The digital SAT · section one

Reading and Writing.

54† questions in 64 minutes†. That is about 71 seconds each — and unlike the old SAT, one question per passage†, so there is no long passage to read once and mine repeatedly. Every question is a fresh, short text.

Three practice items The Math section

tomorrowto the 3 Oct SAT

The four domains

What they weigh.

What the short texts change. Skimming a long passage was the old skill. Here the text is 25–150 words and you must read all of it, because there is nothing else. The pace pressure is real but the reading load per question is small.

4 domains† — the shares below are College Board’s own. Questions come in domain order within each module, and within a domain’s group from easiest to hardest (easiest to hardest†).

≈28%

Craft and Structure

The largest slice. Vocabulary in context, the function of a sentence within a text, and connections across two short texts.

Words in Context is the one to drill: it is not a vocabulary test in the old sense, it is a logic test with a blank. Cover the options, predict the word yourself from the sentence, then find the option closest to your prediction.

Text Structure and Purpose asks what a sentence is doing, not what it says. Answers that merely restate the content are the trap.

≈26%

Information and Ideas

Central ideas, detail, command of evidence — including the ones with a small data figure — and inference.

Command of Evidence items give you a claim and ask which finding would support or weaken it. Decide what the claim needs before looking. With the graph versions, read the axes and units first.

Inference items end with a blank and want the most logical completion. Everything required is in those few lines.

≈26%

Standard English Conventions

Grammar with a rulebook: sentence boundaries, subject–verb agreement, pronouns, verb tense and form, punctuation within and between clauses, and modifier placement.

The rules are finite and they repeat, which makes this the domain where practice pays most directly. If your time is short and your conventions work is soft, start here.

The single most common item: is this a sentence boundary problem? Find the subject and the verb of each half. Two independent clauses cannot be joined by a comma alone.

≈20%

Expression of Ideas

Rhetorical synthesis and transitions.

Transitions are pure logic: work out the relationship between the two sentences — same direction, opposite, cause, example, sequence — and name it before you look at the options.

Rhetorical Synthesis gives you notes and a stated goal. The goal is the whole question: an option can be true, fluent and drawn from the notes and still be wrong because it does not do what the goal asked.

Practice

Three items, written for this page.

These are not College Board questions and are not taken from any test. They show the shape of each type. For real items, use the free official practice — free, official†.

Transitions

The colony’s founders planted olives, expecting the mild coastal winters they had known at home. ______ the first frost killed every tree in a single night.

A) Similarly B) Instead C) For example D) Therefore

Answer
B. Name the relationship before reading the options: the expectation and the outcome are opposed. Only B marks a reversal. D would need the frost to follow from the mild winters, which is backwards.
Words in Context

Far from settling the question, the excavation ______ it: each new layer contradicted the dating offered for the one above.

A) resolved B) complicated C) documented D) abandoned

Answer
B. Predict first: “far from settling” demands the opposite of settling, and the colon explains how — contradiction upon contradiction. A is the opposite. C is true of any excavation and says nothing. D does not fit “it”.
Standard English Conventions — boundaries

The tide charts were printed each spring ______ fishermen relied on them for a decade.

A) , and B) , C) and, D) ; and

Answer
A. Both halves are independent clauses. A comma alone (B) splices them; “; and” (D) doubles up. Comma plus coordinating conjunction is the standard join.

Method

Where every figure comes from.

The sources

106 statements about 9 tests, each read off the testing body’s own page or PDF and quoted beside the value: College Board, ACT, Law School Admission Council, ETS, Graduate Management Admission Council and Association of American Medical Colleges — 38 official pages in all. The format statements were read on 8 September 2026 (the SAT’s added ones on 9 and 28 September 2026); the calendars were re-read on 28 September 2026. SAT score ranges for 700 colleges are the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard, public-domain federal data, fetched 8 September 2026: 700 of the 1,037 schools that report an SAT average, complete down to an average of 1,102.

Fetched and computed

Nothing is fetched from a testing body when a page loads: the readings are two files on labs.llc, tests.json and colleges.json. What is computed, on labs.llc, at the moment you load the page: every countdown and registration state (in the body’s own time zone — Eastern, Central for the ACT), the study plan, the finder’s gauges and the arithmetic in the SAT page’s dealt openings.

The limits

These are readings, not a live feed: confirm a deadline on the body’s own site before you rely on it. Calendars end — SAT 5 Jun 2027, ACT 10 Jul 2027 and LSAT 12 Jun 2027 in these files, and the MCAT’s has already run out, which its page says. GMAC’s mba.com and the AAMC’s calendar sit behind browser checks this site will not try to get past; where that cost a reading, the page says so. The Scorecard figures are the latest cohort the Department had published, which trails the current admissions year.

What you type

The test, date, score or state you put into a form here travels only as the address of the next page on labs.llc (?t=, ?d=, ?s=, ?st=). Nothing is stored. The site’s analytics records page views, and that address is part of the view it records. No account, no cookie of this page’s own; the edition switch keeps one word, paper or dark.

The full method · what was here before, what the checking caught, and what this page will never do. Not affiliated with College Board, ACT, LSAC, ETS, GMAC or the AAMC; SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, AP, ACT, LSAT, GRE, TOEFL, GMAT and MCAT are their trademarks.