SAT Coach Tools Enhancements

Today we're releasing a set of enhancements to the SAT tab within Khan Academy’s coach tools. These enhancements will allow teachers to better support student practice through accountability and targeted interventions.

First, we’ve added a new section at the top of the SAT tab that shows the top reading and writing skills each class needs help with. 

Teachers who have limited time for SAT instruction each week can use this section to decide at a glance what skill is best to spend time covering. 

Second, we’ve made every column in the SAT practice activity table sortable. 

Many SAT teachers told us that they graded students who’d done above a certain threshold of time or activity each week. Sorting should help teachers quickly gauge student activity according to such thresholds. 

Third, we’ve updated the SAT practice activity table to include two new columns that show how closely students are following practice recommendations. 

We learned that many SAT teachers want to gauge to what extent students are doing “meaningful” practice, and that one common signal of “meaningfulness” is following personalized practice recommendations.

The new “% Rec. Math Questions” and “% Rec. Reading & Writing Questions” columns help teachers quickly satisfy that desire. These columns show a percentage calculated from the # of recommended questions done in each subject divided by the total # of questions done in each subject. Teachers can quickly scan these percentages to discover which students might need a reminder to follow recommendations. 

Finally, we’ve introduced a popover that shows which recommended skills a student has or hasn’t worked on. 

Teachers can see this popover by clicking on the percentages of recommended questions done.

Note that this popover will only work if students have either started diagnostic quizzes or linked their College Board accounts to import past exam results; “N/A” will show for students who’ve done neither. A special “Hard Worker!” popover will appear for students who exhaust all questions available on Official SAT Practice for the relevant subject.

Updates to Full-Length Practice Tests

At Khan Academy, we constantly strive to provide the best practice experience for SAT learners. Accordingly, we're making some updates to the full length practice test tab of Official SAT Practice (OSP) on October 11, 2019. 

We are reordering practice tests to align with recommendations from College Board. 

To both surface the most recent tests first and also align with College Board’s Official SAT Study Guide book, we are now showing practice tests in the following order: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3, 1. 

We’re adding two new practice tests (#9 and #10), and removing two older ones (#4 and #2). 

All users will now see College Board’s newest practice tests, #10 and #9, at the top of their practice test tab on OSP. Any users who signed up for OSP after October 11, 2019 will no longer see practice tests #4 and #2, as those tests will be archived to align with College Board’s Official SAT Study Guide book and to maintain a total of eight available practice tests on Official SAT Practice.

We feature the eight most recent SAT practice tests on Khan Academy so students can practice using the latest resources and not feel pressured to take more than eight full-length practice tests. Official SAT Practice includes thousands of practice problems with instant feedback for students looking for more practice.

Any users who signed up for OSP before October 11, 2019 will still see practice tests #4 and #2 for a grace period until November 8, 2019. After this grace period ends, those tests will be archived.  Archiving means that users who have already started or finished one of those two practice tests will be able to review their work; users who haven’t already started one of those practice tests will no longer be able to see them. 

We are changing which practice tests have automated essay grading. 

Practice tests 10, 9, and 8 will now have automated essay grading. 

In consultation with College Board, we are removing automated essay grading for practice tests 1 and 2. Those tests will no longer have automated essay grading, though any students who’ve already had essays graded will have their scores retained as long as they do not reset those tests.  

Overall, instead of only 2 automated graded essays, you'll now have 3 in the Official SAT Practice!

We always welcome any questions or comments you have, so please feel free to share in the comments.