For over 95 years, the SAT has been administered into high schools across the country the same way, with the original No.2 pencil and test booklet. But the class of 2025 will be the first class to experience the SAT in a new way.

In Fall of 2023 and Spring of 2024, the College Board will be implementing the first nationwide digital SAT for the class of 2025 for the next spring semester. Current sophomores around the country will now be taking the SAT, and the PSAT 11, on school provided chromebooks, instead of the original test booklet with a decreased time, from three hours to two hours. When the news of the switch was announced early last year, many future 2024 juniors were worried about their performability of the exam. Uviomo Agomate, a current sophomore, feels anxious about the new version of the SAT.

“I’m not sure how to feel about this new SAT,” said Agomate. “I’m glad the test won’t take as long as the paper version, and maybe I’ll do better digitally, but I think a lot of sophomores, including myself, were expecting the regular test.”

The digital format of the SAT has also brought new changes to the contents inside the exam. In the reading and writing portion, the length of passages and amount of questions will decrease, going from 52 questions in total to one to two questions per reading passage. The math portion of the test is changing as well, calculators will now be allowed for all sections of the math portion, previously only allowed on one of the two sections. When hearing the new changes to the reading/writing and math sections, Agomate was thrilled. 

“I’m actually excited by the fact that we get to use calculators for all of [ the ] math section,” said Agomate. “I think that will help me finish faster.”

But one of the biggest changes to the 2025 SAT to the previous, is the exam difficulty. The exam will become more adaptive to the taker, meaning that not all students will get the same set of questions. Each student will be given an initial set of base questions per reading and writing passage and math section that will determine the level of difficulty for the questions that follow. The more questions answered correctly, the more difficult the set of subsequent questions are. The more questions answered incorrectly, the easier or similar the subsequent questions are. The College Boards believes that by doing it this way, cheating will be reduced. Agomate disagrees with the College Board, and feels like the College Board’s choice to change the questions will only create more problems for the exam takers.

“I’m not a fan of this decision,” said Agomate. “I feel like it might cause people to do worse than what they can do best.”

Although along with the various changes, some portions of the SAT have not changed. For one, the score scale of the SAT will remain the same, with a total score of 1600, made up of 800 points of the math section and 800 points of the reading and writing section. Furthermore, students that need and qualify for accommodations will continue to have full access to these accommodations. The SAT for current sophomores will be on March 1, 2024.