SAT考试将于2016年进行改革的消息已经有一段时间了，然而官方却一直没有公布改革细则。2014年3月6日华盛顿邮报发表了一篇文章对2016年SAT改革进行了详细的评说，文中也提及了SAT考试将会改革的几个要点，例如取消timed essay，改为自由选择；改回1600分制等，目的是为了使SAT考试更科学，更人性化，能够更准确地检测出考生的真实水平，下面是评论原文。

SAT to drop essay requirement and return to top score of 1600 in redesign of admission test

　　The SAT college admission test will no longer require a timed essay, will dwell less on fancy vocabulary and will return to the familiar 1600-point scoring scale in a major overhaul intended to open doors to higher education for students who are now shut out.

　　The second redesign of the SAT in this century — announced Wednesday and scheduled to go into effect when today’s high school freshmen take it in 2016 — aims to strip many of the tricks out of a test currently administered to more than 1.5 million students in every high school graduating class. It also comes with a College Board pledge to offer new test-preparation tutorials for free online, enabling students to bypass pricey SAT-prep classes that previously were available mostly to affluent families looking to give their children an edge.

　　Out in the redesign will be “SAT words” that have long prompted anxious students to cram with flashcards, as the test will now focus on vocabulary words that are widely used in college and career. The College Board hasn’t yet cited examples of words deemed too obscure, but “punctilious,” “phlegmatic” and “occlusion” are three tough ones in a College Board study guide.

　　Out, too, will be a much-reviled rule that deducts a quarter point for each wrong answer to multiple-choice questions, deterring random guesses. Also gone: The 2400-point scale begun nine years ago with the debut of the required essay. The essay will become optional.

　　Back will be one of the iconic numbers of 20th-century America: The perfect SAT score, crystalline without a comma, returns to 1600.

　　With these and other changes — such as asking students to analyze documents key to the nation’s founding — College Board officials said they want to make the SAT more accessible, straightforward and grounded in what is taught in high school. Experts say SAT scores have long been strongly correlated to family income, a dynamic the College Board hopes to shake up. Its initiative comes as the 88-year-old test in recent years has slipped behind the rival ACT — a shorter exam with an optional essay — in total student customers.

　　“The road to college success has always been the practice of excellent work in our classrooms,” David Coleman, the College Board’s president, said in an advance copy of a speech planned for Wednesday afternoon in Austin. “It is time for an admissions assessment that makes it clear that the road to success is not last-minute tricks or cramming, but the challenging learning students do each day.”

　　At the same time, Coleman fired a broadside at a test-prep industry that sells books, flashcards and courses to help students raise their scores in the hopes of gaining an edge in competitive college admissions and scholarships.

　　Coleman said the New York-based organization will team with the nonprofit Khan Academy, which delivers free tutorials in math and other subjects via a popular Web siteof the same name, to provide free SAT prep for the world.

　　“The College Board cannot stand by while some test-prep providers intimidate parents at all levels of income into the belief that the only way they can secure their child’s success is to pay for costly test preparation and coaching,” Coleman said. “If we believe that assessment must be a force for equity and excellence, it’s time to shake things up.”

　　Coleman also repeated a pledge he made at the White House in January: The College Board will deliver four college application fee waivers to each test-taker meeting income eligibility requirements, allowing students to apply to four schools for free.

　　Coleman, head of the College Board since fall 2012, previously was a key figure in the development of the new Common Core State Standards. Those standards, which set national expectations for what students should learn in math and English from kindergarten through 12th grade, have been fully adopted in 45 states and the District. Coleman’s vision for the new SAT, with emphasis on analysis of texts from a range of disciplines as well as key math and language concepts, appears to echo the philosophy underlying the Common Core and could match the test more closely to what students are learning in the classroom.

　　The redesign follows a challenging decade for a standardized test launched in 1926 that has wielded enormous influence in American education from the Great Depression through the era of No Child Left Behind. Advocates say the SAT provides a common yardstick for academic merit; critics call it a tool to protect the interests of the elite.