SAT

The SAT is a three-hour multiple-choice test created and administered by the College Board. It covers reading, writing, and math, and is used to determine students’ preparedness for college.

The SAT is held seven times a year, typically on the first Saturday of the month. The College Board also offers SAT School Day, a program that allows students to take the SAT at their own high schools during a school day in the fall or spring.

Students who want to send SAT scores to colleges must register for a test, which costs $60, about a month in advance. There’s no limit to the number of times you can take the SAT. Most students take it once or twice.

What does SAT stand for? Originally, the SAT was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Born in the era of the IQ test, the SAT’s earliest creators were interested in measuring innate intellectual ability. Later, as interest in innate intelligence waned and interest in potential grew, the test was renamed the Scholastic Assessment Test.

The College Board cycled through two more name changes — the SAT I: Reasoning Test and the SAT Reasoning Test — before finally sticking with the letters alone: the SAT.

While the SAT has long been a paper test, the College Board recently announced that the SAT will go digital starting in 2024.

Spokespeople for the SAT bill its digital recreation as a “lower-stakes test” for a “largely test-optional world.” Pending changes include:

• Shortening the test length from three hours to two
• Providing more time per question
• Allowing calculators for the entire Math section