What is the Digital SAT?
The Digital SAT is the current form of the SAT, taken on a computer in College Board's Bluebook application. It has two sections — Reading and Writing, then Math — and each is split into two separately timed modules. There are 98 questions and 2 hours 14 minutes of testing time, with a 10-minute break between the sections. The total score runs 400 to 1600, built from two section scores of 200 to 800.
The digital exam replaced the paper SAT internationally in March 2023 and in the United States in March 2024. It is a different test, not a reformatted one: the passages are shorter, the section is adaptive, a calculator is allowed throughout Math, and the essay and subject tests are gone. A large amount of SAT advice still online describes the old exam.
The two sections, module by module
| Section | Questions | Total time | Modules | Per question |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reading and Writing | 54 | 64 min | 2 × 32 min | ~71s |
| Math | 44 | 70 min | 2 × 35 min | ~95s |
| Total | 98 | 134 min | 4 | + 10-min break |
Exam facts on this page follow College Board, How the SAT Is Structured. Last reviewed 3 September 2026.
What module-level adaptive actually means
The Digital SAT is multistage adaptive at module level, not question by question. Each section has two modules. Module 1 is the routing module: it carries half the section's questions in a broad mix of easy, medium and hard. Your performance on it decides whether module 2 is the higher- or lower-difficulty form. The section score is then built from your work across both modules, and it accounts for how hard the questions you actually saw were, so it is not a raw count of correct answers. The two sections adapt independently of each other.
This is worth stating plainly because the opposite claim is common online. The test does not get harder or easier after each individual answer.
Routing is not a published ceiling either. College Board says a score reflects the difficulty of the questions a student saw as well as how many they answered correctly, but it has never released a maximum score for the lower-difficulty second module, and nobody outside College Board can derive one. Any specific cap quoted online is invented.
Two things follow. Module 1 accuracy matters more than its question count suggests, because it is scored like any other module and it also decides which second module you see. And because adaptivity happens between modules rather than within one, you can still move freely inside a module: skip, flag, and come back until that module's timer ends.
How one section plays out
- MODULE 1
Half the section's questions, spanning easy, medium and hard. This is the routing module: it is measuring you, not just scoring you.
- ROUTING
Bluebook selects the second module — on average harder or easier than the first — from your performance so far.
- MODULE 2
The remaining questions at that targeted difficulty. Both modules count towards the section score, and how hard the questions were is part of that calculation.
The two sections route independently. A strong Math routing module does nothing for the Reading and Writing section.
What Bluebook gives you on screen
Calculator, all the way through
Reference sheet
Test-taking tools
Because the same app runs both the exam and the official practice tests, there is no reason to first meet these tools on test day. Download Bluebook from College Board and take a full-length practice test in it before you sit the real one.
SAT test dates
| Test date | Registration deadline | Late registration | Scores released |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 November 2026 | 23 October 2026 | 27 October 2026 | 20 November 2026 |
| 5 December 2026 | 20 November 2026 | 24 November 2026 | 18 December 2026 |
| 6 March 2027 | 19 February 2027 | 23 February 2027 | 19 March 2027projected |
| 1 May 2027 | 16 April 2027 | 20 April 2027 | 14 May 2027projected |
| 5 June 2027 | 21 May 2027 | 25 May 2027 | 18 June 2027projected |
College Board publishes test dates and registration deadlines for the whole year at once, but score-release dates a term at a time. Rows marked projected are this site’s estimate from the pattern every administration has followed — release on the second Friday after the test — and are replaced with the published date as soon as College Board lists it. Test dates and registration deadlines in this table are not projections.
Exam facts on this page follow College Board SAT dates and deadlines. Last reviewed 3 September 2026.
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Digital SAT FAQ
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