Every student looking forward to joining a reputed college for higher studies has to go through this examination called the SAT which assesses your academic aptitude. Now, the SAT had always been considered the most important exam that followed a simple paper and pencil format for a very long time. However, come 2024 and the SAT underwent a magnificent transformation and took the digital leap where students are now supposed to solve the exam on a laptop or a tablet.
Now, this paradigm shift from the old traditional paper pencil format to the new digital format has brought along with it a lot of adjustments, challenges, and new features that have a significance on the efficiency and accessibility of the tests. So, if you are someone trying to prepare for the SATs, you need to clearly understand the major differences between the two formats, that is the traditional and the digital one and prepare accordingly to achieve your goals.
Differences between the Traditional format and the Digital SAT
The change of medium
The traditional SAT was paper-based making use of bubble sheets, where students were required to fill out these bubbles to mark the answers. And the Digital SAT involves the use of a digital interface where students are required to answer the questions on a laptop or a tablet provided by their test center. This has made the overall exam pretty much accessible, more error free, devoid of pencil marks elsewhere, damaged sheets, or even bubbling errors for that matter. The digital format is more reliable and secure than the traditional one, that comes along with a digital built-in timer, an on-screen calculator and digital highlighter as well.
Section wise adaptiveness
Now the best part about this digital SAT is that it brings along a very unique feature with it,and that is being section-wise adaptive. To make it simple, let’s say you do well in your previous section, so based on your performance in that section, the digital exam will adapt itself to test you further with more challenging questions. And vice versa, if you do not perform well in the previous section, you will get less challenging questions in the next one. This gives the students a more personalized test taking experience.
Lesser Duration
As compared to the traditional SAT, the digital SAT is of a shorter duration, that is 2 hours and 14 minutes against the previous 3 hours, which means fewer questions. However, the core of the exam remains the same with the same core subjects and evaluation of the same core skills such as: analytical abilities, critical thinking, reading comprehension and problem solving skills. This also helps students to focus better, especially for students who have problems with concentration for a longer duration.
Content Changes
The Reading and Writing sections in the digital SAT now come with shorter passages, with more targeted questions, testing your comprehension, reasoning and grammar skills, as compared to the traditional SAT.
Also, the traditional SAT had two sections in Maths, one with calculators and the other without. However, the digital SAT allows the use of calculators throughout this section.
Faster Results
With the traditional SAT, students had to wait for weeks for the results of the SAT. However, with the new digital SAT, that uses an automatic grading system, the results are derived pretty much faster than ever before. So no more waiting that leads to quicker planning for college admissions!
Efficient preparation of the digital SAT and understanding the same
The new digital SAT can come with a few challenges especially when you are appearing for the first time and are used to the preparation strategies of the traditional SAT, then you truly can overcome these obstacles through guidance from the experts.
And who better than EduQuest – the finest digital SAT preparation institute to guide you through the same. They help you overcome the struggles of understanding the format of the digital exam and take you through the entire learning process making it more fun and engaging. Their teaching methodologies include interactive sessions that involve you to be more active and more confident about the exams. They have the best industry experts as their tutors who help you understand the core of every subject till you get them perfectly.
So, if you really wish to score better in your digital SAT exams, you better join EduQuest right away.