Is The SAT Hard? – Exploring the Value of The Scholastic Assessment Test

Is the SAT hard?

What is the SAT?

The Scholastic Assessment Test, commonly known as the SAT, is a standardized access requirement for undergraduate courses in many institutions and universities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. This examination is written-based, so one can assess the writing, oral and mathematical skills of candidates. The test is administered by the College Board.

Why do the SAT?

The main objectives of the exam are to evaluate a student’s suitability for university-level education and to deliver one common data point that can be used to compare all applicants. To be admitted, you’re required to achieve high scores in the SAT, while also having a high GPA, recommendation letters, extracurricular activities, and personal statements.

Types of SAT

The SAT 1 is for students seeking admission to undergraduate schools. It’s a general test designed to assess candidates’ written, oral and mathematical skills.

The SAT 2 is a more subject-oriented test. Students wishing to enter a certain course series must take the respective SAT to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject.

SAT Course Outline and Exam

The test contains courses that students have already studied at school for many years.

SAT Scores

The SAT Fee is $101 without the essay and $117 with the essay. You have a total of 3 hours and 50 minutes to complete the full Math, Reading, and Writing segments, including the essay.

Applicants who get good marks in the exam are good readers with a good vocabulary. It’s divided into three major parts; Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. These three parts are each available on a scale of 200–800, with a maximum total of 1600 points. There are additional sub-scores reported on a 20-80 scale. A student’s scores show how he/she compares to other students who took the test.

The maximum score on the test is 1600 and the average value is around 1000.  A score higher than 1200 is considered a good SAT score.

According to the recently released SAT results of the College Board, 7% of students scored in the 1400-1600 range, 19% scored between 1200-1390, 33% scored between 1000-1190, 30% scored between 800-990, 11% scored between 600-790 and 5,447 students scored below 590. The average score for these SAT tests was 1059 with a standard deviation of 210.

SAT Eligibility

The College Board, the governing body of SAT, has not set a specific eligibility criterion for students wishing to take part in the exam.

There is no minimum or maximum age limit for the exam. Commonly, students age 17 to 19 are doing the exam as an entry requirement for university.

There is also no maximum number of attempts for the exam, students can retake it as many times as they want.

SAT Exam Registration 2021

SAT Exam Registration is open throughout the whole year. You can register online or via mail. Interested applicants are required to book a test date before the deadline.

Why is the SAT challenging?

Here are a few factors that make the test difficult for many students:

Understanding the SAT questions is found to be a major challenge for students. The best solution is to prepare yourself for the questions and to familiarize yourself with the exam’s structure.

Limited time – students often make careless mistakes because of time pressure. Time management is a crucial factor, and you can practice completing questions within the given period.

Various Mathematical Concepts also make the exam more complex.

Tough Reading Passages – As paragraphs are written at a slightly advanced level, you need to take the time to fully read and understand the paragraphs before jumping into the test.

High-Stress Levels – being able to manage your stress may be the most important skill to learn in order to score well on the test.

How to make the SAT Easier? 

For starters, some good options are Self-Study and Training Classes. Here are some more tips and tricks as well:

1. Study the structure and question patterns – the exam is always based on the following basic format:

• Reading
• Writing and Language
• Math No-Calculator
• Math Calculator
• Essay (Optional)

2. Do Practice Tests – Here are a few links for practice tests.

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/full-length-practice-tests

https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/sat

https://www.test-guide.com/free-sat-practice-tests.html

3. You do not need to learn the contents, equations, and values by heart

4. Almost fully multiple-choice – Most often, all answers to the questions are right there on the test if you know where to look.

5. No Guessing Penalty – There are no points deducted for incorrect answers on the exam, so you don’t have to worry about filling in an answer you aren’t 100% sure about.

To summarize, the SAT is not “difficult” because of its requirements, as it’s merely testing you on things you often already know. Instead, the issue is often found to be the extremely confusing wording of the questions, causing you to often give wrong answers. Besides, many of the questions use synonyms and analogies to confuse any direct relationships between questions and answers. Critical thinking and good grammar are definitely needed to achieve high scores. By improving a few skills, approaches, methods, pattern recognition, and a lot of consistent practice, you can drastically improve your score on the exam.

The SAT helps students move from high school towards college and a career, and offers students many unique benefits. We encourage all students to take advantage of higher education, as it is an open the door to success.