Reading and Writing
200–800- Two modules, 32 minutes each
- 64 minutes, 54 questions
Short passages, one question each. Roughly a quarter of them are the grammar and punctuation rules rather than comprehension.
How the digital SAT® is scored
Two section scores of 200–800 add up to a total of 400–1600. Getting from the answers you gave to those numbers takes four steps, and the two in the middle are the ones nobody explains — they are also the reason no practice test, here or anywhere, can honestly convert a question count into a scaled score.
- Total score
- 400–1600
- Questions
- 98
- Testing time
- 134 min
Plus a 10-minute break between the two sections, and check-in before the first module starts.
The two sections
Each section is scored on its own 200–800 scale and the two are added. There is no separate essay and no combined subscore that colleges see.
Math
200–800- Two modules, 35 minutes each
- 70 minutes, 44 questions
About a quarter are student-produced responses, where you type the answer instead of choosing it. A graphing calculator is built into the app and allowed throughout.
From your answers to your score
In the order it actually happens. Steps two and three are why two people can answer the same number of questions correctly and not get the same score.
1.Your raw score is the number you got right
One point per correct answer, and that total is your raw score — the number everything below is calculated from. There is no penalty for a wrong answer and has not been since 2016, so a blank and a wrong answer are worth exactly the same: nothing. That has one practical consequence worth acting on — never leave a question unanswered, however little time is left.
2.Some questions were never being counted
Each module carries a small number of unscored pretest questions, mixed in and indistinguishable from the rest. They are how next year’s questions get tried out. You cannot tell which they are, which is the point, and it means your raw count is already not quite the number you thought it was.
3.Your second module depended on your first
This is the part that makes the digital SAT adaptive, and it works by module rather than by question: each section is two modules, and the second one is chosen by how you did on the first. Do well and the second module is harder; the harder module is what gives access to the top of the scale. So two people can answer the same number of questions correctly and score differently, because they did not sit the same second module.
Each section works this way, which is why the same number of correct answers does not mean the same score for two people. 4.The conversion is fitted to the form you sat
Scores are equated so that a 700 means the same thing whichever date you tested on. The conversion from raw points to the 200–800 scale is therefore calculated per form, and is not published as a table anyone can look up. A slightly easier form needs slightly more right answers for the same score, which is exactly what equating is for.
What that means for a practice test
A practice paper is one fixed form. Nobody sat a second module chosen by their first, and there is no equating table fitted to it, so any tool that turns your count into a number on the 400–1600 scale is estimating — usually from a published table for a different test, which is the one thing equating exists to make invalid.
The 18 papers here therefore report a count of questions and a breakdown by skill area, and stop there.
That is not a limitation worth apologising for. A single number tells you how the last two hours went; a breakdown tells you where the next hour should go, and only one of those changes a score.
The questions that follow
What is a good SAT score?
The only answer that helps is the one attached to a college. Every university publishes the middle 50% of scores for its admitted students — the 25th to 75th percentile range — and that band, for the specific places you are applying to, is your target. A national percentile tells you where you stand among test takers; a college’s published range tells you whether you are competitive where it matters. The two are not the same question.
Is there an SAT score calculator or raw score conversion chart?
Not one that applies to your test, and that is true of every SAT score calculator you will find rather than a shortcoming of any particular one. A raw score conversion is fitted to the particular form you sat, and on the digital test your second module was chosen by how you did on your first — so the same raw score maps to different scaled scores for different people. Any chart that claims otherwise has borrowed a table from a test you did not take. A count of questions and a breakdown by skill area is the honest output, and the more useful one: it says where the next hour of practice goes, which a single number never does.
Is it better to guess or to leave a question blank?
Always guess. A wrong answer costs nothing, so a blank is a guaranteed zero where a guess on a multiple-choice question is a one-in-four chance. On the Math questions you type the answer into, a guess is a long shot rather than a one-in-four — but it still costs nothing to make. If you are running out of time, spend the last thirty seconds putting an answer on every remaining question rather than perfecting one.
What is superscoring?
Taking your best Reading and Writing score and your best Math score across different test dates and adding them, even though you never achieved both on the same day. Many colleges do it, some do not, and a few want every score you have ever taken. It is a policy per college, published by that college, and it is worth checking before deciding how many times to sit the test.
How long does the whole test take?
134 minutes of testing: 64 for Reading and Writing and 70 for Math, with a 10-minute break between the two sections. That is 98 questions altogether. Allow longer than that on the day, because check-in and setup happen before the first module starts.
When do scores come back?
Usually within about two weeks of the test date, and the exact release date for each administration is published in advance by the test maker. Score sends to colleges go out after that, which is worth building into a deadline rather than discovering late.