1. Length of the exam The paper SAT exam lasts 3 hours 15 minutes, whereas the digital SAT exam lasts only 2 hours 14 minutes. The shorter SAT exam period is due to a shorter question paper and the ease of answering in digital mode.
2. Availability of the exam Students will start answering digital SATs from March 2024 in all test centers across the USA. However, the digital PSAT exam will be held for global students from October 2023.
3. Securer and more convenient Students will find the digital SAT exam easier than its previous paper-written version. There will be no risk of missing answer sheets in the digital exam, as it was in the case of the paper SAT.
4. Easier Maths section An SAT exam has a Maths section where students need to answer both calculative and non-calculative questions. Now, the new testing app for the digital SAT will have an inbuilt graphic calculator, to make complicated mathematical calculations simpler for students.
5. Shorter reading and writing section The reading and writing section of the paper SAT exam has a few long passages, with several questions at the end of each passage. Now, very short passages with a single question for each will be featured in this section of the digital SAT exam.
6. Faster results of the exam The result of the digital SAT exam will be published only within a few days after the scheduled exam date. It will be much quicker compared to the result time of the paper SAT. Thus, students will be benefitted by faster admission to their desired colleges on the basis of their SAT scores.
7. More time to think of the answer Due to better time management in the digital SAT exam, students will get extra time to think and answer correctly. There will be a clock on the top of the digital screen, to alert them about the time left for completing the exam.
8. The adaptive module of question A question paper for SAT exam always has the same set of questions for all students in the non-digital version. But the digital SAT exam will have two modules of questions, in which the type of questions in the second module will depend on the performance of a student in the first module.