What We Learned from the March 2024 SAT
The March 2024 SAT caused a big stir not only because it was the first digital SAT in the United States, but also because many students found it to be much more difficult than expected.
At Test Innovators, we work carefully to ensure our practice materials are true to the test. After every official test, we gather feedback, so that we can review and update our materials as needed. After the March test, we sent a survey out to students and our tutoring partners to learn more about students’ experiences with the test. Here were our key takeaways:
- The Math section was more difficult than expected.
- The Reading and Writing section was more in line with expectations, but still more difficult than expected for many.
- Many students reported lower scores on the March test than expected.
- Although Test Innovators’ practice tests were harder than the Bluebook tests, more difficult practice would be beneficial.
Interested in participating in our survey?
The Math section was more difficult than expected.
The number one takeaway from the March test was that the Math section was surprisingly difficult, particularly with regards to Module 2- Hard. Indeed, 92% of tutors who responded to our post-test survey said that their students found the math section somewhat or much harder than expected, with 66% saying their student found it much harder than expected.
What made the March digital SAT Math section particularly challenging?
Based on what we’ve heard from tutors and students, Math Module 2- Hard was surprisingly difficult. Although the content on the test was consistent with College Board’s test specifications, the difficult problems tended to be more abstract, complicated, and time-consuming than the problems they had seen on the Bluebook practice tests. Additionally, students reported that there were a greater number of difficult questions. Because these problems were more abstract (involving, for example, polynomials with unknown constants), students were not always able to lean on the Desmos calculator as a reliable shortcut.
Additionally, there were more steps required to solve some of the hardest questions. This added complexity made these hard questions more time-consuming, which impacted many students’ pacing. Indeed, we had several students report that they ran out of time on Math Module 2.
Finally, students reported that there were a greater number of difficult questions, which further exacerbated the time constraints.
The Reading and Writing section was more in line with expectations, but still more difficult than expected for many.
The Reading and Writing section seemed to be more in line with expectations, albeit still on the more difficult end of the spectrum. 42% of tutors who responded to our survey said that their students found the Reading and Writing section to be just as difficult as expected and 44% said their students found it harder than expected. In contrast, just 14% said their students found it easier than expected.
Many students reported lower scores on the March test than expected.
Many students reported lower scores on the March SAT than they had received on Bluebook practice tests, the digital PSAT, and previous paper SATs. While this was certainly not true for every individual, the group of students who seemed to be most affected were the top scorers.
Based on our preliminary analysis, students who have been scoring 1400+ on the Bluebook practice tests were most likely to see a lower-than-expected score on the March digital SAT.
We are continuing to collect official SAT score information to complete further analysis. If you’d like to share your official SAT score report with us, you can submit your scores on our survey.
Although Test Innovators’ practice tests were harder than the Bluebook tests, more difficult practice would be beneficial.
In 2023 when international students began taking the digital SAT, we heard from our international partners that students were seeing a higher-than-expected level of difficulty on the test. As a result, we increased the level of difficulty of our practice content. However, we are adding more difficult practice after our analysis of the March SAT.
Updates to Test Innovators’ Digital SAT Practice
Our content team is already hard at work making updates in response to our post-test surveys. Specifically, we’re writing new practice exercise sets to target specific question types, tweaking the difficulty of our practice tests, evaluating our practice test scores against official scores, and creating additional informational resources.
We’ve already released several new practice question sets with more to follow over the coming weeks.
New Math practice exercise sets:
- Nonlinear Functions – Hard #3
- Right Triangles and Trigonometry – Hard #3
- Circles – Hard #3
- Quadratics – Hard (under “Nonlinear Equations and Systems of Equations”)
- Area and Volume – Hard #3
New Reading and Writing practice exercise sets:
- Command of Evidence: Quantitative – Easy #3
- Command of Evidence: Quantitative – Hard #2
- Transitions – Hard #3
We’re currently working on increasing the difficulty of Math Module 2 – Hard on all 10 of our practice tests. These changes should roll out in mid April. Students will automatically see the most-up-to date version of our practice tests on our platform when they start a section.
Finally, we will continue to publish free resources to help students and educators navigate the digital SAT. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, check out our blog, and register for an upcoming webinar.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact our team at support@testinnovators.com.
