Scholastic Aptitude Test SAT

SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test/ SAT-I) is a prerequisite Reasoning Test conducted for the admissions of undergraduate programs in United States. It is a 3 hour test that determines the proficiency of the students in verbal, mathematical and reasoning skills that are required to evaluate the skills needed to complete the academic successfully. The test is administered several times a year. Many universities also require SAT-II test score along with the SAT-I score for admission. Every year around 2 million students take SAT. Many colleges and universities finds SAT as a more credible test for predicting the student’s competence. The test scores are valid up to 5 years of the test date..

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Test Modules in SAT

Typically, SAT reasoning test are categorized into three major sections, Critical Reading, Writing and Mathematics, with a total of 10 sub-sections including a dummy section. These sections are discussed below:

Critical Reading

SAT exam begins with Critical reading questions that determine various reading comprehension skills. It includes two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section with 48 reading comprehension questions and 19 sentence completion questions. The scores are scaled on a 200-800 point scale with the total time limit of 70 minutes. This module consists of the following subsections:

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Sentence Completion:

It measures the vocabulary of the applicants and understanding the sentence structure i.e., how the different parts of a sentence fit logically together. Here each sentence has one or two blank space which has to be filled correctly with the given multiple choices

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Passage-based Reading:

This section comprises of two types of passage reading, Vocabulary in Context and Literal Comprehension. It measures the reading abilities of the students and thinking carefully about different passages ranging from 100 to 850 words approximately. These passages will be extracted from a variety of fields like, humanities, social studies, natural sciences, and literary fiction

Writing Section

The writing section total time limit is 60 minutes. It includes multiple choice questions and a brief essay. The essay score accounts to be around 30% of the writing score and the multiple choice component accounts to be around 70%.
The multiple choice questions include, Error Identification, Sentence Improvement questions that tests for grammar knowledge and Paragraph Improvement questions that test for student’s understanding of logical organization of ideas.
The essay section is administered as the first part of the test, which has 25 minutes of time limit. They have to be written in response to the specified prompt, which are typically philosophical and are designed to be accessible to students despite of their educational and social backgrounds. Mathematics Section
This section is also known as Quantitative Section determines important skills like, estimation and number sense using multiple choice questions and student response questions. Mathematics section includes topics like, exponential growth, absolute value, and functional notation. It consisting of three scored sections:
A 25 minutes section – It contains 20 multiple choice (problem solving) questions in this section must be completed in 25 minutes
Another 25-minute section that contains 8 multiple choices (problem solving) questions and 10 grid-in questions.
A shorter section of 16 multiple choice (problem solving) questions to be completed in 20 minutes.
In addition there will be a dummy section formally called as Variable or Equation section with the time limitation of 20 minutes. However this section does not count towards the individual score and they cannot be recognized in the test so as to not skipping those questions. They are only used for the future edition of SAT

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