SAT® · Test Mechanics: How the Digital SAT Actually Works
The Score Scale and How Raw Becomes Scaled
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does item response theory turn a pattern of right and wrong answers into a number from 200 to 800?
- How it worksHow do a question's difficulty and your overall answer pattern both feed the SAT's estimate of you?
- Worked exampleWalk me through why missing 4 hard math questions costs less than missing 4 easy ones.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't there one fixed raw-to-scaled conversion table for the digital SAT you could memorize?
- Going furtherWhat sits between 1540 and 1550 on the SAT scale, where no score exists at all?
Check yourself
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Total SAT scores run from 400 to 1600 in steps of 10. A student holds a 1310 and is aiming at 1530. How many reportable total scores lie strictly between the two?End of topic.