TRUE FACT: On Tuesday the College Board announced that it will stop offering SAT Subject Tests and the optional essay section of the SAT.
The truly big news, however, is that beginning in January 2022, SAT questions will no longer have right or wrong answers. According to College Board President Jeremy Singer, future versions of the test will focus on how students feel about the topics addressed in the questions, and “as we all know, feelings can’t be correct or incorrect — they just ARE.”
Mr. Singer provided an illustration:
“Rather than ask students to identify which one of several equations represents the Pythagorean Theorem, we’ll ask them if the Theorem makes them happy or sad, and why. Or we might inform students that Pythagoras was a vegetarian, and then explore how their awareness of this fact influences their attitude towards the Theorem. For example, does the Theorem now seem less ‘meaty’ to them?”
“Questions like these open the stained-glass window to a student’s soul in a way that can’t be approximated by traditional examinations obsessed with so-called ‘knowledge’ or ‘reasoning’.”
But will the new SAT be a better predictor of success in college than the old SAT?
“Haven’t got a clue,” says Singer. “But I can tell you how I’ll feel if a lot of schools adopt the new SAT: like a million bucks, baby, like a million bucks!”