Technology and math aspects of the new digital SAT

In the US, the College Board will introduce the new digital PSAT in the fall of 2023 to be followed by the new digital SAT in the spring of 2024.

 It looks like the College Board will base their new digital SAT (and PSAT) on what they are doing for the school day SAT in states that use it, including my home state of CT.  This year CT will be giving the school day SAT online rather than use paper-and-pencil.  For those unfamiliar with the school day SAT, it is a day on which all the juniors in a school take a SAT.  State or local governments or individual schools (typically private schools) contract directly with the College Board for this service. 

Some things about the digital SAT and the electronic school day SAT are the same.

 Each school must have a "technical coordinator." The software that is being used includes a "secure College Board browser" that is written by Cambium Assessment Inc (CAI), a large company based in Washington DC. The browser creates a secure electronic space that cannot be penetrated by other software on the desktop. Students will have access to the Desmos online calculator or can bring their own calculator.

 In math we are told that the content will stay the same.  There will continue to be a mixture of multiple choice questions along with fill-in-the-answer questions.

Some things about the digital SAT will be different from the school day SAT.

The school day SAT is not adaptive, content is fixed in advance just like the paper-and-pencil SAT.  We think the digital SAT will be section adaptive, meaning that answers to problems in the first section determine what questions are asked in the next section. (CAI is proud of their ability to adapt on a question-by-question basis but it looks like the SAT will not work that way.)

Another difference is that school day SAT computers are provided by the school and set up in advance by the technical coordinator.  For the digital SAT, students will be able to bring their own laptops (or tablets) and install the CB secure browser themselves in advance of the test (or with the help of the technical coordinator).

Because school day SAT computers are provided by the school, testing might run over a period of days to allow students to be rotated across days so that all juniors have an opportunity to take the test.  This will no longer be necessary because everyone can test on the same day.  Although it appears that the software used to take the digital SAT will not have to access the network with every click of the mouse, it is not clear how well hundreds of students sitting in the school will be able to function on a shared wifi.

One difference in math will be that students can use a calculator on all questions.  Also, word problems are expected to be more concise.