SAT Exam, Under Fire, to Get Major Overhaul

College Board trustees today announced the most drastic changes ever in the Scholastic Aptitude Test amid criticism that the exam is biased against women and minorities.

The revisions to the nation’s most widely used college entrance exam are designed in part to reduce students’ reliance on test coaches, officials said.

The changes include restoration of a written essay section, math problems that require students to calculate their own answers rather than select from multiple choices and increased emphasis on critical reading.

The trustees also voted today to place a greater emphasis on reading comprehension, allow the use of calculators and increase the 2 1/2-hour test’s duration by 20 minutes.

Board President Donald M. Stewart, announcing the changes at the board’s annual business meeting in Boston, rebuffed suggestions the changes were made because of charges of cultural and gender bias.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Stewart said. “The SAT has been in almost continual evolution. It has never been set in concrete.”

Some of the revisions, recommended by a panel appointed by the board, will be phased in by 1991, while most will be introduced in the spring of 1994, Stewart said.

The Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., administers the exam, while the College Board sponsors it.

The SAT is taken by about 1 million college-bound students every year. It was first given to 8,000 students in 1926.

The exam currently consists of two multiple-choice sections that test verbal and math skills. Each section is worth 800 points, for a perfect score of 1,600.

The College Board began field trials of possible SAT revisions three years ago. In 1988, the board created a committee of educators to evaluate the trials and determine what changes should be incorporated.