This year, College Board is giving the SAT digitally for the first time. While this digital test may have positives for students, the negatives could damage college applications for schools who require SAT scores to be submitted when applying.

Although the new way of testing for the SAT could have some positives, students are most worried about the super-scoring aspect of the test. If you have previously taken the SAT on paper, you must know that most schools are not allowing students to super-score between a paper exam and a digital exam. This means that if a student did not achieve a score of their liking on the paper exams, they must take the digital exams and start over. This could be frustrating for many students that are attempting to attain a score of their liking. 

There are typically only seven SAT test dates per year. This means that a student only has a certain amount of chances to achieve the score that they desire. The introduction of the digital SAT can extend students’ paths of achieving the score that they are content with. In addition to this, the overall format of the test has changed. On the digital SAT, students receive questions based on their performance on prior questions. This means that the test is altering your experience while you are in the middle of taking the test. In contrast, the paper exam had the same questions for everyone. 

The questions on the paper exam were not changeable and every test taker received the same questions in the same order. Something new that test takers are starting to see on the new version is more questions based on vocabulary. Over the past administrations of the paper exam, there were more questions based on how well a student understood the passage. Now, there are a handful of questions based on how well a student knew the vocabulary of the passage. This could be a pro or con depending on how comfortable an individual feels with vocabulary.  

In conclusion, there are many different ways that the SAT has changed from the last administered paper exam in December of 2023 to the first given digital exam in March of 2024.  Student’s feelings could vary between liking and disliking the new version. There are many pros to the digital SAT, but there are many changes that could be viewed as cons.