American Education in the United Arab Emirates Issue 1 2015 | Page 20

DE-MYSTIFYING THE RSAT

S

tudents in the UAE understand the need to put
their best foot forward and submit high scores to
secure admissions into highly selective universities.
Traditionally, this meant mastering the SAT, although
the ACT has also been catching up in recent years. In fact,
within the United States itself, numbers for the ACT were
higher than the SAT last year for the first time in history.
Regardless, the SAT will undergo the biggest change since the
1960s in mid 2016. The ACT is instructive here because the
new SAT, as far as we can tell, looks a lot like the ACT, though
it has some important differences. It also brings the PSAT
into high relief, because the version that students will take in
October 2015 is the redesigned version.
The PSAT/NMSQT (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test)
does not count towards college admissions but there are two
important reasons to take it. If your child holds a US passport
and/or is a resident of a US state it remains the only entryway
into the National Merit Scholarship. Second, whoever takes
the October test, will have a firsthand experience of what the
(Redesigned) SAT will be like. For the first time in history, the
PSAT (P is for “preliminary”) is fully aligned with the SAT. It has
just fifteen fewer questions and of course no essay. The total
time is close to the three hours that the SAT takes (without
the essay.)
One of the most important changes to the SAT and how
students cope with it is the disappearance of the guessing
penalty. This means that there will no longer be a penalty
for wrong answers, just “rights only” scoring, much like the
ACT. Likewise, there will only be four answer choices in those
questions that have them, whereas the current SAT has five.
Another important shift will be in how students pace.
Currently, the SAT has a total of ten sections, ranging from 10
to 25 minutes. The RSAT will have only 5 sections but each
will be significantly longer, with the evidence-based Reading,

20 | American Education in the UAE

for example, having an entire hour (65 minutes) in which to
answer 52 questions. Likewise, the Writing section will be 44
questions to be completed in 35 minutes. Some students will
do better with this format, while others will struggle. Of note
is the move toward a 1600 total score, which is accomplished
not by getting rid of the Writing score, as many had thought
earlier, but by combining Reading and Writing into one score.
The Essay, which will now be 50 minutes, will no longer be a
part of the Writing score.
The content will be changing as well. There will be more
emphasis on fewer topics, but these are higher level. Math
will be split into two sections, the longer of which will allow
calculator usage (38 questions in 55 minutes), but the shorter
section (25 minutes, 20 questions) will not. Topics will be
organized into several new categories, among which are
Passport to Advanced Math and Heart of Algebra.
The Reading will no longer include vocabulary per se, but will
emphasize words in context and passage-based questions.
The Writing section will also be passage-based, much like the
ACT.
One thing that makes the RSAT unique is the inclusion of
graphical data everywhere – in Math, but also in the Reading and
Writing sections. Students need to become expert at reading
and interpreting charts, graphs and tables and incorporating
the same into their analyses.
Rather than a simplification, the return to a 1600 composite
score represents a veritable explosion of information. Beside
the composite score (400-1600) and its attendant section
scores (200-800 each, Math and Verbal), there will be a great
deal of information offered. There will be three test scores from
10-40, as well as seven sub-scores and two cross-test scores.
The essay will be reported separately, as aforementioned and
may have as many as three components.