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CNN Live Today

SATs to Be Changed

Aired June 27, 2002 - 13:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And now another vote we're following for you that we've anticipating today, a vote that perhaps changes the face of the dreaded SAT scores, the college entrance exams, a vote today to give it a face-lift.

Let's go now to our Maria Hinojosa. She's been following this for us.

What's the latest?

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, as you know, the SATs is the most widely used admission test in the world. We have just heard that it has been announced by the president of the college board that they will be implementing the farest reaching changes that have been experienced in this 76-year-old test.

The changes basically will come down to this. There will be a writing test that will be added. This is important because a lot of college admissions officials are worried about what other writing examples that they get. This writing test will be part of the SAT taken during the test. The analogies will be replaced by more critical reading passages. And the math test is going to be expanded to include topics from algebra II.

Now, many have said that the college board was moved forward in this decision because of the fact that the University of California system had threatened, a little bit over a year ago, to stop using the SATs altogether. The college board says that this is something that they have been looking at, these changes they've been studying since 1990. But it was when the University of California system -- which is the largest state to use the system -- threatened to drop the SATs, that, basically, they were moved forward to make these changes.

There are some people who believe, though, that these changes are not far enough. There are students downstairs from an organization called nomoretests.com that say they believe that the tests should be taken away entirely.

So at this point now, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of the college board (UNINTELLIGIBLE) announced that these changes will take place, but they won't go into effect until March of 2005 -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you very much, Maria, for that update -- changes to take effect March 2005 for the SAT, a very new now SAT.

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