The increased difficulty between modules is an intentional piece of the standardized test's new online format: shorter and "adaptive," where a student's performance on their first set of questions determines what questions they receive on the next set. Thousands more Texas high schoolers are expected to encounter the changes this summer, aligning with the start of an admissions cycle that will once again see the country's most selective colleges requiring test scores after years of test-optional policies.
Just how many students will take the SAT this year compared to prior years remains to be seen, but many test takers have so far liked elements of the abbreviated test, which is two hours instead of three, test prep professionals said. Still, the new SAT has been an adjustment for some students.
"I had seniors take the test back in May, and they still want to take one more attempt," said Shahin Nanji, CEO of Study Dorm test prep in Sugar Land. "They're also learning, right? They're getting used to it."
Many students have reported leaving the test, shocked by the difficulty of the second sections. For the most part, however, the content of the SAT is largely unchanged.
Officials who administer the SAT say that the adaptive format is only more efficient, measuring the same skills the test always did in a faster time frame. Some adaptive tests, like the GMAT for prospective graduate students, tailor every question based on the way students answered the last, but the SAT uses a "multistage" adaptive design, meaning the second subject-matter section changes as a whole, dependent on the student's performance.
The College Board has advised students that they won't be disadvantaged if they get an easier second module for the math or reading sections, which could indicate they did more poorly on the first module. The easier and harder second modules contain a variety of questions across difficulty levels, although in differing proportions, meaning that the questions are tailored to students' abilities and students don't get tripped up as long on questions they can't do. Scores should thus reflect a student's achievement and skills, according to the testing organization. (Data is not yet available comparing scores between the paper and digital versions, or between various digital test dates.)
"The adaptive scoring model for the digital SAT ensures that a student's score is a representation of their ability, without any predetermined limits dictated by the route the student takes," College Board officials said in a statement.
One difference in student outcomes has come more noticeably as a result of the shorter format of the test, said Sasha Chada, founder and CEO of the Houston-area admissions coaching service, Ivy Scholars. Some highly-skilled students are scoring more poorly than expected because they are worse test-takers, many of them used to taking more time on questions.
"The timeline on taking the SAT is tighter," Chada said. "Students who can use their time wisely stand at a major advantage."
Students with learning differences are also affected in a more nuanced way, said Hailey Andler, who runs the neurodivergent student program at the Colorado-based test prep group, Mindfish. People with dyslexia, for example, might still seek SAT paper accommodations or prefer the ACT paper test because of issues physically place-holding where they are reading on a computer. But the new SAT has de-emphasized long passages in the reading sections, which can be great for students with ADHD, she said.
"It used to be much more cut and dry with accommodations, and which test would be a better fit for students with learning differences. The ACT used to win basically nine out of 10 times," Andler said. "The new digital SAT is throwing a new wrinkle in it in a great way."
Many students say they like the digital format and even performed better than they did on earlier paper versions, possibly because they're already technologically savvy and acclimated to digital testing in school. The online nature of the test allows students to flag questions they want to return to, and each student is provided with the same digital calculator — a tool that some say levels the playing field.
Johnson said he scored 100 points higher on the digital test than on a paper test he took in the fall, despite feeling that the most challenging questions were no more challenging than before.
"The information felt like it was right in my face, and maybe less work flipping pages," he said.
The SAT has remained a popular test even as the vast majority of colleges and universities are "test-optional," which means that students have the choice of submitting SAT or ACT results with the promise that the absence of a score won't be counted against them.
The pandemic ushered in the policies' widespread adoption as students couldn't sit for the tests in person, and advocates cheered the changes because of trends that equate higher socioeconomic levels to better test scores. Some of the highest ranked schools in the country, including most of the Ivies, have recently swung back on those policies, however, citing internal data showing that shows higher test scores are correlated with better first-semester GPAs.
The inequities between socioeconomic income levels are not expected to change too much with the adaptive SAT, Chada said. But some specific changes could have marginal affects in either direction, including with the College Board axing idioms in questions that tend to trip up students who did not speak English as a first language or who have non-English speaking parents, said Alex Nelson, Ivy Scholars' director of test prep. On the other hand, Chada pointed to school districts that are primarily Hispanic and African American as having fewer digital devices, meaning the SAT's digital test could be less intuitive for them.
Overall, the changes are at least a boon for access, Chada said. Students might still feel encouraged to take the new SAT because of its smooth roll-out and promises of a test that feels tailored to the individual, he said.
"College Board didn't screw it up," Chada said.
Dominic Phan, an incoming senior at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, said he hopes to take the digital test one more time after two go-arounds with the paper test and two with the digital. The paper version was tiring, Phan said, but the digital felt more straightforward even with the harder second modules.
He also said he scored higher on the digital.
"I was able to get used to it," Phan said. "I definitely felt that my concentration was better on the digital than on the paper."
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