Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, owned by The Washington Post Co., surveyed 1,998 students at 39 sites nationwide after the first administration of the newly redesigned SAT on March 12, and an overwhelming number of students came to one conclusion: It was long.
Eighty-seven percent of students said the three-hour, 45-minute exam was the longest test of their lives. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
According to Kaplan, the new test is:
• Longer than the graduate admissions exams for business school (GMAT, 3 1/2 hours), law school (LSAT, 3 hours, 25 minutes) and graduate school (GRE, 2 1/2 hours). In fact, among all admissions tests, only the medical school admissions exam (MCAT, currently 5 3/4 hours) is longer.
• Approximately four times as long as the average root canal.
• Longer than it took more than 6,000 runners to finish the 2004 Boston Marathon.
• Longer than the length of a typical Academy Awards program.
"At the end I had blurred vision," said one test-taker from Texas.
Source: Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions
