The SAT, developed by College Board, has been around since 1926. Many do not know the details of this standardized test despite the fact that the test is so vital and rapidly approaching high school juniors.

The SAT is arguably the single most important test for most college admissions in the United States. The current SAT Reasoning Test takes 3 hours and 45 minutes, and consists of 3 sections: Mathematics, Critical Reading, and Writing. While this may seem tedious, the rewards of good performance on the SAT is critical on college applications.

“The SAT exam is important because it is one of two standardized tests that colleges use when making admission decisions. It can also open up the door to scholarship opportunities for students. A student’s SAT score will ultimately help guide him or her to make the right college choice, “said Ms. Jamie Dowd, Freedom High School’s college and career counselor who has 9 years of experience in guidance and counseling.

Critical reading consists of three sub-sections; two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section. The questions range from sentence completions that test vocabulary and passage-based questions that assess comprehension.

Mathematics also has two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section. One 25 minute has 18 multiple choice questions, and the other has 8 multiple choice and 10 grid-in questions. The 20-minute section has 16 multiple choice questions. Calculators are permitted in these sections.

Writing consists of a 25-minute essay, and a section of sentence improvement, paragraph improvement, and error identification. Two SAT scorers assign a score to your essay from 0-6 and the final score is between 0 to 12.

Each section is worth 800 points, for a final possible score of 2400. However, some colleges focus mainly on Math and Verbal scores, and look at the final possible score of 1600. All questions are worth the same. For a correct answer, one point is added. For an incorrect answer, one-fourth point is deducted. An unanswered question is not penalized. This format is to encourage educated guesses on the test. The average scores in Reading, Math, and writing are 493, 515 and 501 respectively.

The SAT is offered 7 times a year, and Freedom High School offers a free SAT for all juniors on February 26^th. Students are encouraged to prepare by studying.