THE USE, ACCEPTANCE, AND IMPACT OF TAKING THE SAT —A TEST FAMILIARIZATION BOOKLET

The College Board recently published Taking the SAT , a booklet designed to improve candidates' familiarity with the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the Test of Standard Written English (TWSE), which is administered with the SAT. Prepublication copies were mailed to a random sample of SAT candidates, and the recipients, after taking the tests, were surveyed for their perceptions of the booklet and its influence on their test‐taking. An equivalent random sample received only About the SAT , a briefer Board publication that Taking the SAT is to replace, and were surveyed for their test‐taking experiences and their opinions of the older test familiarization booklet. Test scores of the students in both groups were subsequently obtained from SAT score files for comparison. The survey showed that the first group had reacted positively to the new publication and used it extensively. These candidates perceived numerous benefits from its use, some of them greater than the benefits perceived by candidates who had used only the older, briefer publication. The analysis did not, however, uncover any effects of the new booklet on scores for any section of the SAT or TSWE. Nevertheless, many students believed that Taking the SAT had helped them achieve higher scores. The report documents the strong points of the new booklet and makes recommendations for improving some sections in future editions.