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New SAT Paper for Practicing your Essay Writing Skills

The new SAT has a completely new task given to students.

In it, students are asked to do rhetorical analysis of a piece (written or spoken), but a common question our students ask is “how long should it be?”

In the previous essay, students had 2 pages to fill in order to complete the writing task. So, the maximum a student could write was that. And Dr. Les Perelman, who previously served as Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and an Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at MIT, found that:

“It appeared to me that regardless of what a student wrote, the longer the essay, the higher the score…”

His findings were based on:

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The Ultimate Grammar Resources Guide on the Web for the SAT/ACT

An Ultimate List of Grammar Guides

Purdue OWL

The grandfather of all University guides on grammar is Purdue’s OWL. OWL stands for “Online Writing Lab” and has been around for years. I think I discovered OWL back in 2007 or 2008. A past co-worker who graduated from Purdue told me they had an incredible resource for students and she valued it so much. Since then, I’ve seen it referred to constantly. I’ve used it myself to aggregate exercises for many past classes. It’s a great place to start.

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign – The Center for Writing Studies

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Creating Equality in the Education Field

Entering the Test Preparation arena close to 10 years ago, SanLi has made an effort to create equality for all races and ethnicities. However, we never realized we would also contribute to gender equality as we assumed there was parity between the sexes before we helped all the Chinese and Asian kids throughout Asia as one of the Top Providers of SAT and ACT Test Preparation.

Forbes recently reported that the New SAT is continuing the trend of men outdoing their female counterparts on the exam:

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How to Prepare for the New SAT’s Reading Comprehension

You’ve most likely heard by now that the New SAT has come out with changes that many are surprised are possibly making the test easier. In particular, some are saying the reading comprehension section is less difficult than before.

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New SAT Registration is NOW Open for 2016-2017 School Year

You’ve heard it first here at SanLi. Just shortly after the College Board announced officially on their Twitter Account:

You can register here for next school year’s SAT.

And again, the dates are:

October 1st, 2016
November 5, 2016
December 3, 2016
January 21, 2017
March 11, 2017 (US Only)
May 6, 2017
June 3, 2017

Also, if you’re looking for the other dates and deadlines, here they are:

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June 2016 SAT Scores Out July 21st

For those who took the June 2016 SAT, you may be wondering when your scores are coming out. Well, the College Board has told us via Twitter.

So expect your scores here in two weeks on Thursday, July 21st!

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New SAT Essay: Top Universities Requiring the Writing Test

The New SAT in March 2016 delivered many changes to college bound high school students including:

An absence of a penalty for wrong answers
Scores changing from the system used since 2005 providing a maximum of 2400 to the old score of 1600
And arguably, the difficulty, many say the test may have even became easier when it comes to reading and grammar

One change many high schoolers were grateful for was the the dropping of the Essay portion of the exam as a requirement to complete the exam. Following in the College Board’s footsteps, many Universities also opted to not require it as a part of their application for admissions.

However, the Top Universities definitely did not shy away from continuing the requirement. Using the Times Higher Education Top US Colleges list for 2016, we examine who does and who does not:

Top Colleges Still Requiring the SAT Essay

Top universities in the United States 2016 by Times Higher Education

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Great Alternative to the Limited Availability for the ACT

As you can see from our post about the “limited ACT Test seats in September 2016 many months in advance” post, it is hard to take the popular college bound admissions exam. However, as we have reported, the New SAT has possibly become easier at least with regards to Reading and Grammar.

So, we decided to check on the availability this fall with the first test here in Hong Kong. At first, it looked as bleak as the ACT availability:

However, after further examination, there are MANY seats available:

September New SAT Availability in Hong Kong

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September ACT Test Seats NOW Available

Keeping constant tabs on the ACT availability of seats for our valued Hong Kong clients, we’ve noticed that the fall had limited availability, BUT…

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ACT Essay Changes Scoring from 36 to 12 for a Perfect Score

As reported by the ACT recently (June 27, 2016), they will be changing their optional ACT essay scoring from a 36 point scale to a 12 point one matching the SAT. While not identical in how the essay is scored, it will use the same numbers for scoring the writing component of the exam.

For example, if you scored a 21 on the Essay prior to this fall, it would equate to a 7 on the new scale. Basically, you can divide the old scale (up to 36) by 3 and it will equate to the new scoring scale. Specific details are available here

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