The First Digital SAT Score Release: What to Know

Students receiving their scores from the March SAT are a special group—they were the first (American) students to take the new, digital version of the SAT. The new version of the test is shorter and adaptive – meaning students will see different questions later in the test depending on how they perform on earlier sections. 

New Test, New Questions 

Because the structure and content of the digital SAT are brand new, many students went into the test with plenty of questions about what they’d see. College Board had released four full-length practice tests on their digital testing platform. However, students reported that the official test felt much more difficult than the practice tests, especially in math. Many students also struggled more with timing on the official test when compared to those practice tests.

What About the Score? 

Of particular interest on this first digital SAT was the adaptive test structure. The digital SAT consists of two sections, Reading and Writing and Math, each made up of two modules.

The first module of each section contains a mix of questions at a variety of difficulty levels. Performance on the first module is determined based on which questions students got right, not just the overall number correct—hard questions are more heavily weighted in an adaptive test.

Depending on how well students do on that first module, they will see an easier or harder second module. This can have a major impact on scores, as students routed to the easier second module will have a ceiling on the maximum score they can earn on the test overall. 

This complicated system, however, wouldn’t have been clear to students on test day—the testing application doesn’t show students if they’ve been routed to the easier or harder second module. 

Maybe on the Score Report? 

Students may have been hoping to learn more about which modules they saw—and why—on their score reports. Unfortunately, the new SAT score reports reveal little about the specifics of student performance.

Students can’t see any of the items they encountered, let alone which ones they got right or how heavily those items were weighted. Additionally, students can’t tell from their score report if they were given the easier or harder second modules.  

What students will see is their scaled score out of 800 for each of the two sections, as well as a total composite score out of 1600. They’ll also see a percentile comparing their performance to other students.

The bars beneath each content area show a visual indication of the student’s overall performance but do not show how many items the student got right in that area. The score report also doesn’t get very specific. For example, learning that a student is stronger in “Algebra” when compared to “Advanced Math” isn’t very directive and likely won’t help a student identify how to prepare for another SAT.

With this bare bones SAT score report, students may be left wondering: what do I do next? 

Rethinking Preparation: Next Steps for Students 

For students looking to demonstrate their best score on the SAT, they’ll likely want to take more than one official SAT. Research from College Board (and our own work!) shows that the majority of students who test again improve their scores. Why? Because they take the opportunity to learn and prepare.  

Academic Approach works closely with our students to identify specific skill gaps and areas of growth for our students to be college ready. In contrast to College Board’s limited score report, our score reports provide detailed information on student performance, including:

• High-impact areas students still need to master, providing the key information to grow scores and skills. 
• Reviews of specific items, including any annotations the students made while testing, allowing for in-depth error analysis and learning. 
• Time spent on each question, allowing students to improve strategy and approach. 

Our reports are clear, specific, and actionable, providing a very easy answer to the question “what next?”

At Academic Approach, we use students’ past performance as an opportunity to learn and improve, and, crucially, to achieve growth on their next SAT. With our reports and our expert instructors, students will have both a detailed study plan and guidance to success.

Want to get real insight into your college readiness? Sign up for a complimentary practice digital SAT or ACT.