The New SAT and the Common Core

Things are changing in education as well as in the college entrance exam world.
The new SAT, starting in March, has been redesigned to align with the statewide, and probably soon to be nationwide, Common Core Standards.

How does the Common Core curriculum affect the student preparing for the new redesigned SAT (rSAT)?  Will the test be easier or more difficult? How will it differ from the SAT we currently know?  What is Common Core and how does it align with the new rSAT?
 

• Citing Evidence: The rSAT aligns with the new Common Core in that students will not only be asked for an answer but are also expected to cite a specific part of the text to support their answer. The old SAT merely asked for the correct answer.

• Source  Documents:  The Common Core requires teaching literacy across the curriculum, including historical and technical subjects.  The reading portion of the rSAT will now include source material from science, history, and social studies. Currently, there are no requirements for the source material.

• Vocabulary:  The old SAT required students to memorize obscure words, the rSAT will use words often used in college or career.  The Common Core develops extensive vocabulary built through reading and study widely used in college and whose specific meaning depends on the context, such as "synthesis" and "empirical".

• Essay Writing: Currently no source material is supplied nor expected to be cited. rSAT measures ability to analyze evidence and build an argument, a key component of the Common Core which emphasizes gathering information, evaluating sources, and citing material.

• Math:  The current SAT had a wide variety of math with only a couple of problems per topic. The rSAT focuses on only a few topics with varying degrees of depth. Again, the Common Core will cover fewer math topics in greater depth.

• Analyzing Text and Data: Currently the SAT does not require data analysis, but the rSAT will require analysis of real world text and data. The Common Core often makes use of elaborate data and diagrams from challenging texts to prepare the student for sophisticated nonfiction.  You will also find this on the rSAT.

• Founding Documents: No specific passages in current SAT, but each exam of the rSAT will include a passage drawn from the Founding US Documents or from a speech they inspired.  The Common Core reading standards require students to analyze seminal US documents and how they address related themes and documents. Once again a component found in the rSAT.

  There are other important changes, such as calculators will be used on only part of the math portion, the essay is optional, the score scale is now 1600 and there will be no penalty for guessing.

Will the rSAT be easier? The answer to that is yet to be determined.  However, it does seem that the rSAT is more closely aligned to the school curriculum which follows the Common Core than the school curriculum which does not.