You've likely heard that the SAT is digital now. This has created a lot of changes: students will take the exam on the computer, the digital SAT is shorter, and scores are returned much faster. There are also big changes to the SAT Reading and Writing section, and one of the biggest is how many passages in SAT Reading and Writing there now are.
You may have heard there are now a lot more passages to read, but the good news is that most students will find them much more manageable! Read this guide to learn how many passages are in the SAT Reading and Writing section, how they're different from those in the old SAT, what they look like, and the best way to tackle them on the exam.
How Have SAT Reading and Writing Passages Changed With the Digital SAT?
The old pencil-and-paper SAT had five passages in the Reading section and four passages in the Writing and Language section. These passages were each quite long, roughly 500-700 words, and they'd be followed by about 10-11 questions per passage. SAT Reading had 52 questions, and SAT Writing and Language had 44 questions.
The digital SAT is quite different. First of all, the SAT Reading and SAT Writing and Language sections have been combined into a single section (SAT Reading and Writing). This section is divided into two modules, each with 27 questions (a total of 54 questions).
How many passages in SAT Reading and Writing are there now? There are 54 passages in SAT Reading and Writing on the digital SAT, one passage per question. (Some questions will have two short passages that you'll analyze (paired passages), so you may even say there are closer to 60 passages now).
That's a huge increase in how many passages in SAT Reading and Writing there are! Does that mean this section is now really long? Fortunately, no. The new SAT Reading and Writing section lasts 64 minutes (divided into two 32-minute modules), which is significantly shorter than the old SAT Reading and SAT Writing's combined time of 100 minutes.
How is the new SAT Reading and Writing so much shorter when it has so many more passages? Each passage on SAT Reading and Writing is significantly shorter than passages in the older SAT, ranging from 25-150 words. Many students appreciate reading shorter passages and having only one question per passage. However, be aware that these shorter passages will be just as challenging, if not more so, than the older, longer passages in terms of the reading comprehension level required.
What Topics and Skills Will the Passages Test in SAT Reading and Writing?
In addition to having more passages, the digital SAT Reading and Writing section will test a greater range of topics, tones, and styles, with more questions focusing on the humanities, as well as a few poetry questions added.
You can expect Reading and Writing on the digital SAT to assess these skills:
-
Information and Ideas (12–14 questions): Using details from brief texts, tables, and/or infographics to determine the main idea, choose the best evidence to support a claim, answer comprehension questions, or infer the most logical way to complete an excerpt.
-
Craft and Structure (13–15 questions): Define words and phrases in passages, evaluate how passages are making arguments, or connect ideas presented in two excerpts (e.g., determining whether one idea builds on another or whether two paragraphs are making similar or different claims).
-
Expression of Ideas (8–12 questions): Select the transitional word or phrase that makes the author’s meaning clearer for readers, or use a short set of provided notes to decide which of the answers achieves a particular purpose (e.g., which answer represents a comparison, or which answer represents a contrast).
-
Standard English Conventions (11–15 questions): Choose answers that reflect your knowledge of conventional grammar and mechanics.
The order and number of these types of questions will vary somewhat because, according to the College Board, each student will receive a unique test form.
Digital SAT Reading and Writing Passage Examples
All that information is well and good, but the best way to understand what the new SAT passages will look like is to see examples. Below are two, each with an answer explanation. They both come from Khan Academy, which uses official practice questions in its SAT resources. If you've answered practice questions for the old SAT, you'll see that these new passages are much shorter than what you're used to.
Example 1
This question is asking for the main idea of the passage; what is the key point it's making? By reading through the passage, we learn that the mother found many things in the new house annoying, the father thought it was poorly constructed, but the children thought the house was a "fairy palace."
Which is the best answer choice? Choice A is incorrect because the house is neither well built (the father said the ironwork was a "nightmare") nor is there any mention of the children missing London. Choice B is incorrect because the opposite is true: the children like the house much more than their parents. Choice C is incorrect because the text doesn't mention either parent admiring anything about the house (and the children all like the same characteristics of the house). That leave Choice D: It's true the parents believe the house has drawbacks, but the children are enchanted by it. Both of these statements are supported by the text. Choice D is the correct answer.
Example 2
This is what the College Board refers to as a "command of quantitative evidence question." Command of quantitative evidence questions introduce a claim that must be supported with evidence from a graph or table. This claim is usually either the hypothesis or the finding from an experiment.
The first thing you should do with these types of questions is identify the claim that you need to support. The passage states that the data "illustrated people’s tendency to overlook the possibility of removing things to achieve improvements." So, because people overlook the possibility of removing things, we'd expect to see fewer suggestions coded as subtractive and more suggestions coded as additive. This is supported by the graph, which shows about 60 subtractive suggestions and 575 additive suggestions.
Let's run through the answer choices. We can immediately rule out Choices B and D. Choice B mentions invalid suggestions, and Choice D mentions suggestions that were neither additive nor subtractive. Neither of these are mentioned in the claim, and they therefore focus on irrelevant information. Choice C would support the claim, but it misreads the graph. Only about 60 suggestions were coded as subtractive, not 175. Choice A is the only choice that both supports the claim and properly reads the graph. Therefore, Choice A is correct.
The Best Strategy for Reading Passages: 4 Steps to Follow
Now that you know how many passages in SAT Reading and Writing there are, it's time to learn the best way to tackle these questions. Read on for the four key steps to follow.
Step 1: Decide How You'll Tackle the Passage
First, you need to decide if you're going to read the passage first or the question. Some students like reading the passage all the way through then focusing on the question, others prefer to read the question first, then read the passage with the question in mind. Still others will skim the passage, looking for important information, read the question, then go back and read the passage more thoroughly. No method is inherently better than the other; it's all about choosing what works best for you.
But how can you decide which method is best for you? By answering a lot of practice questions! This is one of the many reasons we recommend practice SATs so strongly. There's no better way to learn which testing method you should use.
Step 2: Get Clear on What the Question is Asking
Whether you read the question before or after the passage, you'll want to make sure you understand exactly what you're being asked. The SAT is notorious for having tricky wording that can cause students to misread a question even when they think they've answered it perfectly.
Read through each question carefully and be especially on the lookout for words like "except," "not," and "only." Taking a moment to pause and ensure you fully understand each question can significantly raise your score on exam day.
Step 3: Pick Out Key Information in the Passages
When you read the passage, you should read fairly quickly, even skimming for important features. These include the last line of the introduction (usually the thesis of the passage), opening sentences of paragraphs, and the conclusion. Many passages begin with a brief introduction that explains who wrote the passage, when it was written, key characters, setting, etc. This often contains very useful information! If there's a chart/graph/etc in the passage, make sure to analyze that too for key information.
Also, look out for transitional words and phrases, like however, additionally, and despite, that might mark a shift in or continuation of ideas. This step is especially important for paired passage questions, where you'll see two passages and need to answer a question on both of them. The paired passages are always about the same topic. That means that the most important thing to pay attention to when reading paired passages is the relationship between ideas about the topic. A great way to find the relationship between the passages is to ask yourself where they agree and where they disagree. Doing so will give you a good sense of what each passage is stating and key similarities and differences between them.
Step 4: Back Your Answer Choice Up With Evidence
You've read the passage, you've read the question, and you have an answer choice you feel is correct. How strongly can you back that choice up? Don't just choose an answer that "feels" right—instead, make sure you can back up all your answers with direct evidence from the text.
None of the questions based on the passages require you to have any pre-existing knowledge of the topic. Instead, they're testing your reading comprehension. All your answers should be proven and supported by the passage.
This is an important point to remember for the SAT, which will use texts with which you may be familiar or that are especially relevant to history or contemporary life. To answer questions correctly, it's crucial that you turn off your personal biases or opinions and base your understanding completely on the text at hand. You want to be able to point to the part in the passage that supports your answer choice. In both examples above, we could point to parts in the passage that fully supported our answer choice (as well as parts in the passage that ruled out the other answer choices).
Conclusion: How Many Passages in SAT Reading?
Now that the digital SAT has been released, how many passages in SAT Writing and Reading can you expect? The new SAT Reading and Writing section has roughly 54 passages (a few more if you count paired passages as two passages). The passages are much shorter than they were before, and there's only one question per passage.
But knowing how many passages are in SAT Reading and Writing isn't enough; you also want to know the best strategy to answer questions in this section. Follow these four steps for success:
- Decide how you'll tackle the passage
- Get clear on what the question is asking
- Pick out key information from the passages
- Back your answer choice up with evidence
What's Next?
Practice tests are one of the best ways to prepare for the SAT. Find all the best SAT Reading and Writing practice tests in one place here!
Don't forget about SAT Math! Our ultimate SAT Math guide goes over all the tips, formulas, and study topics you need to know!
Looking for additional SAT prep help? Check out our picks for the top SAT prep websites and the top SAT apps you should be using in your studies.
