新SAT样题完整版发布：各名校招生官陷入焦虑

College Board 的主要评估员之一Cyndie Schmeiser 在周一的一次电话会议中指出，“我们致力于使SAT考试具有实用性和公平性， 而今天就是实现这个承诺的第一步。”同时表示，将于美国时间4月16日公开分校211页的考试说明和辅助材料，其中包括“学生在考试时需要知道的每件事。”

考试变化：单词不再繁难 段落理解题成重点部分

变化最大的是词汇题，不仅不会出现繁难的词汇，相反，考试的重点将集中到College Board设定的那些经常出现在文章中或是生活中的(带有转换意味的)“高实用性”词汇，这些词汇将会被运用到考试中。例如，结合上下文内容出现的一道题，一名艺术家从传统的风景画中“vacated”出来，选以下哪个词来替换：“evacuated,” “departed” or “retired,”还是保持不变。(正确答案是 “departed。”)

段落理解题将成为考试的重点部分，不仅出现在数学部分，还会在分析科学和社会科学文中出现。

考试时间改为3小时 多选题5个答案减为4个

考试将会持续3个小时，其中包含50分钟的选考作文题。考生需要分析作者是如何使用证据、推理及写作风格上的一些元素来论证其观点。评分标准由阅读、分析和写作三部分组成，将会以额外分制的形式体现。当前的考试包含25分钟的写作时间， 学生们要在观点中选出自己的立场，并且不会因观点脱离事实准确性而失分。

新考试将有65分钟的批判性阅读时间，包含52个问题，35分钟的书面语言测试时间，包含44个问题，还有80分钟的数学，包含57道题。阅读和数学单独打分，分值从200到800，并且最高的总分是1600。当前的考试允许使用计算器，新考试中会有一些部分不允许使用计算器。并且，新考试将多选题的5个答案减为4个多选答案。

多家名校招生官激辩：新SAT考试仍然是标杆

很多的大学招生办官员会用考试结果来奖励学生所做的努力，因为学生在考试中已经掌握了应该在学校学习什么和未来在大学知道自己需要做好什么。但是指出这需要在数年后的新SAT效果确实比现在的考试效果好的证据上实施。

College Board的主席和首席执行官David Coleman，在带头做考试的修改过程中，是主要为学校做国家核心课程标准的设计者，并引进一系列指导方针－经常在国家的很多教室做激烈的辩论。在某种程度上，College Board版本的新SAT考试仍然是标杆。

一位在Greenville, S.C.,的教育顾问William Dingledine提出，“他们试图将考试方向调整为学生应该在学校学什么和他们需要在大学学什么，而当前的SAT考试并没有将这点做得很好，有趣的是SAT接近于国家核心标准的同时有很多地区现在试图甩开国家核心标准。”

杜克大学的招生官Christoph Guttentag说：“我喜欢这种用考试来评定学生的分析能力的初衷和他们在作文中所作的变化，但是我们还是不得不检验证据来确认所发生的变化是否在我们的背景中可预测的有效范围内。”

很多大学招生办官员表示对College Board关于新SAT考试将会缩小高分学生和低分学生的分数差距的及消除预备课程的内容的声明表示怀疑。他们也不期盼新考试将会分担考生们的压力。

俄勒冈大学的招生办主席Jim Rawlins提出，即使每个人都开始熟悉了形式，他们仍会有很多焦虑，毕竟这是一个高风险的考试。

那么新SAT考试将会有什么影响呢？

他说，“就像SAT所反应的‘不会由给出的信息来决定’。”(编译：刘倩)

原文：

The College Board on Wednesday will release many details of its revised SAT, including sample questions and explanations of the research, goals and specifications behind them。

“We are committed to a clear and open SAT, and today is the first step in that commitment,” said Cyndie Schmeiser, the College Board’s chief of assessment, in a conference call on Monday, previewing the changes to be introduced in the spring of 2016.

She said the 211-page test specifications and supporting materials being shared publicly include “everything a student needs to know to walk into that test and not be surprised。”

One big change is in the vocabulary questions, which will no longer include obscure words. Instead, the focus will be on what the College Board calls “high utility” words that appear in many contexts, in many disciplines — often with shifting meanings — and they will be tested in context. For example, a question based on a passage about an artist who “vacated” from a tradition of landscape painting, asks whether it would be better to substitute the word “evacuated,” “departed” or “retired,” or to leave the sentence unchanged. (The right answer is “departed。”)

The test will last three hours, with another 50 minutes for an optional essay in which students will be asked to analyze a text and how the author builds an argument. The essays will be scored for reading, analysis and writing, and those scores will be reported separately from the other sections of the SAT. The current test includes a required 25-minute essay in which students are asked to take a position on an issue and which is graded without regard to factual accuracy。

The new test will have a 65-minute critical reading section with 52 questions, a 35-minute written language test with 44 questions, and an 80-minute math section with 57 questions. The language and math sections will each be scored from 200 to 800, and the top composite score will be 1,600. While the current test allows calculator use, the new one will have some sections that do not. Also, instead of five multiple-choice answers, the new test will have four。

Interpreting graphs will be an important part of the test, not just in math, but in analyzing science and social science texts。

Many of the college admissions officers who will be using the test results praised the effort to align the test with what students should be learning in high school, and what they will need to know to do well in college, but cautioned that it would be years before there was any evidence that the new SAT does a better job of predicting college performance than the current one。

“I like the desire on the part of the exam to assess students’ analytic skills, and the direction they’re taking with the changes in the essay,” said Christoph Guttentag, Duke University’s admissions director. “But we’ll still have to examine the evidence to see if there’s any change in the predictive validity within our context。”

David Coleman, who is president and chief executive of the College Board, and spearheaded the process of revising the test, was a key architect of the Common Core state curriculum standards for schools, a set of guidelines being introduced — and often stirring controversy — in classrooms throughout the nation. And to some extent, the College Board’s vision of the new SAT continues that alignment。

William Dingledine, an educational consultant in Greenville, S.C., said, “It’s a positive step that they’re trying to align the test with what students should be learning in school, and what they need for college, since the current SAT doesn’t do that very well, but it’s going to be interesting to see the SAT align with the Common Core standards while there are lots of states now trying to get rid of the Common Core。”

Many college admissions officers expressed skepticism about the College Board’s claim that the new SAT would narrow the gap between rich and poor students’ scores, and eliminate the edge gained through test preparation courses. Nor do they expect that the new test will hold any less stress for students。

Even if everyone becomes familiar with the format, said Jim Rawlins, director of admissions at the University of Oregon, “there’s still going to be a lot of anxiety, since it’s still a high-stakes test。”

So what will be the effects of the new SAT?

“It’s like that SAT response: ‘cannot be determined with the information given,’ ” he said。