SAT Test Sections
The SAT is governed by College Board and formulated, planed, and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The SAT Test consists of three sections:
- Writing
- Critical Reading
- Math
The purose of the writing section is to assess the students ability to develop a point of view on an issue. In order to do this the student’s are equired to think critically about the issue presented and form their own individual perspective of the topic. By providing real life examples and observations they have to argue their point of view. The writing section of the SAT test consists of four types of questions. They are:
- Essay question – students are presented with a passage followed by questions pertaining to that passage.
- Identifying sentence error – sentences with a portion of it underlined are ut forth to the students who has to correct the sentence or explain what is wrong with the underlined portion.
- Improving sentences –the student is given a statement with five options of sentences having the same meaning. The student has to choose the sentence that most closely resembles the question statement.
- Improving paragraphs – the student will be given a passage followed by six questions. It is expected of the student to decide which answer choice best rewrites and combines portions of two separate sentences, decide where in the essay a sentence best fits, or choose what sort of additional information would most strengthen the writer's argument.
The critical reading section helps to evaluate the student’s reading skills and vocabulary. This section helps to decide whether the student can understand what the author is saying and can arrive with suitable ending on reading a passage. This section also helps to determine if the level of the student’s language is suitable enough to read and understand college level texts. These sections contain two types of questions: sentence completion questions and critical reading questions. The SAT critical reading portion consists of two types of questions that are the Sentence completion questions and the Critical reading questions
- Sentence completion questions – This type of questions need the students to fill in the blanks provided by finding the appropriate word or phrase that best completes the meaning of the sentences.
- Critical reading questions – this type of questions are resented as a short reading passages of a dozen or so lines, or long reading passages of 50 lines or more followed by a number of questions. The students are asked to identify the passage's main idea or specific details, the author's attitude to the subject, the author's logic and techniques, the implications of the discussion, or the meaning of specific words.
The quantitative sections of the SAT test are intended to test the student’s skill to reason logically. The level of the math section usually covers topics in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry taught in middle school. The latest SAT exam contains expanded math topics, such as exponential growth, absolute value, and functional notation, and places greater emphasis on such other topics as linear functions, manipulations with exponents, and properties of tangent lines. Students are allowed to use four-function, scientific, or graphing calculator though all the questions can be solved manually.There are two types of questions on the mathematics portion of the SAT.
- Multiple-choice questions – This section is formatted in a way that the first few of the questions in this section are quite easy. They are followed by several questions of medium difficulty and in the end by the most difficult questions of the lot.
- Grid-in questions are a type where the students are required to answers to the questions by entering them in a special grid. Since the Grid-ins also proceed from the easy to the difficult questions, students will have to spend time on each of the question accordingly.