How the digital SAT works
The SAT is taken on a laptop or tablet in College Board's Bluebook app. It has two sections, Reading and Writing then Math, and each section has two modules. How you do in the first module of a section decides whether its second module is harder or easier.
The two sections
| Section | Modules | Questions | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading and Writing | 2 | 27 per module | 32 minutes per module |
| Math | 2 | 22 per module | 35 minutes per module |
There is a 10-minute break between the sections. Each module has 2 unscored pretest questions, and you cannot tell which ones they are, so treat every question as if it counts.
The adaptive part
Module 1 of each section has a broad mix of easy, medium and hard questions. If you do well, module 2 is harder on average; if not, it is easier. Only students routed to the harder module 2 can reach the top scores, so the first module matters: careless mistakes there cost more than they seem to.
Within a module you can move back and forth, flag questions to come back to, and change answers until time runs out. Wrong answers do not lose marks, so never leave a question blank.
Scoring
Reading and Writing is scored 200-800; with Math (also 200-800) the total is 400-1600. Scores are worked out from which questions you got right and how hard they were. College Board does not publish a conversion from raw marks to scores, which is why we do not give 200-800 scores for our own practice: use the Bluebook practice tests for that.
What it means for your preparation
- Practise on screen, with a timer: our Reading and Writing module and Math module.
- Learn each question type, since every Reading and Writing question has a set job: the question-type guides.
- Calculators: Desmos is built into Bluebook for the whole Math section.
- Keep a mistake log and revisit it weekly.
SAT prep home · Take the diagnostic · The plan to 1600
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