3 Things You Need to Know About the Digital SAT if You Have Test Anxiety

As of this spring, all students are taking the full SAT Suite of Assessments digitally. The new digital SAT is shorter than the former paper and pencil test - around 2 hours instead of 3. Here are the 3 things you need to know about the new digital SAT, from its structure to the potential benefits and challenges it presents.

1 - The digital SAT is all about mastering Bluebook

No matter where you take it, you're going to be taking it using this app called Bluebook. It’s got a built in calculator, references for the math section, annotation tools, and more. This makes taking practice tests vitally important. You need to figure out how you're going to use Bluebook and that can't be on test day.

Having a well-rehearsed plan is one of the main keys to managing anxiety, so make sure you have a Bluebook strategy before test day.

2 - The digital SAT is alive

The new digital SAT is adaptive. For example, depending on how you perform in the reading section , the next section serves up a different combination of questions. That means you won't get necessarily the same test as the person sitting right next to you!

You need to know what that means for anxiety. Again, this is where having a well-rehearsed strategy is vital. You need to know how you are going to approach the test before test day.

3 - The digital SAT has new calculator rules

You may have heard that you can use a calculator on the whole math section and that sounds really exciting, but beware, the college board might try to trick you.

If you choose to use the calculator on some of the questions, it could actually take longer and maybe even make you more likely to get it wrong. So, don't plan to use the calculator on all the questions just because you can. you need to be able to look at a question and decide, is this one of those that I should use a calculator for or is using a calculator It's going to be a trick.

The good news is, many of the questions are written to be shorter than they used to be, including in the math section.

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