As COVID-19 sweeps across the nation, the College Board has had to make serious changes to the plan for upcoming standardized tests. At the time of writing, the May 2nd SAT and March make-up SAT are both cancelled, leaving June 6th as the next testing date. The April 3rd and 4th ACT have rescheduled for June 12th and 13th. Finally, AP tests have been reconfigured to be 45 minute exams meant to be taken at home.
The content of AP tests has also been changed. To account for the shorter amount of time that students have had to learn content in a classroom, many exams have had the scope of their content shrunk to the point where most classes were expected to end at. Furthermore, students will have two test dates to choose from depending if they want to have the content fresh in their mind with a sooner test date. Information about what units will be covered on the tests can be found on the College Board’s website. The testing dates and type of questions will reportedly be available on April 3rd.
In addition to these measures, the College Board is providing students with free online webinars that focus on not only content that goes further than what most classes reached before students were sent home but also extensive review of content that will be more likely to be included on AP tests. These webinars feature teachers from across the nation teaching each AP subject and, if missed, will also be available on YouTube on the Advanced Placement channel.
Students who were planning to take one of the cancelled SAT could also use the extra time to practice. One avenue of SAT practice is Khan Academy, which offers free, personalized SAT practice problems and tests. Khan Academy, however, only covers test content without going into many test-taking strategies. SAT books or other online services are another possibility, which may cost more but give better coverage of test-taking strategies.
