The redesigned SAT (redesigned in 2016) is easier than the old SAT - the math isn’t as advanced, and they’ve started asking more “why” questions.
The SAT was redesigned to make it more competitive with the ACT. We believe the new SAT exam remains a solid choice for most students.
If you break down the redesigned SAT and ACT side-by-side, you can see why we chose to continue teaching the SAT.
Read more testing tips on our blog.

SAT^Ⓡ Exam vs. ACT Exam - Comparing the Exams

An Interview with Alyssa Bowlby, Executive Director

Alyssa Bowlby, Executive Director of the Socratic Summer Academy at Colgate University, speaks here about the differences between the old SAT^Ⓡ exam and the new one, and compares the SAT^Ⓡ exam and the ACT exam. Alyssa has taught the SAT^Ⓡ exam professionally since 2006 and the ACT exam since 2008.

Q: Talk more about the redesigned SAT^Ⓡ exam (total score of 1600): How hard is it? How different is it from the old exam (total score of 2400)?

A: It's my strongly held opinion that the redesigned SAT ^Ⓡ exam is actually easier. The changes to the math have made it simpler for a lot of kids - we will still need to distinguish between cogitation and calculation, but the topics which are tested are more related to algebra (there's very little geometry on the new test, as compared to the old test) and more like what they learn in school and what they see in their math books. Also, the math isn't as advanced as it was: the topics queried are not as far along in the high school curricular progression, and the concepts they've added include things like an emphasis on basic statistics and graph-reading, at which most people are intuitively good.

They've also started asking the question "why" - a concept that you can think of as "logical roles" - all over math itself. I'll give you an example. Let's say we're doing a word problem, and there's a scatterplot with a line of best fit and that line has the equation y = 3x + 4. The SAT^Ⓡ exam will ask "In the context of this setup, what does the 4 mean?" It's the starting value - before you can calculate the change from 1 to 2, or even 0 to 1, you have to start with 4.

So as a real-life example, if we're talking about hailing a cab on Broadway, that might be the taxi's flat fee before you start getting charged for the mileage.

I, as a Socratic educator, actually think this is an AMAZING question, because we do better as human beings when we're constantly asking and answering the question "why". Students who are able to ask these questions do better in high school and college, as well as real life! These are the critical thinking/higher order thinking skills we're always talking about. So to know that test prep will actually make a student a better thinker elevates prepping for the test to an actually educational experience (and the fact that test prep was a bunch of quick fixes and small tricks has long been a critique of test prep; I think this will help us counter that perception).

The writing section of the test has changed tremendously - in fact, it now is almost exactly identical to the ACT English section.

The reading section is still the toughest section (and always will be, because it's completely dependent on a student’s accumulated reading skills - how fast you read and how well you comprehend what you've read), but it has gotten somewhat simpler: the questions themselves are worded more simply and a lot of the difficult vocabulary was removed from the answer choices. And obviously everyone is very happy that there are no more vocab lists to memorize for the reading!

Q: Which is harder: the ACT or the redesigned SAT^Ⓡ exam?

A: As the SAT^Ⓡ exam was redesigned, the focus was obviously on making it competitive with the ACT exam, as now there are a lot of overlaps between the tests. We believe the new SAT^Ⓡ exam remains a solid choice for students and parents on the fence. Here are some reasons why:

SAT^Ⓡ Reading now has no dedicated vocabulary section
SAT^Ⓡ Writing and Math are more closely tailored to what students learn in school
SAT^Ⓡ Writing tests more practical applications of writing concepts
SAT^Ⓡ Math includes less geometry
SAT^Ⓡ Math tests fewer concepts overall

Q: Can you give a section-by-section rundown of the redesigned SAT^Ⓡ exam and the ACT exam?

I’ll explain section by section, as I think that will be easiest.

Reading

The ACT Reading section has gotten significantly harder since about 2009 - almost exponentially harder: If you look at a test from 2009 and one from 2013, for instance, you will see a marked difference in those questions we call "fetch" (questions where you have to "fetch" the answer from the passage), as they have asked for harder and more obtuse details.

The ACT exam focuses on small details, where the SAT^Ⓡ exam asks broader questions or function questions.

A lot of the ACT reading seems only like a check to see if you can find the tiny detail they are asking for, not "Did you understand this passage?". The SAT^Ⓡ Reading section asks a lot more broadly, "Why does paragraph 3 focus on birds?" because the author is trying to make a point and “birds” is her chosen analogy.

The SAT^Ⓡ Reading section helps you become a better reader:

As a person who reads a lot, it's a lot more comforting to know that, as I prep my students, I'm making them better readers - I'm not making them crazy over finding really small details which, in the end, aren't important to the meaning of the passage as a whole.

The SAT^Ⓡ Reading timing is easier than ACT Reading timing: The ACT reading has always been a bear in terms of timing - even students who are great readers struggle to break the 28/29 barrier because they simply can't read fast enough to get to all the questions in time.

Writing

ACT English = SAT^Ⓡ Writing - these sections are now similar enough to be a wash

Math

The ACT math tests significantly more advanced concepts than the SAT^Ⓡ Math sections do:

When I was going through the SAT^Ⓡ math section for the first time, I said to myself as I neared the end of the section (remember problems get harder as the section continues), "Where are all the hard problems?" Then I flipped to the next page and found I had finished the section. I said, "Is it possible? Are there NO HARD PROBLEMS on the new SAT^Ⓡ math section?" Sure, some of the problems are tricky, and they're definitely multi-step, but the new math sections are way way easier than both the old SAT^Ⓡ math section and the current ACT math section.

Science

The SAT^Ⓡ exam has no science section

The ACT science section is always a block for students. It's less that the questions are hard and more that students feel just plain overwhelmed by the skills necessitated to break down the graphs and answer the questions.

Just as the ACT reading has gotten harder over time, so has the ACT science - I'm specifically referencing the kinds of graphs they give you and the types of questions they ask and the conclusions they expect you to draw. The difficulty has increased exponentially since about 2009.

I'm so overjoyed to not have to teach science on the SAT^Ⓡ exam!!