There are also a few smaller changes that you need to know about.
• You have much more time for the Essay. The old Essay gave you an
insanely short 25 minutes; the new one gives you a still-annoying-but-far-
more-reasonable 50 minutes.
• There is no guessing penalty.* The old SAT deducted 0.25 point for each
wrong answer. The new SAT does not. This means you MUST guess,
because there is no downside and there’s at least a 25 percent chance that
you’ll guess right. For more on best-practices guessing, go to Chapter 7.
*If you’re just about out of time on a section and still have unanswered questions, fill in all of their bubbles with the same letter. I’m a “B”girl, myself.
—Samantha• The new score is out of 1600, not 2400. If you are hoping to score a 2400,
even the new perfect score will disappoint you.