The History of the SAT

By Samantha Douchette   , , , No comments

The Scholastic Assessment Test, or the SAT, is one of those daunting tests when it comes to getting into college. Every school looks at SAT scores in order to determine if you are ready for college-level courses. coque samsung a5 But, why is it so important? How did the SAT and standardized tests come about? In the late 1800s, leading American universities were worried that high school students wouldn’t be prepared enough for the extensive college curriculum. They also wanted a uniform and universal way to judge applicants. A group of schools decided to form the College Entrance Exam Board, and with it, the first standardized test in 1901. The first exam was only an essay, and at the time, public and private schools were teaching different curricula. coque huawei p9 In order to give all students and equal opportunity, the Board hired Carl Brigham to develop a multiple-choice test that could be used by not only college applicants, but in high schools as well. coque autres galaxy samsung In 1926, the SAT was administered to high school students for the first time. In 1933, Harvard decided to use the SAT to select which public school students to awarded scholarships to. One year later, the school required all applicants to take the exam. When the first multiple-choice test came out, all of the exams still needed to be graded by hand. This proved to be time consuming, and human error needed to be accounted for. In 1939, the first machine-scored SAT was given to students. Because there were different versions of the test, the Board wanted to make sure that one test could be accurately compared to the next. coque autres iphone In 1941, the SAT was normalized, and for the next 50 years, every form of the test could be linked back to the 1941 test. They started doing this again in 1995 to ensure that scoring was as fair as possible. Reading comprehension, analogies, antonyms and sentence completion questions are now all a part of the SAT. This format was established in 1952. 1958 marks the first year that students were allowed to see their score. Beforehand, only the schools were eligible to view them. In order to take the SAT, you must first pay a fee. In 1969, low-income families are offered fee waivers for the first time. The first time the College Board published the help books to acquaint students with the test was in 1984. coque huawei p10 It included all of the different sections and full-length practice exams. In the 1990s, the Sat went through some changes. 1994 marked the first time that calculators were allowed for the math section. This year, the Board also removed the antonym questions, a new subject test in writing with an essay was added, and the subject tests became available in Asian languages. The new millennium brought even more changes. In 2005, the SAT made changed to better reflect what was being taught in high school. They removed the quantitative comparison and analogy questions. coque autres iphone 1 An upper-level math section and a new test section – writing – was added. Since, the SAT has been used nationally for colleges to decide whether they should admit you into their school. Many more changes have been made in order to reduce cheating, among other things.