It seems that everyone agrees that changing the format of the SAT was a bad idea. Everyone, that is, but the College Board.

The most notable change made was the Board’s decision to add a writing section to the test, changing the test from 1600 to 2400 points.

Ned Johnson, President and founder of Prep Matters Inc. and a professional SAT tutor since 1993, said, “The new SAT smashed together the old SAT and the SAT II Writing test." Specifically, the new form eliminated analogies and quantitative comparisons, added multiple choice grammar questions, an essay, some higher level math, and lengthened the entire test by 45 minutes.

Many students feel that these changes are not in their best interest.

“The change is definitely negative because it just makes lower scores seem even worse. [The new version] is harder because analogies were so easy to study for. Now there’s a new section that you really can’t study for at all,” senior Steven Silverberg said.

“[The change is] negative because it adds pressure, and if you get writer’s block for the essay part, you can get thrown off for the whole test,” said junior Julie Klatzkin, a student of Wootton’s SAT-Prep class.

Johnson, who just published a book entitled Conquering the SAT: How Parents Can Help Teens Overcome the Pressure and Succeed, gives a bit of insight as to the overall mindset of a typical test-taker.

“[The greatest challenge the new version poses to students is] stress. In educational psychology, there is a concept called working memory, a measure of the mental resources one can bring to any mental task. When working memory is impaired, performance falls. Stress impairs working memory,” Johnson said.

Freshman at Salisbury University and Wootton class of ’06 alumnus Marc Brown complained about the challenges of the newly added section: “[I think I did] worse [than I would have on the old version] because it was so hard to do well on the writing section.”

“Recent numbers released by the College Board indicate average scores have fallen on the new SAT. The Board attributes that to fewer students retaking the test. I attribute it to fatigue [due to the additional length of the test],” Johnson said.

Students are less than willing to accept the changes to the test. “It’s easier to talk about scores with the 1600 scale; everyone knows more of what’s expected,” Klatzkin said.

Silverberg admitted, “I usually tell people my score out of 1600, because I did better out of 1600. My writing section was poor, and everyone knows it as being out of 1600 anyway.”

The new writing section consists of grammar-related multiple choice questions and an open-ended essay. The essay has proven to be the Achilles heel for many students who have taken the new SAT.

Despite adverse reactions to the new version of the test, the College Board has made it clear that the new SAT is here to stay.