Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994 TAG: 9404120034
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Relax. Now you can use your computer to prepare for the Scholastic Aptitude Test, an examination that many colleges and universities use to help determine who gets admitted.
Some test coaching businesses have developed computer programs that enable students to take practice SATs and score them.
The Princeton Review, one of the nation's leading test preparation companies, has introduced the newest computer software for the SAT.
Princeton, a firm based in New York, has introduced a new line of computer software that not only allows students to practice full-length SATs at home, but also scores the results of the tests, analyzes students' test-taking skills and pinpoints their strengths and weaknesses.
With the aid of computer coaching and a new grading scale for the SAT beginning in 1996, test scores might rise in the next few years - even if the students are no brighter.
The new grading scale for the SAT is designed to help scores easier to understand, according to Fred Moreno, public affairs director for the College Board, which sponsors and oversees the testing service.
The changes are designed to raise the national average to 1,000 points - 500 for math and 500 for verbal, the midpoint of eachsection's grading scale.
Moreno said Monday this will enable students and parents to know immediately whether a score is above or below the national average of those taking the test.
Under the current scoring system, the national average is 424 verbal and 478 for math.
"Now it's hard for students to tell immediately if they are average or better," Moreno said. "The current scale confuses the hell out of them."
The combined score on the math and verbal sections ranges from 400 to 1600.
Moreno said the new scale is also designed to eliminate the variation between the average scores for the math and verbal sections.
The math scores are higher, Moreno said, but this is the result of the grading scale, not because students are smarter in math.
"It's a matter of how it is scored," he said.
Tables converting every new score to the old one will published, he said. Except for a perfect score of 1,600, others will beconverted in a table.
"We are not jacking up the scores as some people have claimed," Moreno said.
Some critics say the change amounts to grade inflation because it will cause students to think they scoring better than they are.
The scoring change is not related to recent revisions in the SAT's format.
But Princeton Review, the company marketing the new test preparation program, said the computer software will help prepare students for the new SAT.
The computer program includes:
Complete and up-to-date full lengths examinations.
An estimate of the test-taking score in as little as an hour.
Question-by-question analysis pinpointing test-taking strengths and weaknesses.
A step-by-step tutorial that prepares students for the world of computerized testing.
Princeton said the new line of computer software reflects itsbelief that the familiar "pencil and paper" approach to standardized testing will soon be a thing of the past. The Educational Testing Service has already began offering a computer-based version of the Graduate Record Examination.
But Moreno said there are no current plans to eliminate the pencil and paper approach for the SAT. "That probably won't happen for another six to eight years," he said. John Katzman, president of Princeton Review, believes that the tests of the future will be on administered on computers.
"Every major standardized test will be administered in that form shortly," Katzman said.
by CNB