CATES Blog

If you took the March 2012 SAT, on the morning of Thursday, March 29th you may well have anxiously went online to your College Board account to see your score. For some of you – maybe too many – the scores you saw on the screen may have surprised you…and not in a good way, perhaps. Whatever the case, after sifting through the input of countless students, here’s what we understand as of today, before the online score reports and Student Answer Service data is available:

Students – Virtually every one of them – are seeing expected scores in the Writing section, scores within the lower bound of their mock test median range on Math, but a huge drop (70–100 points) from mock test medians on their Critical Reading.

Experimental Section & Section Sequencing Affected Focus

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How is the SAT test scored? What is the system of additions and deductions that the College Board uses?

After you study for months, then fill out bubbles for hours, and finally wait for weeks to hear back, the College Board finally gives you your reward…a number. Your SAT test score may feel slightly anti-climactic and not like the greatest gift to receive for all your hard work – but as of right now the College Board has got nothing else to give you. So how do they come up with the SAT Test score?

Since March of 2005, The College Board has scored the SAT test out of a total of 2400 points. Prior to that, they scored the SAT Test out of 1600. Each section of the SAT – Critical Reading, Math, and Writing – can count for between 200 and 800 points. The sum of the scores from each of these sections comprises the composite score for the SAT Test.

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Is there a curve on the SAT Test? How does the College Board arrive at my SAT Test score?

The SAT Test scoring can seem pretty mysterious and random at first. How does a raw score of correct, incorrect, and omitted SAT Test answers translate to a real scaled score of, say, 750? There’s a curve.

On any given Saturday on which the College Board offers the SAT Test, thousands of students across the world take the test. Each of them wends their way through the maze of questions and strategies in an attempt to do their best. Once the answer keys are collected, and the College Board begins to score the test, they take all the tests taken that day into account. On the SAT Test, the College Board does not evaluate you in relation to the material per se, but rather in relation to how well the other students performed on that material.

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