hou was not "worried about" his discovery or "concerned that he might not get credit." The passage indicates only that Hou recognized that he had found something valuable.
(D) is wrong because Hou's immediate reaction is that he thinks he has found an important fossil. The first two sentences of the passage dramatize the discovery; it is Hou's excitement that causes him to tremble, not his uncertainty.
Correct answer: (E)

The Mathematics Section

Overview

The SAT includes mathematics topics from up through a third-year college preparatory course, such as exponential growth, absolute value, and functional notation. It also places emphasis on such topics as linear functions, manipulations with exponents, and properties of tangent lines. Important skills such as estimation and number sense are measured through the multiple-choice and student response (grid-in) questions (formerly measured in the quantitative comparison format).
Can I use a calculator?
Yes. Students can use a four-function, scientific, or graphing calculator. The College Board recommends that students use a calculator at least at the scientific level for the SAT, although it's still possible to solve every question without a calculator.
The Math Section has two types of questions:
 Multiple Choice
 Student-Produced Response Questions

The Writing Section

Overview

Short Essay

The short essay measures your ability to:
Organize and express ideas clearly
Develop and support the main idea
Use appropriate word choice and sentence structure
You'll be asked to develop a point of a view on an issue, using reasoning and evidence — based on your own experiences, readings, or observations — to support your ideas.
The essay will be scored by trained high school and college teachers. Each reader will give the essay a score from 1 to 6 (6 is the highest score) based on the overall quality of the essay and your demonstration of writing competence.
Get more information about the essay:
Sample Essay Question
Essay Scoring Guide

Multiple-Choice

The multiple-choice writing questions measure your ability to:
Improve sentences and paragraphs
Identify errors (such as diction, grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage, and wordiness)
Try multiple-choice questions:
Identifying Sentence Errors
Improving Sentences
Improving Paragraphs

The Unscored Section
In addition, there is one 25-minute unscored section, known as the variable or equating section. This unscored section may be either a critical reading, mathematics, or writing multiple-choice section. This unscored section does not count toward the final score, but is used to try out new questions for future editions of the SAT and to ensure that scores on new editions of the SAT are comparable to scores on earlier editions of the test.

Test Order
The 25-minute essay will always be the first section of the SAT, and the 10-minute multiple-choice writing section will always be the final section. The remaining six 25-minute sections can appear in any order, as can the two 20-minute sections. Test takers sitting next to each other in the same testing session may have test books with entirely different sections.
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About the SAT Subject Tests
Subject Tests (formerly SAT II: Subject Tests) are designed to measure your knowledge and skills in particular subject areas, as well as your ability to apply that knowledge.

Students take the Subject Tests to demonstrate to colleges their mastery of specific subjects like English, history, mathematics, science, and language. The tests are independent of any particular textbook or method of instruction. The tests' content evolves to reflect current trends in high school curricula, but the types of questions change little from year to year.

Many colleges use the Subject Tests for admission, for course placement, and to advise students about course selection. Used in combination with other background information (your high school record, scores from other tests like the SAT Reasoning Test, teacher recommendations, etc.), they provide a dependable measure of your academic achievement and are a good predictor of future performance.

Some colleges specify the Subject Tests they require for admission or placement; others allow applicants to choose which tests to take.

Subject Tests fall into five general subject areas:

English
Literature
History and Social Studies
U.S. History (formerly American History and Social Studies)
World History
Mathematics
Mathematics Level 1 (formerly Mathematics IC)
Mathematics Level 2 (formerly Mathematics IIC)
Science
Biology E/M
Chemistry
Physics
 Languages
Chinese with Listening
French
French with Listening
German
German with Listening
Spanish
Spanish with Listening
Modern Hebrew
Italian
Latin
Japanese with Listening
Korean with Listening
 

All Subject Tests are one-hour, multiple-choice tests. However, some of these tests have unique formats:

The Subject Test in Biology E/M contains a common core of 60 general-knowledge multiple-choice questions, followed by 20 multiple-choice questions that emphasize either ecological (Biology E) or molecular (Biology M) subject matter. After completing the core questions, test takers choose the section for which they feel most prepared.
The Subject Tests in Mathematics (Level 1 and Level 2) have some questions that require the use of at least a scientific or graphing calculator. Mathematics Subject Tests are developed with the expectation that most students will use a graphing calculator. There are no plans to discontinue or change the content of the Subject Tests in Mathematics Level 1 or Mathematics Level 2.
The Subject Tests in Languages with Listening (Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish) consist of a listening section and a reading section. Students taking these tests are required to bring an acceptable CD player with earphones to the test center.

For more detailed information, including recommended preparation, anticipated skills, test format, sample questions, and more, visit the Subject Tests Preparation Center.

Which Subject Tests should you take?
Before deciding which tests to take, make a list of the colleges you're considering. Then review school catalogs, College Search Engines, or College Handbooks to find out whether the schools require scores for admission and, if so, how many tests and in which subjects.

Use your list of colleges and their admission requirements to help plan your high school course schedule. You may want to adjust your schedule in light of colleges' requirements. For example, a college may require a score from a Subject Test in a language for admission, or the college might exempt you from a freshman course requirement if you do well on a language Subject Test.

Many colleges that don't require Subject Test scores will still review them since they can give a fuller picture of your academic background.

If you're not sure which Subject Test to take from a subject area, talk to your teacher or school counselor and visit the Subject Tests Preparation Center.

When should you take Subject Tests?
Most students take Subject Tests toward the end of their junior year or at the beginning of their senior year.

Take tests such as World History, Biology E/M, Chemistry, or Physics as soon as possible after completing the course in the subject, while the material is still fresh in your mind. For foreign language tests, you'll do better after at least two years of study