As many students already know, the administration of the SAT on Saturday, June 6 did not go as planned. While the instructions given to proctors set the time limit of the last reading section on the exam (the eighth of the SAT’s 10 sections) as 20 minutes, students’ test booklets incorrectly stated that they had 25 minutes to work on the section. The error affected approximately 487,000 students who registered to take the college entrance exam.
The College Board announced a few days ago that students’ full scores on the 2400-point scale will now be drawn only from eight of the 10 sections on the SAT. As a result, a full 22 percent of the test questions will not be scored, according to FairTest, also known the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. The College Board, however, argues that each of the multiple math and reading sections test the same skills, so scores from the June 6 administration of the SAT would still accurately reflect students’ performances.
Before the latest announcement, the College Board’s response to the situation led to widespread confusion among students. The organization initially declared that either a math or reading section contained the printing error, so either the eighth or ninth section of the test, depending on the edition, would be invalidated. After announcing that it was the eighth section (a reading one) that was affected, the College Board clarified that the score of that section and the score of the following one (a math section) would be voided as well.
Although the most recent update (that the scores of two sections will be cancelled) has a time stamp of 5:30 pm on June 8, it was not actually posted until June 9 at the earliest, or possibly later in the week, according to The Washington Post. Furthermore, some students said that upon calling the College Board, they were offered a free retake of the SAT in October, but this appeared nowhere on the College Board’s website at first. As of June 16, the College Board has announced that any student who took the SAT on June 6 is entitled to a free retake of the test in October.
The College Board’s mistake and murky, unclear explanations ignited a firestorm of controversy. Outraged students took to social media to vent their complaints and try to find out what the College Board was going to do. This is the first time in the history of the SAT that the scores of entire sections have been cancelled in the United States, and FairTest has seized this opportunity to castigate the College Board for its seemingly inept handling of the situation. In an interview with The Washington Post, Bob Shaeffer, education director of FairTest, revealed that the group is considering a class-action lawsuit against the College Board.
