SAT digital scoring system
I'm so confused about the digital SAT scoring system. I took an official practice test, got an 800 in Math, and a 740 in Reading/Writing, but I only got 2 questions wrong in the entire English section (both in the hard module). How does missing only 2 questions drop my score by 60 points? Is this a glitch?
7 Answers
It's not a glitch, but it is incredibly frustrating! The College Board uses something called Item Response Theory (IRT) for the digital SAT. This means that not…
Exactly. Every test is curved differently based on its overall difficulty. The practice test you took with the harsh penalty is known to be one of the 'easier' …
Does this mean the curve changes depending on which practice test you take? I missed 6 questions on a different practice test and somehow got the exact same sco…
Is the real SAT going to be this unpredictable? How are we supposed to track our progress if missing 2 questions and missing 6 questions gives the same score?
The real test will be just as unpredictable in terms of scoring, unfortunately. You won't even get to see exactly how many you got wrong on the real thing. To t…
So if I get an easy question wrong due to a silly mistake in the second module, it hurts more than missing a complicated vocabulary question?
Yes, that's exactly how it works. A 30-point drop for a single missed question is generally the maximum penalty, and that usually happens when a high-scorer mis…