Editing SAT (section)

=== Test-taking population ===
[[File:US Navy 050223-N-5821P-054 Seaman Chanthorn Peou of San Diego, Calif., takes his Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) aboard the conventionally powered aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63).jpg|thumb|280x280px|A U.S. Navy sailor taking the SAT aboard the [[USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)|U.S.S ''Kitty Hawk'']] (CV-63) in 2004]]
By analyzing data from the National Center for Education Statistics, economists Ember Smith and Richard Reeves of the [[Brookings Institution]] deduced that the number of students taking the SAT increased at a rate faster than population and high-school graduation growth rates between 2000 and 2020. The increase was especially pronounced among Hispanics and Latinos. Even among whites, whose number of high-school graduates was shrinking, the number of SAT takers rose.<ref name="Smith-2020" /> In 2015, for example, 1.7 million students took the SAT,<ref name="Selingo-2020" /> up from 1.6 million in 2013.<ref name="Zoroya-2014" /> But in 2019, a record-breaking 2.2 million students took the exam, compared to 2.1 million in 2018, another record-breaking year.<ref name="Hobbs-2019" /> The rise in the number of students taking the SAT was due in part to many school districts offering to administer the SAT during school days often at no further costs to the students.<ref name="Hobbs-2019" /> Some require students to take the SAT, regardless of whether or not they are going to college.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Finder |first=Alan |date=August 28, 2007 |title=Math and Reading SAT Scores Drop |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/education/28cnd-sat.html |access-date=April 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230424033620/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/education/28cnd-sat.html |archive-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref> However, in 2021, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the [[#Optional SAT|optional status of the SAT]] at many colleges and universities, only 1.5 million students took the test.<ref name="Thompson-2022" /> But as testing centers reopened, ambitious students chose to take the SAT or the ACT to make themselves stand out from the competition regardless of the admissions policies of their preferred schools.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sarraf |first=Isabelle |date=July 1, 2022 |title=More Students Are Taking Optional SAT and ACT, Hoping to Stand Out |url=https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/more-students-are-taking-optional-sat-and-act-hoping-to-stand-out-11656687601 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220708145553/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/more-students-are-taking-optional-sat-and-act-hoping-to-stand-out-11656687601 |archive-date=July 8, 2022 |access-date=August 30, 2022 |work=The Wall Street Journal |department=Education}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> Among the class of 2023, 1.9 million students took the test.<ref name=":4" />

Psychologists [[Jean Twenge]], W. Keith Campbell, and Ryne A. Sherman analyzed vocabulary test scores on the U.S. [[General Social Survey]] (<math>n = 29,912</math>) and found that after correcting for education, the use of sophisticated vocabulary has declined between the mid-1970s and the mid-2010s across all levels of education, from below high school to graduate school. However, they cautioned against the use of SAT verbal scores to track the decline for while the College Board reported that SAT verbal scores had been decreasing, these scores were an imperfect measure of the vocabulary level of the nation as a whole because the test-taking demographic has changed and because more students took the SAT in the 2010s than in the 1970s, meaning there were more with limited ability who took it.<ref name="Twenge-2019" /> However, as the frequency of reading for pleasure and the level of reading comprehension among American high-school students continue to decline, students who take the SAT might struggle to do well, even if reforms have been introduced to shorten the duration of the test and to reduce the number of questions associated with a given passage in the verbal portion of the test.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Paris |first=Ben |date=April 11, 2022 |title=Have We Given Up on Reading? |work=Inside Higher Education |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2022/04/11/do-changes-sat-suggest-weve-given-reading-opinion |access-date=August 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220411075650/https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2022/04/11/do-changes-sat-suggest-weve-given-reading-opinion |archive-date=April 11, 2022}}</ref>