How to Read Your SAT Score Report

Every SAT test taker gets an official PDF report titled Your Scores. College Board says students aged 13 or older can view it, along with additional insights, by signing in to studentscores.collegeboard.org with their College Board account. Students can also review the PDF with educators at school, since schools can access it through College Board's K-12 reporting portal.

Download the PDF and keep it. You will want to compare it with your next report, and having both side by side makes changes in each content domain easy to see.

The report shows three scores. Your Reading and Writing section score and your Math section score are each reported on a scale of 200 to 800. Your total score is the sum of the two, on a scale of 400 to 1600.

Your section scores are what matter most for retake planning, because superscoring colleges combine them across dates and because each section has its own study path. Note which section is lower and by how much. A 100-point gap between sections tells you where most of your preparation should go.

Below each score you will see a range. College Board explains that ranges are derived from the standard error of measurement and show how much your score would likely vary on a different administration under identical conditions. In plain terms, your score is a point estimate and the range is a band of scores you could reasonably have earned on another day.

The report also shows an All Tester Percentile for each score. If you are in the 70th percentile, for example, 70 percent of the comparison group scored at or below you. The comparison group is based on the actual scores of the past three cohorts of students who took the SAT in 12th grade. Next to that you will see the average score of all testers across the last three years.

Online, the student scores portal adds more context: percentiles for your country and, in the U.S., your state, plus comparisons with average scores in your school, district, and state where available.

College Board sets a benchmark for each section: 480 for Reading and Writing and 530 for Math. According to College Board, meeting a benchmark predicts a 75 percent likelihood of earning a C or better in a related first-semester, credit-bearing college course. The online portal shows whether you met each one.

Benchmarks are a readiness signal, not an admissions target. A score well above the benchmark may still sit below the typical range at a selective college, so compare yourself to your colleges, not just to these lines.

This is the most useful part of the report for a retaker. It shows your performance in each of the eight content domains the SAT measures, four in Reading and Writing and four in Math. For each domain you see an approximate number of questions, the share of the section that domain represents, a filled bar showing your level, and a performance range beneath it.

College Board points out that the filled bar represents your level of mastery in the domain, not your actual score. Online, the Skills Insight tool breaks performance into seven score bands, and you can view skills and example questions typical of students in the next band up. That gives you a direct picture of what the next level looks like.

Pay attention to the performance range as well as the bar. A wide range means your result in that domain could reasonably have landed higher or lower, so treat a single short bar as a strong hint rather than a final verdict, and confirm it with practice.

The Reading and Writing domains are Information and Ideas, Craft and Structure, Expression of Ideas, and Standard English Conventions. The Math domains are Algebra, Advanced Math, Problem-Solving and Data Analysis, and Geometry and Trigonometry.

If Score Sends Held appears at the top of your report, College Board was unable to confirm that a complete set of your responses was available when the test was scored. It says it will not send those scores to colleges or scholarship programs unless you ask it to. If you see this notice, contact College Board customer service before deciding on a retake, since the issue may be technical rather than a reflection of your skills.

Pick your target section first. If one section trails the other, start there, especially if your colleges superscore.

Within that section, rank the four domains by two things: how short your bar falls, and how large a share of the section the domain covers. College Board recommends focusing on the domains that appear most frequently on the test when your levels are similar, because they offer the most room for score growth. A domain with a short bar and a large share of questions is your first priority.

Write the target down in one line, for example: raise Algebra and Advanced Math by one band each and lift Math by 40 points. Then check it against a full-length Bluebook practice test after a few weeks of work. If you want a second view of your weak spots, RetakePrep's 30-question diagnostic scores you topic by topic across the same eight content domains, and its plan ranks your weakest areas for daily practice.