“satire you can trust”

NEW YORK — The College Board has recently been under fire from students and politicians for excluding the signature Women’s Rights passage in the October 2nd International SAT exam. The College Board defended their actions, claiming that the existing passage about Slavery in the 1800s fulfilled the diversity requirements levied onto the SAT, but test takers were left disappointed and underwhelmed by its replacement.

Historically, the College Board’s SAT has either included a passage about Women’s Suffrage or Slavery in their reading section, ensuring the SAT would continue to “tackle complex social issues that still infiltrate our society to this day”.

The College Board was met with a wave of criticism and discontent after they released this month’s exam. Threads on the SAT subreddit illustrated students’ exasperation at this unprecedented action, with one student claiming that “Never have I seen such incompetence from the College Board! We were promised a Women’s Suffrage passage! Will never take the SAT again.” It should be noted that the August SAT had a passage about slavery, meaning that the exam had lacked a Women’s Suffrage passage for a record of 2 months.

Advocacy groups and political figures were similarly disappointed by the SAT’s lack of oversight on the issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement today, lambasting the College Board for “failing to provide guidance to students studying 1800s political issues”. Emily’s List, an organization dedicated to electing female candidates to office, posited that the “SAT [had] failed to uphold its moral duty to educate the youth about Womens’ Suffrage.”

College Board spokesperson Nicholas Caponimore-Diaz responded that “The SAT’s October SAT has fulfilled its diversity and ethical requirements by exploring the morality of the Cuban Communist Regime in passage 1. Furthermore, we believe that it is beneficial to expose students to the topic of Industrialization.” However, it seems that the College Board is willing to respond to public opinion. Caponimore-Diaz continued: “However, we are aware of the disappointment of our test takers, and as a result we will be including a passage about Slavery in the December exam.”

To the detriment of the College Board, this statement has generated even more disapproval. According to the SAT Test Takers’ Union (SATTTU), this action was a “halfhearted solution that does not address the root of the problem”. This press release was followed by the announcement of a study by SATTTU, claiming that “60% of students are considering not taking the SAT as a result of the lack of Womens’ Suffrage passages”. It seems the College Board’s woes will continue for the time being.