College Board offers new SAT prep material for free

The SAT is fighting to keep its market share by offering free preparation materials and a sizeable overhaul to the test’s format next year. But the SAT may be losing its original purpose.

“The SAT used to be an aptitude test,” said Dr. Richard P. Phelps, the founder and editor of Nonpartisan Education Review. “It has been able to predict future college success almost as well as grade-point average … but the new test is moving more toward an achievement test, which is contrary to its original purpose.”

The College Board, which administers the SAT, partnered with Khan Academy to make test preparation materials available for free. The new test will be available in March 2016. Starting Tuesday, students can take quizzes and interactive practice tests on Khan Academy’s website.

The refreshed SAT will return to a 1,600-point grading scale, not seen since 2004. Additionally, the essay section will be optional and test-takers will no longer lose points for wrong answers.

College Board President David Coleman, also a big contributor to Common Core, said the new test will focus on what students actually learn in classrooms. Coupled with the new free access to practice tests, Coleman believes the SAT will be more student-friendly: “Everything we are doing is to make it easier for students to navigate this territory we know has typically been filled with anxiety."

Phelps said the College Board is addressing a red herring.

“The way to do well on the test has always been to be a good student,” he said.

Phelps said it’s okay to prepare for the test, but SAT preparation should never intrude on class time.

Right now, students spend more than $860 million on SAT test preparation. Coleman said offering materials for free will level the playing field between low-income and affluent students.

The revised SAT will be more like the ACT, which measured how well students retained core curriculum. Phelps said the difference is important. When teachers don’t teach core subjects well, the old SAT highlighted a student’s knowledge learned outside the classroom. Even if they did not do well in high school, students could prove preparedness for post-secondary education.

“I’m pretty skeptical,” Phelps said. “I think they are making some changes to increase market share, and that will lower the standards. … My biggest concern is that the SAT will no longer be a good test for college preparedness and that was how it started.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.