SAT

SAT () is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and had two components, Verbal and Mathematical, each of which was scored on a range from 200 to 800. Later it was called the Scholastic Assessment Test, then the SAT I: Reasoning Test, then the SAT Reasoning Test, then simply the SAT.

The SAT is wholly owned, developed, and published by the College Board and is administered by the Educational Testing Service. The test is intended to assess students' readiness for college. Historically, starting around 1937, the tests offered under the SAT banner also included optional subject-specific SAT Subject Tests, which were called SAT Achievement Tests until 1993 and then were called SAT II: Subject Tests until 2005; these were discontinued after June 2021. Originally designed not to be aligned with high school curricula, several adjustments were made for the version of the SAT introduced in 2016. College Board president David Coleman added that he wanted to make the test reflect more closely what students learn in high school with the new Common Core standards.

Many students prepare for the SAT using books, classes, online courses, and tutoring, which are offered by a variety of companies and organizations. However, (expensive) preparatory courses do not offer significant improvements on their performance, and neither do elite secondary schools. In the past, the SAT was taken on paper. But starting March 2023 for international students and March 2024 for those within the U.S., the SAT has been administered using a computer program called Bluebook. The test was also made adaptive, customizing the questions that are presented to the student based on how they perform on questions asked earlier in the test, and shortened from 3 hours to 2 hours and 14 minutes.

While a considerable amount of research has been done on the SAT, many questions and misconceptions remain. Outside of college admissions, the SAT is also used by researchers studying human intelligence in general and intellectual precociousness in particular, and by some employers in the recruitment process.