How exactly does scoring work on the Digital SAT?
It’s a good question. Not only does that grading system possibly determine quite a bit about your college future—but the way that the College Board scores the SAT has ALSO changed significantly with the recent switch from a paper-based to a fully digital test.
Today’s post is going to make it easy to understand how your points are tallied on the Digital SAT.
Video version of this article:
ARTICLE CONTENTS:
1. Watch this article as a video
2. Basic structure of the Digital SAT
3. How computer-adaptive technology affects your score
a. Why did they make the new SAT computer-adaptive?
4. Does every question count towards your score?
5. Examples of how the DSAT is scored
b. Low score
6. Digital SAT Grading Formulas
a. SAT score chart: Reading and Writing
7. Conclusion
What is the structure of the Digital SAT?
In our journey towards understanding how the Digital SAT is scored, we need to unpack three different things first before we can even look at a sample scoring rubric. The first of these factors is the overall layout of the test.
In the Digital SAT, there are two sections: the Reading + Writing (RW) section and the Math section.
Each of these two sections are further broken down into two different modules apiece.
The RW section’s two modules each has 27 questions. That means you're going to have 54 questions total for Reading + Writing.
The Math section is also broken down into two separate modules, each with 22 questions in it. So, that's going to be a total of 44 questions for the Math section.
The modules each contain the same types of questions, in roughly the same order. So in the RW modules, you will have questions that test your reading and your writing skills (all mixed together within the same module; the skills of reading and writing are not separated out into different sections or modules, like they were on the paper SAT) in Module 1, and you will have Reading and Writing questions—again, mixed together—in Module 2.
In the Math modules, all the topics are mixed together. However, each module tends to go from easiest to hardest, roughly. It's not a perfect science. So, Module 1 of your Math section will mostly progress from easy questions to hard questions, and Module 2 does the same.
Depending on how you perform on Module 1 of either section, you may get an easier or a harder Module 2.
That, my friends, is the basic outline of the content of the DSAT.
Does computer adaptive technology affect your SAT score?
Remember how I said that your RW Module 2 might be overall easier or harder than the RW Module 1 you got? Module 1? And that the same is true of your Math modules?
Well, that’s because in the Digital SAT, the College Board uses what they call computer adaptive technology. What exactly does that mean? Basically, your performance in the first module—how many questions you got right—determines whether your next module will be more or less challenging than the first.
Let’s look at what that means in real-life terms. Suppose that in your first Reading + Writing module you encountered, you were to get approximately two thirds or more questions correct—so let's call that roughly 18 or more questions—then you would probably get a more difficult Module 2. If, on the other hand, you got fewer than 18 correct in that first RW module, you'd probably get the easier Module 2.
(Please note—these are approximations. It might be that it's 19 questions right and above, depending on the test; or the cut-off point might be below 18 correct questions. We don't precisely know—though we do have some good guesses.)
Why did they make the new SAT computer adaptive?
The beauty of this new, evolves-as-you-go test is that, by altering which module you get based on your previous performance, the overall test can be shorter.
Thus, instead of taking a rather grueling three- or four-hour test, as you had to with the paper SAT, you now get to take the test in two hours and 14 minutes (if you're a regular time test-taker). Today’s test still assesses your skill thoroughly, but it does so in a way that is more time-efficient.
Hooray for getting some of your Saturday or Sunday morning back!
Does every question count towards your score on the DSAT?
Now that you understand the structure of the digital SAT, and you understand how this whole computer adaptive technology thing works, there's one more change you need to learn about in order to fully grasp how the test is scored…and it might come as a bit of a shocker:
some questions on the DSAT do not affect your final score.
What? Are you kidding, Kristina?! Nope. In each of your four modules (distributed across the RW and Math sections), there are going to be two questions that are thrown out entirely.
If you got them right, you're not going to get a point. It doesn't count. Sorry! But of course, that also means if you happen to get one or both of those questions wrong…they don't count against your score, either.
Unfortunately, you will never know which two questions the decoys are, so you have to take them all seriously.
Why has the College Board chosen to do this?
The truth is, none of us outside the inner sanctum of the test-making room know the answer to this. Maybe the College Board does this to try out sample questions on the student population so that they can assess those questions’ difficulty level for future tests? Plausible, but we can’t be certain.
In any case, let’s think about the nitty-gritty of what this means, numerically:
The RW section contains 27 questions per module. Given our new revelation about the presence of fake questions, that actually only comes out to 25 REAL questions per module that matter for your score.
That ultimately means that there are only 50 questions in the whole RW section that actually count towards your RW section score.
As you’ll recall, the Math section has 22 questions in each of its modules—two of which, we now know, don't count. So, in fact, only 20 questions count in each of the Math modules.
Adding the two modules together, 20 + 20 = 40. So, your final Math score is going to be determined by how you answer those 40 questions.
DSAT score breakdowns
Now that we’ve laid the foundation for your understanding, we can talk about some actual example scores.
Perfect score on the Digital SAT
Let’s say someone got ALL of the questions correct on the Reading + Writing section—all 54 questions. Since you answered 100% correctly, you’re also guaranteed to have nailed the 50 that actually counted. In that scenario, you’d get an 800 on the RW section. This same logic applies for the Math section.
When you add these different hypothetical scores up, that means on the high end, you could get up to an 800 in Reading + Writing, and an 800 in Math, for a 1600 total. That would be a perfect score.
Lowest possible score on the Digital SAT
Alternately, let’s imagine a less happy scenario: if you get none of the Reading + Writing questions correct, you’d be given a score of 200. This is also true of Math.
On that lowest end, then, your total score—if you added the two sections together—would be a 400.
Digital SAT Grading Rubric
“But wait,” I can hear you asking. “How many questions in Reading + Writing, or in the Math section, will get me a score between that 200 and 800?” So, this is the thing we all wish existed, my friend: a Digital SAT scoring rubric. What I mean by “rubric” is, “if you get 38 questions correct on Math and 44 questions in Reading Writing, the magical rubric/formula/equation would spit out X total score.”
But that mythical scoring rubric? We will never definitively have a full version of it. The College Board only releases very broad ranges of what each number of RW and Math questions, correctly answered, may give you score-wise on their printed practice tests.
However, those of us who study these tests obsessively (moi!) CAN make intelligent guesses. And so, I’m going to give you a pretty decent approximation of the DSAT scoring curve with a handy chart I’ve made. I created the below chart by poring over all of the available Bluebook practice tests, AND the score ranges that the College Board publishes from its linear non-adaptive practice tests.
Reading + Writing Score Curve for the Digital SAT
I created the above chart for the Reading + Writing section of the Digital SAT. Now, it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be true for every single practice test. But it IS a well-founded estimate—and you can use it to get a good guess of what your score could likely be, based on the number of questions you're getting right in the section.
You may have noticed something about the chart. It goes from zero questions correct all the way through getting all 54 questions correct. Now, as you know, of those 54 correct questions, four of those get thrown out. It’s partially because we don't know which Qs get the axe that this chart is approximate.
You will also note that some of the chart’s “# of questions correct” entries have two possible scores attached, and there’s a reason why:
Imagine that you got 19 questions correct in Reading + Writing. You might have done that by getting 19 correct in Module 1, and now that you got the harder Module 2, you got intimidated or nervous…and unfortunately get zero correct in that second module!
So that’s one way you could get 19 questions correct overall in the whole RW section. However, another way to arrive at that final section tally is this: maybe you got five questions correct in the first module, got the easier Module 2, and then aced 14 questions there! Thus, you could have gotten 19 total questions correct by getting the easier OR the harder second module!
Likewise, there are multiple ways you could have gotten 44 questions correct. Maybe you got all 27 correct in Module 1, and then you got the harder second module and got spooked…and only got another 17 questions correct. Again, that might be one way you could get 44 questions correct. However, you could have gotten 17 correct questions in the FIRST module, gotten the easier Module 2, and then gotten ALL 27 correct there! (I'm assuming that you need ~19 questions correct to move onto the harder Module 2.) So again, you could theoretically get 44 questions correct with the easier OR the harder Module 2.
If, on the other hand, you have one of the low numbers on the chart, you couldn't have gotten the harder Module 2. Only 12 questions correct? Even if you had gotten all 12 correct in Module 1, that is not enough to give you the harder Module 2.
That’s why, if you look at my chart, you’ll notice that from 46 points on, you only have one score. Because in order to get this many questions correct, that means you had to have gotten most correct in that first module, so we know you had the harder second module.
So really, it's the ones in the middle, the ones from approximately 19 questions total to approximately 45 questions total, where you could have gotten the easier module OR the harder module and still gotten that number of questions correct total.
By my calculations, if you got the easier module, you would get the lower of the pair of numbers on the chart. If you got that number of questions correct, but you did it by answering questions in the harder second module, you would earn the higher number out of the pair.
Another thing to point out: the curve of Reading + Writing gets kind of killer at the top. You miss one, and you're usually docked 10, 20 points. I've even seen a practice test where you're docked more points than that.
Digitally Based SAT: Math Score Chart
So now let's look at another score curve, this one for the Math section.
Again, this chart gives you broad approximations, but reasonable ones.
As in the RW section, if you're answering very few questions correctly, there's only one way to get to that final score: you get very few questions correct in Module 1, and then you get the easier second module. So there's only one possible score for those options.
At the high end, you're getting 36 to 44 questions correct. That means you got so many right in that first module that you're basically guaranteed to proceed to the harder second module.
As with RW, there's one track for each of the two score extremes in Math. It's the scores in the middle where you could have gotten 29 questions correct from the easier second module OR from doing really well on the first and then getting the harder one and getting a lot fewer questions right on that. So, for this 29 correct questions example, if you took the easier second module, you might score a 540. Whereas if you had the harder second module, and then you got that many questions correct total, you might get a score that’s 20 or 30 points higher.
Conclusion
Phew! That was a LOT of info! But hopefully I’ve helped clarify how the Digital SAT is scored—an important topic.
And, if you want to gain even more of an edge with the Digital SAT—as in, how to actually raise your Math and RW section scores—then I encourage you to check out my suite of Digital SAT online courses. Each one is totally digital, totally self-directed, and includes all the strategy and content you need to absolutely ACE all four modules of the test.
Or, if you’d prefer a study plan totally catered to YOU and your strengths/weak spots, learn about working with me here.
