SAT India Pattern 2024: Know Marking Scheme & Exam Duration

SAT exam is conducted seven times a year. Aspirants can opt for the exam session as per their convenience and admission cycle of the target university. Given below are the key highlights of SAT India exam pattern. 

The break-up of SAT exam pattern 2025 for both the test sections is as mentioned in the table below. 

Aspirants can go through the detailed section-wise exam structure of SAT India 2025 below.

SAT India Exam Pattern for Evidence-based Reading Section

The reading and writing section of the SAT consists of short reading passages ranging from 25 to 250 words, followed by a single MCQ. The RW section is divided into two modules. Each module consists of 25 operational questions and 2 pre-test questions. 

In the Reading Section of SAT India 2025, students need to read the passage and thereafter answer the questions asked by making an argument or telling a story or explaining the study/ experiment.

Candidates can expect the below-mentioned types of questions in the SAT India Reading section:

• Information and Idea Generation Questions: These are mostly around the main idea of the reading passage.
• Rhetoric Questions: These are around the tone, style, or meaning conveyed by the passage/ author.
• Synthesis Questions: There mostly are around drawing conclusions and making connections between passages. Such questions may also include graphs/ charts/ tables.

Topics from which passages are usually asked in this section of SAT India include:

SAT Exam Pattern for Evidence-based Writing Section

In Evidence-based Writing Section of SAT India, students need to read and thereafter edit passages. The passages in this section are mostly argumentative, narrative, informatory or exploratory in nature. The questions asked are broadly from two categories, which are:

• Expression of Idea: There questions help to improve the structure as well as how well the idea has been put forward. It also requires students to improve the language/ words used to explain the idea.
• Standard English Conventions: These questions require students to fix and re-arrange in such a way that sentence structure, grammar and punctuation errors are rectified.

Topics from which passages are usually asked in this section of SAT India include:

SAT India Exam Pattern for Mathematics

Each section consists of 2 modules.

Module 1 - Consists of a mix of easy, hard and difficult questions

Module 2 - Consists of a mix of varying difficulty-based questions depending on the candidate's performance in module 1.

Types of questions in SAT Maths Section:

The SAT exam pattern for the maths section consists of question types in the following ratios.

• 75% MCQ

• 25% Student-produced response (SPR) questions.

Where SPR is like fill-in-the-blank, where the candidate needs to enter the response for the given question.  Candidates can use calculator. It is allowed through the maths section. It is up to the candidates and they have to wisely decide which questions require a calculator and which don't, to use the time efficiently.

The questions asked in this section of SAT India comprise of questions from three areas, which are:

• Algebra
• Problem Solving and Data Analysis 
• Passport to Advanced Math 

Topics from which questions are asked in SAT India Mathematics sections are mentioned below:

Questions asked in SAT India Subject Tests are not taken from some specific textbook or teaching methods. SAT India Subject Tests comprise of the latest trends in the corresponding subject that are taught in High School courses.

The SAT exam is objective. The total duration is 2 hrs and 14 mins. Candidates would have to attempt a total of 98 questions tested in both SAT sections of RW & Math. Check below the latest SAT Exam/Test Pattern for the year 2025 for students looking to appear for their next SAT Reasoning Test for higher education to universities/ colleges abroad. 

The composite SAT score ranges from 400 to 1600, which included scores of Evidence-based Reading & Writing (200 to 800 marks) and Math (200 to 800 marks).

For calculation of the SAT score the formula that is applied includes converting the raw score (number correct attempts) to a scaled score from 10 to 40. Scoring may have variations due to difference in difficulty levels of different version of SAT.

To calculate the SAT score, marks obtained in Reading and for Writing and Language is multiplied by 10 to get the Reading and Writing section score and then they are added together. Similarly, the raw score of Math Test is multiplied by 20 to get the Math section score.

SAT 2025 Score Range

The question paper of SAT consists of two main sections and both SAT sections are scored on a similar score range which equals 1600. Check below the SAT Section-wise bifurcation for the upcoming SAT 2025 exam for international students.

There is a huge difference between the old and new SAT patterns. The new SAT exam is known as SAT Digital, as it is now digitalized and no longer conducted offline. Also, the SAT Digital exam pattern has changed, making it easier for students to attempt the exam. The other registration rules remained the same. Check below the difference between the old SAT pattern and the new pattern.

SAT Old Pattern

The SAT old pattern consists of three sections and an optional writing section. The duration of the old SAT pattern was longer, which was around three plus hours, plus the additional time for the writing section. The old SAT exam was paper-and-pencil-based and consisted of different reading and writing sections. On the other hand, in old pattern, in the math section, candidates have a calculator section and a non-calculator section. 

SAT New Pattern

The new SAT exam has gone digital, and the duration of the exam has also decreased by an hour, plus no optional writing section is available. Now, there are two sections, namely the reading and writing (one) section and Math (second) section. In the math section, candidates can use calculators for both modules. One more thing is that the questions have now become shorter, and the candidates can answer 30% faster than the other exams tested on a similar pattern. 

The SAT exam pattern hadn't changed until Feb 2023, but with digital SAT being introduced, a new SAT exam pattern was introduced too. The SAT exam pattern for the digital test is live outside of the US state for now. The US will witness SAT Digital 2024 year onwards.