Digital SAT will tailor questions

Pencils down, power on. Students taking the SAT this week will see some hitech changes as the college admissions exam goes fully digital and adopts an “adaptive” testing method — meaning the difficulty of questions they face will change depending on how they performed in prior parts of the assessment.

“Each test section (Reading and Writing, and Math) is divided into two equallength, separately timed parts called modules,” according to the College Board, which creates and administers the SAT.

“You’ll answer a set of questions in the first module before moving on to the next. The questions you’re given in the second module depend on how you performed on the first module.”

The first module “consists of a broad mix of easy, medium and hard questions across a range of domains. The second will feature “on average, either of higher difficulty or of lower difficulty than that in the first module,” the organization explained.

Students who are given easier questions in the second portion of the SAT “won’t be disadvantaged,” the College Board insists.

“You’ll be presented with questions tailored for your abilities. You won’t be presented with questions that are much too hard or much too easy,” it said according to its website. “You can be confident that you’re going to end up with an accurate score. Your score will reflect your achievement and skills based on your answers to questions in both modules.”

Questions remain

However, the organization does not explain whether students who receive harder questions in the back half of the sections will be penalized if they answer incorrectly. It also didn’t explain how the SAT remains standardized while varying questions among test-takers.

The Post has reached out to the College Board for comment about the changes, which are slated to roll out Saturday.

Students are still required to take the SAT in person. They can use their own laptops or tablets, borrow a device from their school or make a prior arrangement to use a loaner from the College Board.

Scores will be calculated for the entire section based on both modules, and the full SAT will still be on a 1600-point scale.

The adaptive testing change also drops the test’s duration to two hours from three — and students will get their results within days instead of weeks.

The changes to the SAT come as elite colleges are reversing their decision to be test-optional.