Out of 1.5 million students who took the SAT in 2009, 40% were minorities, an all time high. In addition, more than 25% of students indicated that English was not their first language.
Historically, the majority of students taking the SAT were Caucasian which led many to discount the test as being biased towards this one group. The College Board makes every effort to create current SAT exams that do not discriminate based on ethnicity.
In 2005, the College Board made a major revision to the SAT by removing analogies which they believed could favor students from specific socioeconomic backgrounds. The analogies section also encouraged students to “cram” before the test to memorize as many vocabulary words as possible which ran contrary to the desired goal of the test.
The “new” SAT also included a written essay which the College Board believed was an integral part of a high school student’s eligibility to move on to college.
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