###What’s on the SAT Reading and Writing test?

The Reading and Writing section of the SAT is designed to test students on reading comprehension, rhetoric, and language use by having them engage with academic and literary texts. Skills on the Reading and Writing test can be split into the following content domains:

  • Information and Ideas: Use, locate, interpret, and evaluate information from various texts and infographics.
  • Craft and Structure: Determine the meaning of high-utility academic words and phrases in context, evaluate texts rhetorically, and make supportable connections between multiple related texts.
  • Expression of Ideas: Use revision skills and knowledge to improve the effectiveness of written expression to accomplish specified rhetorical goals.
  • Standard English Conventions: Use editing skills and knowledge to make texts conform to core conventions of Standard English sentence structure, usage, and punctuation.

Each of these content domains contains several different questions types, called skills, and every skill is covered in Khan Academy’s SAT Reading and Writing course. As you work through the course, you’ll encounter each skill in turn, complete with articles and videos to help you learn, as well as exercises to practice and test your knowledge.

###What about the PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 Reading and Writing test?

The PSAT/NMSQT and the PSAT 10 test the exact same skills and have the exact same timing and structure as the SAT. This means that Khan Academy’s SAT Reading and Writing course doubles as a prep course for the Reading and Writing sections of the PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10. For more information on the PSAT tests and how they're scored, review our About the PSAT/NMSQT page.

###How should I use the SAT Reading and Writing course? What about the "Get Ready for SAT Prep: Reading and Writing" course?

To get the most benefit out of the SAT Reading and Writing course and use your time most efficiently, we recommend using the course as follows:

  • Work from top to bottom: The SAT Reading and Writing course takes all the reading and writing skills tested on the SAT and organizes them by question type. By working through the course from top to bottom, you’ll encounter each skill in turn, keeping your practice balanced and ensuring nothing fall through the cracks.
  • Try exercises more than once: Even though the practice exercises for each skill only test four questions at a time, there are many more in the item bank. This means doing an exercise multiple times will expose you to more questions of the same type.
  • Take full-length practice tests Full-length practice tests are a useful benchmark for your progress and an essential tool for building experience with the digital testing platform. You can take them using College Board’s Bluebook app.
  • If you're struggling with Foundations, try the Get Ready course. If one or more skills in the SAT Reading and Writing course is too challenging for you at the Foundations level, you can turn to Khan Academy's Get Ready for SAT Prep: Reading and Writing course to learn and practice the fundamental building blocks of those skills. Once you've mastered the skills in Get Ready, come back to the regular SAT Reading and Writing course to continue your SAT prep journey!

Good luck! You’ve got this.