这段时间，SAT考试改革细则的公布受到各方关注。2014年3月5日，美国大学委员会(College Board)总裁David Coleman在SAT改革发布会上就SAT改革进行了约1个小时的演讲。

　　根据演讲内容，笔者将对于以下五点进行深度解读。

　　1、为什么要改革?

　　We recently announced that student’s SAT scores in this country revealed that only 43% of US students are ready for college. That number has been flat for 5 years. It is the time to admit that the SAT and ACT have become far too disconnected from the work of our high schools.

　　最近公布的美国考生SAT成绩显示，美国只有43%的学生做好了上大学的准备。这个数字五年以来都是持平的。现在是时候承认SAT和ACT考试越来越与我们的高中内容相脱节。

　　【解读】官方意识到学生普遍反映SAT难度太大，且SAT高分的学员并不一定能在大学取得同样的好分数。所以改革后SAT考试难度会下降，如大家现在已经知道的词汇不再考生僻词、作文改为选考、错题不再倒扣分等。并且根据3月份刚刚在美国考过SAT并经历了新SAT加试的学生的反馈，新SAT中阅读和语法都没有想象中难，而且“语法题由于有上下文参照，做起来更得心应手”。SAT也会与高中的课程更加紧密相关，这一点对于国内读高中的出国党来说，课余时间多读一些美国教材、了解美国课程体系会很有帮助，如美国核心课程标准大纲(Common Core State Standards)就是一个很好的参考。

　　2. 改革后的新SAT

　　The exam will have three sections: Evidence-Based Reading & Writing, The Essay and Math.

　　考试将分为三个部分：循证读写，论文和数学

　　(1)Evidence-based Reading and Writing

　　Let’s start with Evidence-Based Reading and Writing. What does evidence-based mean for the work students will do on the SAT? First, it means the exam will showcase students’ command of evidence rather than just picking the right answers. For every reading passage, we will sometimes ask students to select a quote from the text that best supports an answer they have chosen. Why? Because whenever a question really matters in college, in career or in life, the crucial next step is to support your answer with evidence. And this change means a lot for the work students do to prepare for the exam. No longer will it be good enough to focus on tricks and trying to eliminate answer choices because we are not interested in students just picking answers but justifying their answers.

　　我们先说说循证读写。在SAT考试中什么是循证?

　　首先，循证指的是考试要展示出学生对于答案根据的掌控而不仅仅是选出正确答案。每一篇阅读文章中，我们会常常要求学生找出原文的最准确引用来支持他们所选的选项。为什么?因为无论是在大学里，职场中或者生活中遇到的任意一个重要问题，下一个关键的步骤就是能够用证据来证明你的答案。这个改变对于学生该如何准备考试有重要的意义。寻找考试技巧去排除错误选项已经远远不够了，因为我们不再关注学生可以选对正确答案而是希望学生可以证明自己的答案。

　　The second way the evidenced-based reading and writings section will focus on evidence is asking students to read and analyze wide range of source text including literature and literary non-fiction, but also science, history and social studies. When analyzing documents in science and social studies, students will be asked to attend to data in tables and graphs and other formats, to synthesize information from words and numbers. When students edit in the writing section, they will then be asked to attend evidence and work with narratives, graphs and tables.

　　循证读写部分中第二种强调证据的方式是要求学生阅读和分析各种材料，不仅包括文学作品以及非小说类文学作品，另外还有科学历史和社会学范畴的材料。在分析科学和社会学类的文本时，学生需要注意表格，图表等形式中的数据并且能够将从文字和数字中获得的信息进行整合。当学生在做写作部分的时候，他们需要关注证据并且能够处理记叙文，图表和表格。

　　There will no longer be sentence completions on the SAT. Instead, students will analyze sequences of paragraphs to make sure they are correct grammatically and substantively. Students will edit for the effective choice of words but do so in a more rich extended real word context.

　　SAT取消了填空题。取而代之的是段落顺序分析从而确保它们在语法上和语义上都正确。学生需要在更加丰富真实的语境中有效地选择词汇。

　　【解读】填空取消了!!官方之前只说会取消生僻词，并无明确说明会取消填空考试!取而代之的是在有语境的文段中选择意思正确的词汇，演讲中David Coleman还以synthesis为例，如果在职业场景下，synthetic意思是人造的或者人工的;但是说到化学，synthesis意思就是把两个东西合成一个新的东西;还可以指把单词，数据组合起来引出新的解释。所以新SAT要求多种语境下理解词语的使用。David Coleman还指出，唯一的学习方式就是广泛阅读和学习词汇的多种用法。新SAT的Evidence-based Reading and Writing部分的范围会从扩大到科学、历史、社会及艺术等方面，并加入图表分析、数据使用等内容，旨在让考生注重高中课堂的学习。