The New SAT® - Part II Math on the New SAT is More Difficult

Scarecrow: “The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. Oh joy! Rapture! I got a brain! How can I ever thank you enough?

Wizard of Oz: “You can't.”

The good news: There are fewer math questions on the test, the entire math section is five minutes shorter, and Quantitative Comparisons have been eliminated. The Bad News: Some Algebra II concepts are covered in the new SAT® Math examination in order to better align the SAT® with the math curriculum being taught in high school classrooms. The math on the new SAT® includes questions on numbers and operations, Algebra (I and II), geometry, data analysis, statistics, and probability. The questions in each section are ordered by difficulty.

As a “math challenged” mother, upon learning of the new SAT® math requirements, I was unable to provide little more than sympathy and an offer to pay for any and all SAT® math review material my son felt he might need to prepare for the exam. My son, having inherited my intense dislike for anything related to math (and more than a little anxious about the changes in the math on the new SAT®) took me up on the offer. Along with millions of other parents, I made some authors and publishers of SAT® review material very rich people. Although he was in a summer program at Cornell following his junior year of high school, he spent a good deal of time, during the summer, reviewing a variety of math and other SAT® workbooks for the October SAT.

The math on the new SAT® failed to create a crisis situation for our son because he had taken Geometry in the 9th grade (he had done well enough in Algebra I in the 8th grade to test out of it when he entered high school), Algebra II in the 10th grade, Pre-Calculus in the 11th grade and had started Probability and Statistics in his senior year. Fortunately, for him, a lot of his studying for math on the new SAT® was mostly a matter of review.

Parents who have students in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grade should strongly encourage their children to take four years of math during high school, not only because of the math now tested on the SAT®, but, because most upper tier colleges and universities require four years of math (as well as other core courses such as English/language arts) in order for a student to be considered for admission.

Mother