Merit (1920-1945)
Scholastic Aptitude Test
In 1925, the College Board decided to develop a psychological test. The Army Alpha and Beta intelligence tests used during World War I provided the model upon which to base the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT.
The College Board appointed a committee headed by Princeton psychology profession Carl Brigham to devise the test. Brigham devised the SAT as a test to assess ability and acquired knowledge so broadly that the examination would not depend on the specifics of any curriculum.
The SAT was first administered on June 23, 1926 to 8,040 students. It slowly gained acceptance as a valid predictive test throughout the 1930s. Over 10,000 students took the SAT in April 1940. This was an increase from 2,005 students only four years earlier.
The SAT underwent numerous changes. It was initially comprised of nine subtests: Definitions, Arithmetical Problems, Classification, Artificial Language, Antonyms, Number Series, Analogies, Logical Inference, Paragraph Reading. In 1928, the Board reduced the number of subtests to seven and reduced it further in 1929 to six.
By 1929, the College Board believed there was a need for a mathematical aptitude section. By the next year, the Board announced a new version of the SAT that included a language and a mathematical section rather than the six subtests.
The College Board published a lengthyreport on the SAT in 1926 The College Board reported yearly on the SAT. Read excerpts from the reports of 1926, 1933, and 1940.
As with its other tests, the College Board collected and compared test scores on the SAT. Comparison of the scores of test-takers by gender, region, and institutional type (public or private high school) was standard through the 1930s and 1940s.
The College Board not only promoted the use of the SAT for college admissions purposes, but also for guidance of high school students. College Board materials such as "The SAT and high school guidance" encouraged high school counselors to use the tests for guidance in determining whether a student was capable of doing college-level work and which college was a good match between the student's abilities and the institution's programs.
