Steve Inskeep tries to master the essay portion of the test with Bernard Phelan, a high school English teacher who grades the SATs.

On Saturday, more than 300,000 teenagers will sit down to take the new SAT test — longer and more difficult than its predecessors, and for the first including a mandatory essay. The changes are making students more anxious than ever, and creating a boom for the test-preparation business.

Steve Inskeep tries to master the essay portion of the test with Bernard Phelan, a high school English teacher who grades the SATs.

On Saturday, more than 300,000 teenagers will sit down to take the new SAT test — longer and more difficult than its predecessors, and for the first including a mandatory essay. The changes are making students more anxious than ever, and creating a boom for the test-preparation business.

For the first time in a decade, the SAT college entrance exam has been revised. The verbal analogy section was dropped, an essay segment was added and the math portion was changed to more closely parallel what’s being taught in high schools. Two college admissions officers — North Carolina’s Dr. Jerry Lucido and Carleton College’s Paul Thiboutot — talk about how they’ll use test results.

For the first time in a decade, the SAT college entrance exam has been revised. The verbal analogy section was dropped, an essay segment was added and the math portion was changed to more closely parallel what’s being taught in high schools. Two college admissions officers — North Carolina’s Dr. Jerry Lucido and Carleton College’s Paul Thiboutot — talk about how they’ll use test results.

The new version of the SAT exam includes an essay portion. We take a look at what goes into grading a standardized test essay on the nation’s widest-used college board test.