College Board to readjust math SAT scores due to bad question

The rescoring will affect nearly 45,000 students who took the Scholastic Aptitude Test October 12. The College Board announced Wednesday that it will increase the Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of 45,000 students who took a flawed version of the test last October. This is the first case of such a flaw in 14 years, according to officials from the College Board -- a nonprofit organization of over 3,000 member schools that oversees the administration of college entrance exams, including the SAT, the SAT II and Advanced Placement tests. Officials decided to rescore the test after a student alerted them that a math question had more than one possible answer, depending on whether the value of one variable was positive or negative. "We knew there was a problem after three college math experts confirmed the student's perception," SAT Program Director Brian O'Reilly said in a written release. "Not only did this exceptional student find a flaw that had been overlooked by internal and external math specialists during extensive reviews, but he did so while taking the SAT," O'Reilly said. Gretchen Rigol, admissions and guidance services director for the College Board, said the problem was rare and should not reoccur. "Now that the question has been identified as flawed, it will not be included in future tests," she said. In rescoring the test, the College Board will treat all answers to the question as equally correct, according to Rigol. As a result, approximately 13 percent of the 350,000 tests administered October 12, 1996 will be rescored. Most scores will increase 10 points while a few will increase 20 or 30 points, Rigol said. She noted that no scores will decrease. "We decided no student should get a lower score because of confusion about the question," she said. The Educational Testing Service -- which develops and administers tests for the College Board -- began recalculations immediately and should finish rescoring the tests by the end of the week, according to Rigol. ETS will then send revised score reports to students, as well as high schools, colleges and any scholarship services that received the original scores. "We're rushing to get the revised score reports out as quickly as possible because we realize that college admissions officers have already begun reviewing applications," O'Reilly said in the release. Rigol estimated that 28 million students have taken the SAT since the last flawed question was found in 1982, during which time the College Board has administered 107 different versions of the test with 8,927 verbal and 6,240 math questions.

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