The College Board announced Tuesday that the SAT and PSAT will be undergoing changes in 2023, including becoming digital.
Exams administered internationally will be the first to digitize in the spring of 2023, with the PSAT in U.S. schools digitizing in the fall of that year. The digital SAT will not be available to domestic schools until the spring of 2024.
The exams will be administered on a personal or College Board issued device using a secure, pre-downloaded application similar to that used for digital AP exams. Should a technical difficulty occur, the exam can be resumed without the loss of previously imputed answers.
Large changes are also coming to the format of the exam. The SAT will be approximately two hours and have shorter reading passages, each with only one question about the text. The math sections will also be undergoing significant changes: there will be a single math section in which calculators will be allowed on every question. One will be provided in the software, but students will still be allowed to bring a physical calculator if they so choose.
Test questions will also be adaptive, meaning that the questions that students are given are based on responses to previous questions. The College Board will implement this change in order to make the SAT a more helpful tool for students to determine the future of their education by “connecting students to information on two-year colleges, careers, and workforce training programs” which are personalized due to the SAT’s new adaptive nature.
Elements of the SAT such as the 1600 scale, direct connections to scholarship opportunities, free resources and practice material and individualized accommodations for eligible students will also remain unchanged. The test will continue to be administered at schools or test centers, meaning students will not be allowed to test from home despite the digital format.
