The SAT Important information about the Critical Reading

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The SATImportant informationabout the
Critical Reading Writing sections
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The SAT

• Critical Reading
• Analogies have been eliminated.
• Short reading passages will replace analogies and
  will measure the kind of reasoning formerly
  measured by analogies.

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The SAT Analogies have been ELIMINATED

• CLAYPOTTER
• (A) stonesculptor
• (B) machinesmechanic
• (C) hemstailor
• (D) bricksarchitect
• (E) chalkteacher
• Correct answer A

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Critical ReadingExample of passage-based
analogical reasoning items

• The relationship between the spectroscope and a
  stars chemical composition (lines 3738) is
  most like the relationship between
• (A)    a periscope and a submarine
• (B)    a microscope and a cellular structure
• (C)    a generator and an electrical charge
• (D)    a test tube and an experiment
• Correct answer B

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The SAT

• Writing
• Multiple-choice grammar and usage questions
• Will measure the students understanding of how
  to use language in a clear, consistent manner,
  how to revise and edit, and how to recognize an
  error in a sentence.
• Student-written essay
• Will measure the students use of language
  logical presentation of ideas, development of a
  point of view, and clarity of expression under
  timed conditions.
• Essay practice tool provided AT NO COST to all
  schools administering the PSAT/NMSQT.

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Time SpecificationsSAT
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Test Content and Question Types
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Test Scores
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Critical Reading
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Critical ReadingStrengthens alignment with
classroom practices

• Measures knowledge of genre, cause and effect,
  rhetorical devices, comparative arguments, and
  the ability to recognize relationships among
  parts of a text.
• Long and short reading passages are taken from
  different fields
• Natural sciences
• Humanities
• Social sciences
• Literary fiction
• Short reading passages, which replace analogies,
  will measure the kind of reasoning formerly
  measured by the analogy section.

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Critical ReadingStrengthens alignment with
classroom practices

• Measures critical reading skills as shown in
  students ability to
• Determine word meanings.
• Analyze sentence structures.
• Analyze organizational structures of longer
  passages.
• Synthesize longer passages into summaries, main
  points, or themes.
• Make inferences, draw conclusions, recognize
  implications.
• Recognize tone.
• Continued

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Critical ReadingStrengthens alignment with
classroom practices

• Measures critical reading skills as shown in
  students ability to
• Analyze and evaluate authors purpose, audience,
  and rhetorical strategies.
• Compare or contrast ideas in a passage or in a
  pair of related passages.
• Analyze and evaluate ideas, opinions, and
  arguments in a passage or in a pair of related
  passages.
• Distinguish conflicting viewpoints in a passage
  or in a pair of related passages.

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Critical ReadingStrengthens alignment with
classroom practices

• Analogy items
• The SAT critical reasoning section will no longer
  include analogy item types.
• Critical reading items will embed analogical
  reasoning tasks within the context of reading and
  analyzing texts, which is a more authentic
  measure of how students use analogical reasoning
  to support critical reading, both in and out of
  the classroom.

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Critical ReadingStrengthens alignment with
classroom practices

• Measuring analogical reasoning without the
  analogy item type
• Sentence Completion items measure both word
  knowledge and the ability to infer word meaning
  from context.
• Application and Analogy items ask students to
  understand an idea or relationship in a passage
  and then select a parallel idea or relationship
  from among five hypothetical relationships
  involving different contexts presented in the
  response options.
• Bridging items ask students to understand an idea
  in one passage and then compare it with an idea
  in another passage.
• Bridging items ask students to understand an
  authors point of view in one passage and then
  infer what the author would think about an issue
  or idea expressed in another passage.
• Comprehension questions ask students to explain
  analogies, metaphors, and other comparisons in
  passages.

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Critical ReadingExample of passage-based
analogical reasoning items

• The relationship between the spectroscope and
  astars chemical composition (lines 3738) is
  mostlike the relationship between
• (A) a periscope and a submarine
• (B) a microscope and a cellular structure
• (C) a generator and an electrical charge
• (D) a test tube and an experiment
• Correct answer B

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The Critical Reading SectionExample of new
short-paragraph reading items

• Dinosaurs have such a powerful grip on the public
  consciousness that it is easy to forget
  just howrecently scientists have become aware of
  them. A two-year-old child today may be able to
  rattle offthree dinosaur names, but in 1824
  there was onlyone known dinosaur. Period. The
  word dinosaurdidnt even exist until 1841.
  Indeed, in those earlyyears, the world was
  baffled by the discovery ofthese absurdly
  enormous creatures.

Line 5
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The Critical Reading SectionExample of new
short-paragraph reading items

• The reference to the two-year-old child (line
  4) primarily serves to
• (A) challenge a popular assumption
• (B) highlight the extent of the change
• (C) suggest that a perspective is simplistic
• (D) introduce a controversial idea
• (E) question a contemporary preoccupation
• Correct answer B
• The statement Period (line 6) primarily serves
  to emphasize the
• (A) authoritative nature of the finding
• (B) lack of flexibility in a popular theory
• (C) stubborn nature of a group of researchers
• (D) limited knowledge about a subject
• (E) refusal of the public to accept new
  discoveries
• Correct answer D

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Writing
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SAT Writing SectionAdditional measure of an
important college success skill

• Essay section measures a students ability to
  develop and express ideas effectively using
  standard written English.
• Essay prompts and Scoring Guide are designed to
  measure critical thinking, insight, and
  complexity of thought as student develops a point
  of view on an issue.
• Essay is a direct measure, under timed
  conditions, of the kind of writing that is
  expected in most college courseswriting that
  engages an issue critically and develops a point
  of view in a thoughtful, coherent, and cogent
  essay.

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SAT Writing SectionAdditional measure of an
important college success skill

• Multiple-choice items
• 3 types of multiple-choice writing questions
• Identifying Sentence Errors
• Improving Sentences
• Improving Paragraphs

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Writing SectionExamples of Multiple-Choice
Writing Items

• Identifying Sentence Errors
• It is likely that the opening of the convention
  center,previously set for July 1, would be
  postponed because of
• (A) (B) (C) (D)
• the bricklayers strike. No error.
• (E)
• Correct answer C

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SAT Writing SectionExamples of Multiple-Choice
Writing Items

• Improving Sentences
• Although several groups were absolutely opposed
  to the outside support given the revolutionary
  government, other groups were as equal in their
  adamant approval of that support.
• (A) were as equal in their adamant approval of
• (B) held equally adamant approval of
• (C) were equally adamant in approving
• (D) had approved equally adamantly
• (E) held approval equally adamant of
• Correct answer C

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SAT Writing SectionExamples of Multiple-Choice
Writing Items

• Improving Paragraphs
• (1) At one point in the movie Raiders of the Lost
  Ark, the evil archaeologist Belloq shows the
  heroic Indiana Jones a cheap watch. (2) If the
  watch were to be buried in the desert for a
  thousand years and then dug up, Belloq says, it
  would be considered priceless. (3) I often think
  of the scene whenever I consider the record
  albumcollecting phenomenon, it being one of the
  more remarkable aspects of popular culture in the
  United States. (4) Collecting record albums gives
  us a chance to make a low-cost investment that
  might pay dividends in the future.
• Excerpt from longer three-paragraph passage

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SAT Writing SectionExamples of Multiple-Choice
Writing Items

• Improving Paragraphs
• In the context of the first paragraph, which
  revision is most needed in sentence 3?
• (A) Insert As a matter of fact at the
  beginning.
• (B) Omit the words it being.
• (C) Omit the word scene.
• (D) Change the comma to a semicolon.
• (E) Change think to thought and consider to
  considered.
• Correct answer B

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SAT Writing SectionAdditional measure of an
important college success skill. Encourages
writing in schools.

• Essay
• Students will read a short excerpt, or two
  quotations, and respondto a prompt that frames
  an issue.
• Students must first think critically about the
  issue presented in the essay assignment and then
  define and support their point of view, using
  reasoning and evidence based on their own
  experiences, readings, or observations.
• The essay will be similar to the type of
  on-demand writing that is typically done in
  college.

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SAT Writing Section

• Prompts
• Prompts will be written to be easily accessible
  to the general test-taking population, including
  students for whom English is a second language
  (ESL), and to be free of figurative, technical,
  or specific literary references.
• Prompts will be relevant to a wide range of
  fields and interests, not narrowly related to
  specific topics.
• Prompts will be tested to ensure that they do not
  carry any bias across subgroups.

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Essay Prompt

• Think carefully about the issue presented in the
  following quotations and the assignment below.
• While secrecy can be destructive, some of it is
  indispensable in human lives. Some control over
  secrecy and openness is needed in order to
  protect identity. Such control may be needed to
  guard privacy, intimacy, and friendship.
• Adapted from Sissela Bok, The Need for Secrecy
• Secrecy and a free, democratic government,
  President Harry Truman once said, dont mix. An
  open exchange of information is vital to the kind
  of informed citizenry essential to healthy
  democracy.
• Editorial, Overzealous Secrecy Threatens
  Democracy
• Assignment Do people need to keep secrets, or is
  secrecy harmful? Plan and write an essay in
  which you develop your point of view on this
  issue. Support your position with reasoning and
  examples taken from your reading, studies,
  experience, or observations.

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Essay Prompt

• The essay will not be coachable since students
  must respond directly to the assigned topic.
• Essays not written on the assigned topic will
  receive a subscore of zero for the essay portion
  of the writing section.

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How Will the Essays Be Scored?

• Readers will
• understand that the essay is a first draft
• read quickly to gain an impression of the whole
  essay relative to the holistic Scoring Guide and
  the sample range-finder essays
• read the entire essay before scoring and then
  score immediately
• read supportively, looking for and rewarding what
  is done well rather than what is done badly or
  omitted
• not judge an essay by its length or the quality
  of handwriting
• understand that grammar is not an overriding
  factor in determining an essay score and
• consider spelling only when errors are so
  persistent that they interfere with meaning.

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How Will the Essays Be Scored?

• Readers for the SAT writing section will be
  trained to recognize and reward a wide variety
  of writing styles and strategies for developing a
  point of view at each score point.
• The SAT essay will neither reward nor punish
  formulaic approaches to writing, such as the
  five-paragraph essay.
• Prompts and the Scoring Guide call for directly
  relevant responses that cannot be coached or
  memorized aheadof test time.

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SAT Scoring Guide
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SAT Scoring Guide
Essays not written on the essay assignment will
receive a score of zero.
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Scoring Procedures for the Essay

• Procedures will be similar to those for the SAT
  Subject Test in Writing.
• Essays will be scored by trained high school
  English teachers and college professors with
  experience teaching writing.
• Each essay will be scored independently by two
  readers according to the holistic Scoring Guide
  in conjunction with sample essays selected for
  training.
• Essays will be scored on a scale of 1 to 6 by
  each reader(total score of 2 to 12).
• Essays will be scanned and distributed to readers
  via the Web.
• Scoring and reader supervision will take place
  online.

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Essays Will Be ScoredFairly and Accurately

• If the two readers scores differ by more than
  one point, the essay will be read by a third
  reader.
• Based on the College Boards experience in
  scoring the SAT Subject Test in Writing, the
  rigorous reader training and qualification
  process, and continuous monitoring of readers as
  they score, the College Board expects that less
  than 8 percent of all essays will call for a
  third reader.