Description of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT I): Reasoning Test and Cautions in Interpreting School Results

Description of the SAT I: Reasoning Test (SAT I)

The SAT I measures the basic verbal and mathematical abilities that a student has acquired over many years--both in and out of school. It tests ability to reason rather than to remember facts and it does not require special preparation. Results are reported in three-digit scaled scores on a 200- to 800-point scale.

This report summarizes information for 1998 seniors who took SAT I test any time during their high school years through April 1998. If a student took a test more than once, the most recent score is used.

All scores are reported here on the recentered SAT score scale. Original scaled scores from the previous five administrations have been converted to the recentered scale in order to compare data from 1994 through 1998.

Cautions in Interpreting School Test Results

Readers are cautioned not to rely too heavily upon test scores as measures of instructional quality, and not to use test scores exclusively to compare schools, areas, or school systems. Any interpretation of SAT I results should take into account the following:

1. The SAT I does not attempt to assess any specific local high school curriculum or a more general "national curriculum."
2. The multiple choice format limits the type of questions that can be asked and the skills that can be covered. For instance, students are not asked to write a sentence or paragraph. This test does not assess listening or oral communication skills, nor does it attempt to measure such work-related attributes as responsibility, initiative, and creativity.
3. Each year's average score for a school represents the results for a completely different group of students.
4. The scores of students in smaller high schools will tend to vary more from year to year than the scores of students from larger schools.
5. Average scores for schools do not give information about how many students scored at a high level or a low level. In each school, many students may score at a high level and many others may score at a low level.
6. Since all students in a school, school district, or state do not take the SAT I, and since the population of test takers is self-selected, using aggregate SAT I scores to compare or evaluate teachers, schools, districts, states, or other educational units is not valid and the College Board strongly discourages such use.