By: Ben Sexton
By now, most schools have administered the Digital PSAT, the first rollout of the new Digital
test in the United States. The transition has finally begun! Schools who delivered the DPSAT
mid-week did encounter some delays due to the College Board’s platform going down because
of the surge of test-takers, and some schools even had to postpone the test as a result. But
overall, most schools worked through the delays, and between 85-90% of mid-week test sites
delivered the DPSAT successfully. I have seen no reports of difficulty from this past Saturday’s
test sites. So, despite the initial glitches, the DPSAT platform is up and running. When online AP
exams rolled out, technical difficulties also occurred at first, but they were resolved quickly. I
expect the same will be true with the DPSAT. On Wednesday of last week, 1.2 million students
took the DPSAT successfully.
Student feedback from the test has been largely positive, especially from students who
experienced no delays. Students reported that the timing was much less pressured overall and
that the Math section was easier, even students who were sure they had progressed to the
harder second Math module. In Math, students who knew how to use the Desmos calculator
found it extremely helpful, both as a primary method for solving problems and as a secondary
method for checking their work. Almost everyone reported that they had time to check their
work on most if not all problems.
The one area that some (though not all) students said seemed harder was the Reading. Even
though the passages were much shorter, some students said that it was difficult jumping so
quickly from one topic to the next. Students also reported that semicolons were heavily tested,
a significant departure from the current test, where semicolons have rarely been correct over
the years. And students lastly said that there were a few tough vocabulary words in the opening
vocabulary questions, though not too many of them. No one missed the historical passages.
The DPSAT is scored on a curve, like any other SAT/PSAT, so just because students “felt” that
the test was easier does not mean that all students will score better. Students will likely score
similarly to how they would have scored on a paper-and-pencil PSAT. However, everyone liked
the shorter testing time, and many students’ faces brightened when I asked them how their
testing experience was, especially those students who have also already taken the paper-and-
pencil version of the SAT. Regardless of how the numbers turn out, students found this version
of the test less stressful, always a good thing.
Scores come out in November, much faster than the previous December timeline, so we will
see soon how the results play out. Until then, I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and a
great rest of the Fall.
