Structure of the SAT Test
The SAT Test is 3 hours and 45 minutes long. It covers three major topics—Critical Reading, Math, and Writing—divided into seven timed sections. Each section is graded on a scale from 200–800, and a perfect score is a 2400.
The SAT Critical Reading Section
* 70 minutes long. Those 70 minutes are divided into three timed sections: two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section.
* Three types of questions. The Critical Reading section contains Sentence Completions, Reading Comprehension questions about short paragraphs (100 words), and Reading Comprehension questions about longer passages (500–800 words).
* Critical Reading Skills. Unlike the old Verbal section, which was essentially a glorified vocabulary test, the Critical Reading section really does test critical reading skills.
The SAT Math Section
* 70 minutes long. The section is divided into two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section.
* Quantitative Comparisons have been cut. The Math section contains the standard multiple-choice questions and grid-in questions.
* New math topics. Math questions cover topics in basic numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, and data analysis. The algebra in the new SAT now includes a bunch of topics from Algebra II.
The SAT Writing Section
* 50 minutes long. There will be 25 minutes to write an essay and 35 minutes for three different types of multiple-choice questions.
* One essay topic. For the essay, you’ll have to take and justify a stance on a broad topic. You won’t have a choice of topics.
* Multiple-choice questions. The Writing section contains three types of multiple-choice questions: Identifying Sentence Errors, Improving Sentences, and Improving Paragraphs.
* Writing skills. The essay and the multiple-choice questions test both your writing skills and your understanding of grammar and language usage.
The Experimental Section
The SAT test also contains a 25-minute experimental section. It doesn’t count toward your final score. It’s in there just so that the test-makers can try out some of their new questions on you.
We know what you’re thinking: It would be nice if you could figure out which one was the experimental section and, since it doesn’t count toward your score, just blow it off during the test. You can’t do that. The experimental section looks exactly like one of the other test sections. Unfortunately, you need to treat every single section of the test as if it counts.
Related posts:
- SAT Essay Preparation
- SAT Scores
- SAT Preparation
- Smart Preparation for the SAT Test
- Sat II Chemistry Test – General Introduction