In 1926, when a small group of students sat down to take the first SAT, the letters S-A-T stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test. Back then, everybody thought the SAT could accurately predict each person’s innate intelligence. The test was supposedly uncoachable, making preparation of any kind unnecessary. In 1994, the people who write the SAT backed off of the claim that the test measures aptitude and began to call it the Standardized Assessment Test. Slowly, quietly, even the words Standardized Assessment Test fell out of use. In 1996, the SAT people sought to clear up the confusion in a press release that declared, once and for all, “SAT is not an initialism; it does not stand for anything.” So there you have it, straight from the source:

But that hasn’t stopped the test. Now the SAT has undergone the most extensive changes in its 75-year history. A whole new Writing section has been added to the test, analogies have been cut, tougher math concepts have been added, quantitative comparisons are gone, and the entire test is now scored on a scale of 2400 instead of the infamous 1600.

How do you prepare for this radically new test disguised under a familiar old meaningless name? Read this book. All the facts, strategies, and study methods you need to meet and beat the new SAT lie between these two covers.