SAT

The SAT is now digital and taken in the College Board's Bluebook application, on your own laptop or tablet or a school device, in a test centre. It runs about two hours and fourteen minutes across two sections: Reading and Writing, then Math. Both are shorter than the old paper test and the passages are much shorter — single paragraphs rather than long extracts.

It is section-adaptive. Each section comes in two modules, and how you perform on the first module determines whether the second is the harder or easier version. That means you cannot skip the first module's hard questions cheaply, and it also means the raw-score-to-scaled-score relationship is not something you can reason about during the test. Answer everything; there is no penalty for a wrong answer.

A calculator — including the Desmos graphing calculator built into the app — is permitted throughout the Math section. That changes what the Math section is testing: less arithmetic, more setting the problem up correctly.

• ·US university admissions, including the universities that have brought the requirement back.
• ·Merit scholarships, which frequently have score thresholds even where admission itself is test-optional.
• ·Entry to KAUST, Alfaisal, KFUPM and several other Gulf universities, and placement out of foundation-year English and maths at some of them.

1. March, May, JuneSpring sittings. The standard first attempt, in Grade 11.Registration closes roughly two to four weeks before each date, and late registration costs extra.
2. August, October, November, DecemberAutumn sittings. The second attempt, and the last one that reaches early US deadlines is usually the October or November date.
3. Two to four weeks after each sittingScores released; sending them to universities is a separate step with its own timing.

• Reading and Writing

  Two modules, 64 minutes total

  OpensLaw · Humanities · Journalism · Business · Every degree — this half is read for general admission

  Short passages with one question each, covering comprehension, vocabulary in context, rhetoric, evidence, and standard English grammar and punctuation. The grammar half is the most learnable part of the whole exam.

  On this siteLitigatorJournalistPolicy Analyst

• Math

  Two modules, 70 minutes total

  OpensEngineering · Computer science · Economics · Physics · Business · Pre-med

  Algebra, problem solving and data analysis, some advanced algebra, and a small amount of geometry and trigonometry. Engineering and computer science programmes look at this score specifically, not just the total.

  On this siteSoftware EngineerMechanical EngineerEconomistActuaryData Scientist

• PSAT/NMSQT

  Practice test, Grade 10–11

  OpensNothing directly — a rehearsal, and in the US a National Merit qualifier

  Same format, lower stakes. Worth sitting in Grade 10 or 11 purely to find out where you stand while there is still time to do something about it.

• ·Take a full timed practice test in Bluebook before you plan anything. The gap between your first practice score and your target is the only fact that should determine how much preparation you do, and it is free to find out.
• ·Preparation works on this test in a way it does not on school exams, because the question types repeat. Twenty focused hours moves most people meaningfully; two hundred moves almost nobody twice as far.
• ·Sit it first in the spring of Grade 11. That leaves autumn of Grade 12 for a second attempt, and keeps the December session as a spare rather than as the plan.
• ·Two or three sittings is the sensible ceiling. Score gains flatten quickly, and the time is better spent on the essays, which are read far more carefully than the score is.
• ·If a university is test-optional and your score is at or above its published middle range, send it. If it is below, do not. That is nearly the whole decision.

The SAT is offered at test centres across Riyadh, Jeddah, Dhahran and elsewhere in the Kingdom, and it matters most if you are aiming at a US university, whether privately or through a government scholarship programme. Inside Saudi Arabia it is accepted by KAUST, Alfaisal, KFUPM and a number of private universities — sometimes for admission, sometimes to place out of a foundation year, which can save you an entire year. The Saudi public universities do not use it: they admit on the secondary school GPA together with Qudurat and Tahsili. If you are applying in both directions, budget for sitting both the SAT and the national tests, because neither substitutes for the other.

• ~Which universities require, recommend or ignore the SAT is changing every admissions cycle and has been moving back towards requiring it. Check each university's current policy in the year you apply.
• ~Score ranges for admitted students are published annually and drift upward at selective universities.
• ~Superscoring policies differ by university and are not universal.

• ACTThe direct alternative. Universities accept either and state no preference.
• APThe other half of a US application: one ranks you, the other shows what you have studied.
• قدرات وتحصيليWhat Saudi public universities use instead. A student applying both ways sits both.
• IELTS / TOEFLA strong SAT Reading and Writing score waives the English test at some, but not most, universities.

• Official SAT practice on Bluebook and Khan Academyofficial practice testfree

  Full-length adaptive practice tests in the same app you sit the real exam in. Take one before you plan anything else — the gap between that score and your target is the only fact that should decide how much you prepare.

  College Board · link checked 2026-09-06

• Official SAT Practice — Khan Academyfree coursefree

  Free, official, and adapts to what you get wrong. It is the preparation most paid courses are repackaging.

  Khan Academy · link checked 2026-09-06

• SAT dates and deadlinesofficial datesfree

  Test dates and the registration deadline for each. Sittings in the region do fill.

  College Board · link checked 2026-09-06

• SAT registrationofficial datesfree

  Where you actually book, and where the fee waiver and accommodation processes live.

  College Board · link checked 2026-09-06

Nothing here is sold or sponsored, and there is no affiliate link on this site. Where an awarding body publishes its own past papers, those are listed instead of a revision guide — the UCAT and LNAT consortia both state outright that paid coaching is unnecessary and unendorsed, and the same is broadly true of every exam on this page.

• Digital SAT: structure, timing and scoringCollege Board · read 2026-09-05
• SAT test dates and registration deadlinesCollege Board · read 2026-09-05

Last checked 2026-09-05. Entry requirements are set by individual universities, change every year, and are the one thing on this page you should always confirm on the course page for the year you apply.