SAT Syllabus 2024: Syllabus for Reading and Writing, Mathematics Section

SAT Syllabus 2024: The College Board provides the syllabus for the SAT exam on its official website - collegeboard.org. The SAT digital format consists of two sections: Reading and Writing, and Mathematics. Each test has its own prescribed syllabus that students can check from the official website of the College Board. Candidates are advised to go through the syllabus thoroughly in order to create an informed exam preparation strategy. The upcoming SAT exam will be conducted on December 7, 2024.  

The syllabus consists of the subjects included in the specific test, the types of questions and the skills assessed through the questions. The SAT Math test includes subjects such as Heart of Algebra, Problem Solving and Data Analysis, and Passport to Advanced Math. The Math test assesses the candidate’s understanding of mathematical concepts, procedural skill and fluency in Math, and application of concepts and skills to real-world problems. 

The Reading test is based on passages from literary fiction, history and social science, and science. Further, the SAT reading test assesses skills such as command of textual evidence and words in context. The Writing test passages are about a range of topics such as careers, science, the humanities, and history and social studies. The passages in writing and language test can be narrative, argumentative, or informative and explanatory. In Reading and Writing section, students will be assessed on the basis of their ability to correct errors in sentence structure, usage, and punctuation, and also to revise and edit texts to enhance the expression of ideas. 

Also Read: SAT Pattern

SAT Syllabus 2024

The syllabus for SAT 2024 is available on the official website of the College Board. Candidates will benefit from going through the SAT syllabus as they will know the topics, thematic and conceptual content of questions, and other details related to the types of questions. The syllabus can be viewed for Math test, Reading Test, and Writing and Language test. Each test assesses particular skills and consists of specific content areas. The syllabus gives a detailed analysis of the different types of questions and assessed skills, as well as the knowledge components. 

SAT Syllabus: Reading Test

Subjects in Reading Test Passages

• Literary Fiction: One passage will be sourced from a classic or contemporary work of either American literature or World Literature. 
• U.S. Founding Document or Great Global Conversation : There will be one passage or a pair of passages from a U.S. Founding Document such as the U.S. Consititution and from a text in the Great Global Conversation. The Great Global Conversation refer to texts that are based on ideals such as freedom, justice, or human dignity. An example of great global conversation would be a speech by Nelson Mandela. 
• Social Science Text : One of the passages will be from a work of social science such as a text from economics, psychology, or sociology. 
• Science Text : Two passages will be from science that explore foundational concepts or recent developments in physics, chemistry, biology, or Earth science. 

Skills Assessed in Reading Test 

• Command of Evidence: Command of evidence requires candidates to identify the part of passages that provides the strongest textual support for the answer to another question. Further, the students will need to analyse how an author uses supporting information to develop their argument or claim. Supporting information can include facts, figures, and quotations. The candidate might also be asked to locate specific information in tables, graphs, charts, and other informational graphics to derive conclusions from such data, and make connections between the data and the information and ideas in a passage. 
• Contextual Understanding of Words: Some questions will require the candidate to figure out the precise meaning of a given word or phrase by interpreting its usage in a particular passage. The students may be asked questions wherein they will need to figure out the effects of some particular word choice. Students will have to figure how the author’s choice of a particular word, phrase, pattern of words or phrases influences the meaning, tone or style of a given passage.

Question Types in Reading Test

SAT Syllabus: Writing and Language Test

Question Types in Writing and Language Test

• Expression of Ideas: Questions based on the expression of ideas are concerned with the enhancement of the substance of the writer’s message. Expression of ideas includes topic development, organization, and effective language use. Development refers to refining the content of a passage to accomplish the purpose of the author. 

Organization signifies the structural enhancement of the passage to improve its logical flow and cohesion. Effective language use refers to the precision of word choice, concise and economical word choice, consistency in style and tone, and improving the syntactical flow of language. 

• Standard English Conventions: Questions based on standard English conventions require the candidate to edit passages for grammatical usage, sentence structure and punctuation. Sentence structure-based questions need the student to recognize and correct sentence formation problems and incorrect shifts in sentence construction.

Conventions of usage refer to the correct usage of grammatical categories and concepts such as pronouns, possessive determiners, subject-verb agreement, punctuation and several others. Candidates are also required to differentiate between words that are frequently confused with each other (such as affect and effect) and inconsistencies in logical comparison where unlike terms are compared. 

SAT Syllabus: Math Test

Subjects in Math Test

• Heart of Algebra: Heart of Algebra focuses on the conceptual grasp of linear equations, systems of linear equations, and linear functions. 

1. Students are required to analyze and fluently solve linear equations and systems of linear equations. 
2. They will also need to create linear equations and inequalities to represent relationships between quantities and solve problems. 
3. Candidates will be required to understand and use the relationship between linear equations and inequalities and their graphs to solve problems. 

• Problem-Solving and Data Analysis: Problem-solving and data analysis will include ratios, percentages, and proportional reasoning to solve problems in real-world contexts. It also consists of questions based on the description of relationships shown graphically and analysis of statistical data. 

1. Students will need to create and analyse relationships using ratios, proportional relationships, percentages, and units. 
2. Candidates will be required to represent and analyse quantitative data.
3. Students can be asked to find and apply probabilities in context. 

• Passport to Advanced Math: Passport to Advanced Math focuses on the Math that the student will need to pursue further study in a field such as science or economics and also for career opportunities in STEM areas of study such as science, technology, engineering, and math. The Passport to Advanced Math subject also needs an understanding of more complex concepts which will prepare the candidate for calculus and advanced statistics. 

1. Students will need to identify and create equivalent algebraic expressions.  
2. Candidates will be required to create, analyze, and fluently solve quadratic and other nonlinear equations. 
3. Students will be asked to create, use, and graph exponential, quadratic, and other nonlinear functions. 

• Additional Topics in Math: There are also additional topics from which questions are asked in the SAT Math test. Topics include surface area and volume, coordinate geometry, lines, angles, triangles, and circles. Geometry, trigonometry, and arithmetic of complex numbers are the additional subject areas in the Math test.

1. Students will need to solve problems related to area and volume.
2. Candidates will have to apply definitions and theorems related to lines, angles, triangles, and circles.
3. Students will need to work with right triangles, the unit circle, and trigonometric functions.