<P> Certain educational organizations viewed the SAT re-centering initiative as an attempt to stave off international embarrassment in regards to continuously declining test scores, even among top students . As evidence, it was presented that the number of pupils who scored above 600 on the verbal portion of the test had fallen from a peak of 112,530 in 1972 to 73,080 in 1993, a 36% backslide, despite the fact that the total number of test - takers had risen over 500,000 . Other authors have argued that the evidence for a decline in student quality is mixed, citing that top scorers on the ACT have shown little change in the same period, and that the proportion of 17 - year - olds scoring at the highest performance level on the NAEP long - term trend assessment has been roughly stable for decades . </P> <P> In October 2002, the College Board dropped the Score Choice Option for SAT - II exams . Under this option, scores were not released to colleges until the student saw and approved of the score . The College Board has since decided to re-implement Score Choice in the spring of 2009 . It is described as optional, and it is not clear if the reports sent will indicate whether or not this student has opted - in or not . A number of highly selective colleges and universities, including Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford, have announced they will require applicants to submit all scores . Stanford, however, only prohibits Score Choice for the traditional SAT . Others, such as MIT and Harvard, have fully embraced Score Choice . </P> <P> In 2005, the test was changed again, largely in response to criticism by the University of California system . Because of issues concerning ambiguous questions, especially analogies, certain types of questions were eliminated (the analogies from the verbal and quantitative comparisons from the math section). The test was made marginally harder, as a corrective to the rising number of perfect scores . A new writing section, with an essay, based on the former SAT II Writing Subject Test, was added, in part to increase the chances of closing the opening gap between the highest and midrange scores . Other factors included the desire to test the writing ability of each student; hence the essay . The essay section added an additional maximum 800 points to the score, which increased the new maximum score to 2400 . The "New SAT" was first offered on March 12, 2005, after the last administration of the "old" SAT in January 2005 . The mathematics section was expanded to cover three years of high school mathematics . The verbal section's name was changed to the Critical Reading section . </P> <P> In March 2006, it was announced that a small percentage of the SATs taken in October 2005 had been scored incorrectly due to the test papers' being moist and not scanning properly, and that some students had received erroneous scores . The College Board announced they would change the scores for the students who were given a lower score than they earned, but at this point many of those students had already applied to colleges using their original scores . The College Board decided not to change the scores for the students who were given a higher score than they earned . A lawsuit was filed in 2006 on behalf of the 4,411 students who received an incorrect score on the SAT . The class - action suit was settled in August 2007 when the College Board and Pearson Educational Measurement, the company that scored the SATs, announced they would pay $2.85 million into a settlement fund . Under the agreement each student could either elect to receive $275 or submit a claim for more money if he or she felt the damage was greater . A similar scoring error occurred on a secondary school admission test in 2010--2011 when the ERB (Educational Records Bureau) announced after the admission process was over that an error had been made in the scoring of the tests of 2010 (17%) of the students who had taken the Independent School Entrance Examination for admission to private secondary schools for 2011 . Commenting on the effect of the error on students' school applications in The New York Times, David Clune, President of the ERB stated "It is a lesson we all learn at some point--that life isn't fair ." </P>

When did sat change from 1600 to 2400