SAT

Practice for the digital SAT, organized the way College Board organizes the test itself — by content domain, four in each of the two sections.

Information and IdeasSAT — evidence from graphs: support, weaken, complete the statement SAT — quotations that illustrate a claim about a literary work SAT — central ideas, details and inferences in literary excerpts SAT — Information and Ideas, harder module: dense passages SAT — data that support or undercut a hypothesis

Craft and StructureSAT — words in context, hard module SAT — cross-text connections: paired studies SAT — main purpose of a text SAT — craft and structure in literature SAT — function of a detail or quotation

Standard English ConventionsSAT Conventions — verb tense and form from context SAT Conventions — plural or possessive? scientists, scientist's, scientists'SAT Conventions — when no punctuation is needed SAT Conventions — mixed set of fifteen academic texts SAT Conventions — ending the sentence: direct and embedded questions

Expression of IdeasSAT — transitions in longer passages SAT — rhetorical synthesis with bulleted notes: literature, history, science SAT — rhetorical synthesis: aims, methods, generalizations and advantages SAT — Expression of Ideas mixed drill SAT — harder transitions: still, hence, in turn, granted

AlgebraSAT Algebra — systems of equations in real contexts SAT Algebra — parallel and perpendicular lines SAT Algebra — reading lines from graphs and tables SAT Algebra — inequalities in two variables: graphs and shaded regions Algebra 1 — linear equations, systems and inequalities

Advanced MathSAT Math — finding the vertex from any form: −b/2a and completing the square SAT Math — polynomial functions: factors, zeros and end behavior SAT Math — systems with a nonlinear equation: substitution and counting intersections SAT Math — nonlinear graphs and student-produced responses SAT Math — function notation: evaluating, composing, shifting and reflecting

Problem-Solving and Data AnalysisSAT Math — density, derived units and area and volume conversions SAT Math — histograms, dot plots, box plots and frequency tables SAT Math — two-way tables and conditional probability SAT Math — study design, bias and what a study can conclude SAT Math — scatterplots, lines of best fit and choosing a model

Geometry and TrigonometrySAT Math — cones, spheres, pyramids and reverse scaling SAT Math — similar triangles with unknowns and overlapping figures SAT Math — radians, arc length and the unit circle SAT Math — polygon angle sums and regular polygons SAT Math — geometry grid-in practice (hard, multi-step)

What the test actually is now

The SAT is digital, taken on a laptop or tablet in the Bluebook app, and it is much shorter than the paper test it replaced: 2 hours 14 minutes of testing, plus a 10-minute break between the two sections.

Reading and Writing — 54 questions, two 32-minute modules of 27.
Math — 44 questions, two 35-minute modules of 22.

In each module, 2 of those questions are pretest questions being trialed for future tests. They do not count towards your score and you cannot tell which they are, so the only sane policy is to treat every question as real.

A calculator is allowed on the whole Math section. There is a graphing calculator built into the app, and you may bring your own approved one. The old no-calculator portion does not exist any more.

Adaptive, and what that means for how you should work

Each section is module-adaptive: how you do on the first module decides whether the second is harder or easier. The second module is where the ceiling of your score is set — a strong first module opens a harder second one, and a harder second one is what makes a high score reachable at all.

Two consequences follow, and both are unintuitive:

The first module matters more than it looks, because it decides which second module you get — even though nothing about it feels different from a warm-up. In Math, questions from all four domains are arranged from easiest to hardest across the module; in Reading and Writing they come in domain order — Craft and Structure, Information and Ideas, Standard English Conventions, Expression of Ideas — each domain's questions arranged from easiest to hardest.
Never leave a question blank. There is no penalty for a wrong answer on the SAT. An answer you are unsure of is strictly better than no answer, and on a timed adaptive module a guess on the last question is worth the same as a guess on the first.

The two sections, domain by domain

Both sections mix all four of their domains in every module, so "I am good at the reading part" is not a useful self-assessment — you are good, or not, at four fairly different things.

Reading and Writing. Every question has its own short passage, 25 to 150 words, and exactly one question attached to it. There is no long article with ten questions hanging off it. Within a module you can move back and forth freely and mark questions to return to.

Craft and Structure — ≈28%, 13–15 questions: words in context, text structure and purpose, connections between two related texts.
Information and Ideas — ≈26%, 12–14 questions: central ideas and details, command of evidence (textual and quantitative), inferences.
Standard English Conventions — ≈26%, 11–15 questions: sentence boundaries, form, structure and sense. This is the punctuation-and-grammar domain, and it is the one where a rule you can state is worth more than an ear for what sounds right.
Expression of Ideas — ≈20%, 8–12 questions: transitions, and rhetorical synthesis — being handed a set of notes and asked which sentence meets a stated goal.

Math. Roughly 75% multiple choice and 25% student-produced response — you type the answer rather than choosing it, which removes the option of working backwards from the choices.

Algebra — ≈35%, 13–15 questions: linear equations, functions, systems and inequalities.
Advanced Math — ≈35%, 13–15 questions: equivalent expressions, nonlinear equations and functions — quadratic, exponential, polynomial, rational, radical.
Problem-Solving and Data Analysis — ≈15%, 5–7 questions: ratios, rates, percentages, one- and two-variable data, probability, inference and margin of error, evaluating statistical claims.
Geometry and Trigonometry — ≈15%, 5–7 questions: area and volume, lines, angles and triangles, right-triangle trigonometry, circles.

Note the weighting before you plan your study time: Algebra and Advanced Math are 70% of the Math section between them. A week spent on circle theorems buys you at most a couple of questions.

Scoring

Three numbers: a total score of 400–1600 in 10-point steps, and two section scores of 200–800 each, which simply add up to the total. There are no subscores or cross-test scores on the digital SAT — those were reported on the paper test and are gone.

Your score is not a percentage of questions right. It comes from a scaling process that also accounts for which module you were routed into, which is why two students with the same raw count can finish with different scores.

How these materials are organized

One category per content domain — four for Reading and Writing, four for Math — because that is the unit College Board builds the test from and the unit your score report talks about. Work by domain rather than by "section", since a weak domain is a specific, fixable thing and a weak section is not.

These materials do not reproduce the adaptive test. They are practice on the content: the skills each domain names, in the question shapes that domain uses. For the experience of the real thing — the timer, the routing between modules, the built-in calculator, the interface — use College Board's own full-length adaptive practice tests in Bluebook. They are free, they are the real software, and nothing else is a substitute for them.

How to use these materials

Find out what score you actually need before you decide how much of this to do. The gap between a 1250 and a 1450 is months of work; the gap between where you are and where the colleges on your list sit may be much smaller than you think, or much larger.
Spend your time in proportion to the weighting. Algebra and Advanced Math first, Craft and Structure and Information and Ideas first on the other side.
Read the explanation even when you were right. On Standard English Conventions in particular, being right by ear and being right by rule look identical until the question is a hard one.
Practice Math without the multiple choice sometimes. A quarter of the Math section gives you no options to work backwards from, and the habit of eliminating choices is exactly what fails there.
Do a timed full-length test in Bluebook before you are ready. Two hours fourteen is short, and finding out how short is better done early.

Official sources

How the test is structured: satsuite.collegeboard.org — structure
The Reading and Writing section: satsuite.collegeboard.org — reading and writing
The Math section: satsuite.collegeboard.org — math
The domain weightings and question counts quoted above, in full: Digital SAT Suite Specifications Overview, PDF
Free full-length adaptive practice tests: satsuite.collegeboard.org — Bluebook practice
Understanding your scores: satsuite.collegeboard.org — understanding scores
Registration and test dates: satsuite.collegeboard.org — registration

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