SAT Scoring

The SAT scoring process can be very complicated to understand. The final SAT score that a student receives has undergone a process that has altered the score twice. Please read below for a detailed explanation on SAT scoring.

A student takes the SAT test during their high school junior or senior year. The aim of this test is for all students applying to colleges and universities in the United States to have taken the same test. This way admission offices have a way to compare all students against a standardized test.

The SAT test was fist administered in 1901 and has undergone several alterations or changes since that date. At present, the SAT test format includes three main sections. These sections are math, writing, and critical reading.

The math and critical reading sections both are composed of multiple choice questions. The writing section has two subsections. The first contains multiple choice questions and the second has an essay portion.

The SAT test will take a student, on average, four hours and a half to complete. Students can obtain their test scores, via the internet, three weeks after the test has been completed. The information that the student receives will have their raw score, percentile and final, scaled score.

SAT Scoring The raw score is the true data showing the number of correct and incorrect answers the student had on the test. The raw score will be broken-down to show this information for each of the three major sections.

For a correct answer, a student receives one point towards their total score. For an incorrect answer, the student will have ¼ of a point subtracted from their total score. A student is not penalized for unanswered questions.

The critical reading section of the SAT has 67 questions. The math section has 54 questions. The writing section has 49 multiple choice questions and one essay. Both of the writing sections receive their own individual raw scores.

To determine the percentile a score falls under, administrators take the raw scores for math, critical reading and the multiple choice section of writing. An individual’s raw score is compared to all other scores for the SAT test that year. The percentile given to the student is based on how many other people received a raw score lower than that individual.

As the final step, after the percentile is determined, the administrators place these percentiles on a bell curve. For each major section of the SAT, a scaled score of 200-800 is given. Administrators aim for the 50th percentile to fall around 500 points. Examples follow on how scaled scores are calculated for each section. These numbers are based on the 2009 SAT Raw Score to Scaled Score Ranges.

For the critical reading section, if a student gets 55 questions correct, then they will have a raw score of 52. This score would fall around the 71st percentile. This score would receive a scaled score of 630-660.

For the math section, if a student gets 42 questions correct, then they will have a raw score of 39. This score would fall around the 67th percentile. This score would receive a scaled score of 600-620.

For the multiple choice portion of the writing section, if a student gets 38 questions correct, then they will have a raw score of 35.25. This score would fall around the 64th percentile. This score would receive a scaled score of 580-600.

The essay portion of the writing section is graded by two separate teachers. Each teacher grades the essay on a scale of 1-6. These scores are combined to achieve the raw score for the essay portion. An essay raw score can therefore range from 2-12.

To determine the total raw score of the writing section, the multiple choice raw score and the essay raw score are combined. The scores do not carry the same weight. The multiple choice portion counts for 70% of the raw score. The essay portion counts for 30% of the raw score.

Administrators then combine these writing raw scores and obtain a percentile for them. This percentile is then calculated against the scaled score to determine the final writing scaled score.

The final SAT scaled score that an individual will receive is a combination of the scaled scores on the three separate sections. A SAT score can range from 200 points to 2400 points. The 50th percentile or median score would be 1500.