Overview

The SAT, a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States, has undergone various name and scoring changes since its inception in 1926. It was first called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, then the Scholastic Assessment Test, then the SAT Reasoning Test, and now simply the SAT. The College Board, a non-profit private organization in the US, owns and governs the test, which is developed and administered by the Educational Testing Service on behalf of the College Board. The SAT is designed to assess a student’s readiness for college and is divided into two types: the general SAT, which measures a student’s knowledge of various subjects studied in school, and the SAT Subject Test, which assesses a student’s proficiency in a specific area of study, such as Humanities, Biology, Physics, English Literature, or Mathematics. The revised version of the SAT, set to be implemented in 2016, lasts for three hours and fifty minutes, and scores range from 400 to 1600, based on the results of two sections, Critical Reading and Mathematics, each with a possible 800 points.