Tutoring News Post

The New Digital SAT (DSAT) is Here: Everything You Need to Know.

(Last Updated April 2023) In October of 2022, the College Board finally released 4 full practice exams for the digital SAT aka DSAT, in both adaptive and linear PDF formats, to supplement the original 33 sample questions. This means that we now have around 750 official digital SAT practice questions to work with, instead of just dozens. There is significant overlap between the PDFs and the adaptive exams, but about 30% of the "linear PDF" questions are unique to that format. Thus, students should utilize both test types in order to try all the questions—but it's better to take the adaptive exams first.

If you prefer printed books, then you might also consider purchasing the Official Digital SAT Study Guide, which is due to be released on August 1st, 2023, but don't be surprised if the questions in this printed edition of the OG are the same as those from the 4 previously released Bluebook exams.

Please note that each time you take a digital SAT practice test on the College Board's Bluebook app, you will see 98 questions. However, make sure to retake these exams, because you will see up to 49 more unique questions in the 2nd module—depending on your performance on the 1st module, which will either earn you an "easy" or "hard" second module. You can then review your performance on the Bluebook exams using the "My Practice" portion of the College Board website.

You can either skip all the questions in the first module to automatically earn the easy second module, or you can consult the answer key on My Practice and respond correctly to every question to guarantee the hard second module.

https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/digital/digital-practice-preparation

You can also visit Khan Academy's Official Digital SAT prep here—but please keep in mind that Khan Academy questions are not official College Board SAT questions: https://khanacademy.org/test-prep/digital-sat

Finally, the College Board has provided a digital SAT "Skills Insight Tool" that allows you to search for official DSAT practice questions across certain vague content categories ("Information and Ideas," "Craft and Structure," "Expression of Ideas," "Standard English Conventions," "Algebra," "Advanced Math," "Problem Solving and Data Analysis," "Geometry and Trigonometry") and specific score bands (360 and lower, 370-410, 420-480, 490-540, 550-600, 610-670, 680 and higher).

Prepare to be underwhelmed, however: most search queries on the Skills Insight Tool will only output about 2 official DSAT practice questions—and they are drawn from the Khan Academy pool of questions, which again, are not real College Board SAT questions.
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Only a few weeks after I wrote this blog post suggesting that the College Board switch to a digital SAT format in order to protect its SAS exams from being leaked, the Board did exactly that — shortening the test by approximately one hour, introducing section-adaptive scoring, allowing approved calculators for all Math questions, and merging the SAT's current Reading (1) and Writing and Language (2) sections into a single Reading and Writing section. Here's the official announcement from January 2022 (1/25/22).

As of today, 4/8/23, the first round of digital SATs has already arrived for the March 2023 International exam (and beyond). If you're curious about the real reason for this change: the College Board has encountered huge problems with international exam security, including test leaks, cheating scandals, score delays, and cancelled scores, and the digital SAT promises to be far more secure than paper-based exams—though the College Board's promises about "every student" having a "unique test form" are surely more hype than reality, since most high-scoring students will likely see the same counted questions, although possibly in a different order.

Next will come the October 2023 Digital PSATs, the March 2024 US Digital SATs, and the March 2024 School-Day SATs (also digital), at which point a paper exam option will no longer be available anywhere — with the exception of students with accommodations, who will still have the option of paper-based testing.

College Board Frequently Asked Questions / Google Slides Presentation / DSAT Sample Questions

Some highlights:

-The digital SAT has been shortened to just 98 questions in 2 hours, 24 minutes, including the 10-minute break — from 154 questions in 3 hours, 15 minutes on the current version of the SAT, or 3 hours, 35 minutes if you include the 5th, "experimental" section that is unscored. Students are allowed to bring their own laptop computers or tablets. Loaner devices (Chromebooks, to be specific) are provided for those who request them in advance.

-The exam requires internet connectivity, and is designed to pick up right where you left off if your computer crashes, freezes, loses power, or drops internet signal.

-Despite its somewhat deceptive name, the DSAT is NOT an at-home exam: you must take the digital SAT in an official, proctored College Board testing center, such as your local high school, on an official SAT test date.

-There are only 2 main sections: 1) a combined Reading and Writing section, and 2) a Math section — both about one hour in duration. Each section is composed of two modules, and the exam follows a "section-level adaptive format," where a student's overall performance on the first module of questions determines the difficulty level (easy or hard) of their second module of the same type. On average, questions in the second module are weighted 1.4 times as strongly toward one's score (worth ~700 points total / 350 per module) as questions in the second module (worth ~500 points total / 250 per module).

The 2 Reading and Writing modules are each 32 minutes long, with 27 questions per module — and each of the 2 Math modules 35 minutes long, with 22 questions per module, totaling (64 + 70) = 134 minutes of actual testing time. There is also a single 10-minute break after the 2nd Reading and Writing module. 2 (unidentified) questions from each module are experimental aka "pretest" questions—which means that they do not count toward your score. (Source)

-The College Board continues to promise that DSAT scores will be returned within "days instead of weeks" (source)—but despite these claims, scores currently take about 2 weeks to be returned. Additional features ("Testing Tools") include a countdown timer and a math reference page with common formulas (same as the current SAT), as well as Mark for Review, Annotate, and Zoom options.

-Unlike the current SAT, which has a Math no Calculator section 3 and a Math with Calculator section 4, a calculator is allowed for all math questions. You can bring your own approved calculator, or use the provided on-screen calculator from Desmos (iOS / Android / desktop). Student-produced responses aka "grid-in" answers include negatives, and up to 5 digits.

-The exam content has stayed mostly the same. However, despite the College Board's claims to the contrary, there are additional topics and skills tested — such as poetry and synthesizing information from notes — on the digital SAT, and other content and question types have been removed and/or de-emphasized, as has happened every time the SAT has changed exam formats and question types. Additional math topics tested include proportions, functions, systems of equations, geometry, coordinate geometry, number properties, and parabolas. Finally, unlike the current paper-based SAT, where vocabulary is a minor aspect, the DSAT Reading and Writing section features an increased emphasis on college-level vocabulary and sentence completions.

-Sadly, the Question and Answer Service currently offered for the paper-based SAT in March, May, and October has also been discontinued for the digital SAT—meaning that students are not given the opportunity to review the actual DSAT questions they answered on exam day, despite "Truth in Testing" laws in California and New York which require that the College Board must release at least 3 actual SATs per year. Instead, the College Board has promised educators that it will release 4 new Bluebook practice tests per year. The next batch of Bluebook exams can be expected sometime around October 2023.

-The Reading and Writing section has been altered significantly, from the current 5 long passages with 10 or 11 questions each, to much shorter passages from a wider variety of sources, including shorter, paragraph-style passages—with only one question tied to each passage.

Am I surprised to hear about these changes? No, not at all. I began tutoring the SAT during my freshman year at Harvard in 1998, and this is the 3rd time that the SAT has changed since then. Historically, the SAT has switched exam formats every decade or so: the test was altered in 2005 (to a 2400-point exam), then again in 2015 (back to 1600) — and now, the big switch to a digital-only format has been slated for 2023-24.

As usual, there has been a rush test-takers attempting to take the current paper-based SAT before it changes formats, given the huge amount of real practice exams available (70 official SAT exams and counting), versus the dearth of practice materials currently available for the digital exam.

Plus, despite the many conveniences and advantages of digital testing, let's face it: it's often easier to take a paper test than a computer one, so many students still prefer the paper-based exam, regardless of any difference in length. Staring at a computer screen while taking an SAT for 2 straight hours is an almost entirely different experience from taking a 3-hour, paper-based SAT, which is not only easier on the eyes, but also perhaps easier overall.

Finally, there are likely to be widespread technical problems with the rollout of the digital SAT, as there have already been with the "computer-based" ACT, which is yet another reason avoid the unknown, and to take the current paper-based SAT if possible, before it disappears for good in December of 2023.

On the other hand, there are also some US-based high school students who have chosen to go against the grain and intentionally seek out the digital SAT, by traveling to a nearby country such as Canada or Mexico to take the exam sometime between March and December 2023—because these students feel that DSAT better fits their strengths.

Finally, some current 10th graders are taking the DSAT as a sneak peak of how the October 2023 digital PSAT will look and feel, especially given that the 11th-grade PSAT is traditionally used as the qualifying exam for the National Merit Scholarship Competition.

-Brian