Creating
the SAT Questions
Developed
in 1926, the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) has become an important
part of the college application process. Since its inception,
about 60 million students have taken the test, which is owned
and sponsored by the College Board. The Board is responsible for
the content, and it contracts the development and administration
of the test to the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
The process of creating questions for the SAT takes over a year.
Staff members start the process of creating the SAT by defining
the content specifications, and then writing questions accordingly.
Questions then undergo a series of at least four content reviews
to make sure they are clear and appropriately challenging.
Each test question is tested in a non-scored section on a real
SAT. Students taking the test are told that there is one 30-minute
section that looks like any other section, but will actually only
be used to evaluate new questions.
The questions also undergo a separate sensitivity review to make
sure they are fair in content and tone for students. Test developers
carefully avoid stereotyping and the use of sexist, racist or
otherwise potentially offensive, language. The SAT is designed
so that a student who answers about half of the questions correctly
will receive an average score. Thus, during the review process,
the results are put through statistical analyses in order to see
how students will do on them.#
For
more information, visit www.collegeboard.org.
Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel:
(212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2001.
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