The College Board press release is at https://www.collegeboard.org/releases/2014/expand-opportunity-redesign-sat .

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html
Major Changes in SAT Announced by College Board
By TAMAR LEWIN
New York Times
MARCH 5, 2014

Saying its college admission exams do not focus enough on the important academic skills, the College Board announced on Wednesday a fundamental rethinking of the SAT, eliminating obligatory essays, ending the longstanding penalty for guessing wrong and cutting obscure vocabulary words.

David Coleman, president of the College Board, criticized his own test, the SAT and its main rival, the ACT, saying that both “have become disconnected from the work of our high schools.”

In addition, Mr. Coleman announced new programs to help low-income students, who will now be given fee waivers allowing them to apply to four colleges at no charge. And even before the new exam starts, the College Board, in partnership with Khan Academy, will offer free online practice problems from old tests and instructional videos showing how to solve them.

The changes coming to the exam are extensive: The SAT’s rarefied vocabulary words will be replaced by words that are common in college courses, such as “empirical” and “synthesis.” The math questions, now scattered widely across many topics, will focus more narrowly on linear equations, functions and proportional thinking. The use of a calculator will no longer be allowed on some of the math sections. The new exam will be available on paper and computer, and the scoring will revert to the old 1600 scale, with a top score of 800 on math and what will now be called “Evidence-Based Reading and Writing.” The optional essay will have a separate score.

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Mr. Coleman, who came to the College Board in 2012, announced his plans to revise the SAT a year ago. He has spoken from the start about his dissatisfaction with the essay test added to the SAT in 2005, his desire to make the test mesh more closely with what students should be doing in high school, and his hopes of making a dent in the intense coaching and tutoring that give affluent students an advantage on the test and often turn junior year into a test-prep marathon.

“It is time for the College Board to say in a clearer voice that the culture and practice of costly test preparation that has arisen around admissions exams drives the perception of inequality and injustice in our country,” he said in a speech Wednesday in which he announced the changes. “It may not be our fault, but it is our problem.”

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The group differences in SAT scores are also found in NAEP scores, which students are not directly preparing for. Differential access to test prep does not explain group differences in SAT scores. Coleman is effectively trying to reduce the g loading of the SAT, which used to stand for Scholastic Aptitude Test, but the g loading is the main reason it has predictive power for college grades in the first place.