Editing SAT (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of the SAT}}
[[File:Historical Average SAT Scores (Vector).svg|center|upright=3.6|Historical average SAT scores of college-bound seniors.]]
The College Board, the [[not-for-profit organization]] that owns the SAT, was organized at the beginning of the 20th century to provide uniform entrance exams for its member colleges, whose matriculating students often came from boarding and private day schools found in the Northeastern United States. The exams were essay-based, graded by hand, and required several days for the student to take them.<ref name="lemann-sat">{{cite encyclopedia |editor-first=Rebecca|editor-last=Zwick|last=Lemann|first=Nicholas|location=New York|pages=5–14|publisher=RoutledgeFalmer|year=2004|title=A History of Admissions Testing|encyclopedia=Rethinking the SAT: The Future of Standardized Testing in University Admissions}}</ref><ref name="crouse-sat">{{cite book|last1=Crouse|first1=James|last2=Trusheim|first2=Dale|title=The Case Against the SAT|date=1988|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|pages=16–39}}</ref> By the early 1920s, the increasing interest in [[intelligence quotient|intelligence]] tests as a means of selection convinced the College Board to form a commission to produce such a test for college admission purposes. The leader of the commission was [[Carl Brigham]], a psychologist at Princeton University, who originally saw the value of these types of tests through the lens of [[eugenics|eugenic]] thought.<ref name="lemann-sat" />

On June 23, 1926, the first SAT, then known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, was administered to 8,040 students, 60% of whom were male, many of whom were applying to [[Yale University]] (26%) and [[Smith College]] (27%).<ref name="Frontline2">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/1926.html |title=frontline: secrets of the sat: where did the test come from?: the 1926 sat |access-date=October 20, 2007 |website=Secrets of the SAT |publisher=[[Frontline (US TV series)|Frontline]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071031224001/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/1926.html |archive-date=October 31, 2007 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1934, [[James Bryant Conant|James Conant]] and [[Henry Chauncey]] used the SAT as a means to identify recipients, besides those from the traditional northeastern private schools, for scholarships to [[Harvard University]]. By 1942, the College Board suspended the use of the essay exams, replacing them with the SAT, due in part to the success of Harvard's SAT program as well as because of the constraints from the onset of [[World War II]].<ref name=lemann-sat /> At this time, the SAT was standardized so that a test score received by a student in one year could be directly compared to a score received by a student in another year. Test scores ranged from 200 to 800 on each of two test sections (verbal and math) and the same reference group of students was used to standardize the SAT until 1995.<ref name="SAT-Scale-Ref">{{cite web|last=Dorans|first=Neil|title=The Recentering of SAT® Scales and Its Effects on Score Distributions and Score Interpretations|url=http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-02-04-Dorans.pdf|website=Research Report No. 2002-11|publisher=College Board|access-date=May 30, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531090624/http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-02-04-Dorans.pdf|archive-date=May 31, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:New SAT Logo (vector).svg|thumb|Logo as of 2013]]
After the war, due to several factors including the formation of the [[Educational Testing Service]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Fuess |first=Claude |author-link=Claude Fuess |title=The College Board: Its First Fifty Years |date=1950 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/collegeboarditsf009307mbp |access-date=August 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018201125/https://archive.org/details/collegeboarditsf009307mbp |archive-date=October 18, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> the use of the SAT increased rapidly: by 1951, about 80,000 SATs were taken, rising to about 1.5 million in 1971.<ref name=sat-decline-1977>{{cite web |publisher=College Entrance Examination Board |year=1977 |title=On Further Examination: Report of the Advisory Panel on the Scholastic Aptitude Test Score Decline |url=http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/misc1977-1-report-sat-score-decline.pdf |access-date=June 24, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141018013322/http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/misc1977-1-report-sat-score-decline.pdf |archive-date=October 18, 2014 |url-status=dead  }}</ref> During this time, changes made to the content of the SAT were relatively minor, and included the introduction of sentence completion questions and "quantitative comparison" math questions as well as changes in the timing of the test. In 1994, however, the SAT was substantially changed in an attempt to make the test more closely reflect the work done by students in school and the skills that they would need in college. Among other changes, antonym questions were removed from the verbal section, and [[free response question]]s were added to the math section along with the use of calculators.<ref name=CBHistorical /> In 1995, after nearly forty years of declining scores, the SAT was recalibrated by the addition of approximately 100 points to each score to compensate for the decline in what constituted an average score.

In 2005, the SAT was changed again, in part due to criticism of the test by the [[University of California]] system, which said that the test was not closely enough aligned to high school curricula.<ref name="Daily Nexus-2002">{{cite news |url=http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=3385 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009035501/http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=3385 |date=September 20, 2002 |access-date=July 3, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 9, 2007 |title=College Board To Alter SAT I for 2005–06 |newspaper=Daily Nexus }}</ref> Along with the elimination of [[analogy|analogies]] from the verbal section and quantitative comparison items from the math section,<ref name=CBHistorical /> a new writing section with an essay was added.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lewin |first=Tamar |date=June 23, 2002 |title=New SAT Writing Test Is Planned |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/23/us/new-sat-writing-test-is-planned.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=May 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140505181901/http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/23/us/new-sat-writing-test-is-planned.html |archive-date=May 5, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref> The changes introduced an additional section score, increasing the maximum SAT score to 2400.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/05/25/understanding-new-sat |title=Understanding the New SAT |date=May 25, 2005 |website=Inside Higher Ed |access-date=July 3, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915031610/https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/05/25/understanding-new-sat |archive-date=September 15, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In early 2016, the SAT would change again in the interest of alignment with typical high school curricula.<ref name="Lewin">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html?_r=1|title=A New SAT Aims to Realign With Schoolwork|last=Lewin|first=Tamar|date=March 5, 2014|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=May 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140514233331/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html?_r=1|archive-date=May 14, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=New, Reading-Heavy SAT Has Students Worried |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/sat-test-changes.html |access-date=July 25, 2017 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 8, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201055527/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/sat-test-changes.html |archive-date=December 1, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> The changes included making the essay optional (and returning the maximum score to 1600), changing all multiple-choice questions from having five answer options to four, and the removal of penalty for wrong answers (rights-only scoring).<ref>{{cite news|title=Key shifts of the SAT redesign|url=https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/key-shifts-of-the-sat-redesign/858/|access-date=May 14, 2014|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=March 5, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140515035248/http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/key-shifts-of-the-sat-redesign/858/|archive-date=May 15, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Murphy-2016">{{Cite news|last=Murphy|first=James S.|date=May 12, 2016|title=How Hard Is the New SAT?|work=The Atlantic|department=Education|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/05/how-hard-is-the-new-sat/482376/|url-status=live|access-date=February 22, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021000131/https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/05/how-hard-is-the-new-sat/482376/|archive-date=October 21, 2020}}</ref> The essay was completely removed from the SAT by mid-2021, in the interest of reducing demands on students in the context of the [[COVID-19 pandemic]].<ref name="Aspegren-2021">{{cite web|last1=Aspegren|first1=Elinor|date=January 19, 2021|title=Adjusting to 'new realities' in admissions process, College Board eliminates SAT's optional essay and subject tests|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/01/19/sat-eliminates-optional-essay-subject-tests-covid-19-college-board/4220933001/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204221918/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/01/19/sat-eliminates-optional-essay-subject-tests-covid-19-college-board/4220933001/|archive-date=February 4, 2021|access-date=February 5, 2021|website=USA Today}}</ref>