Report Lists Ways to Upgrade Scoring of SAT

Steps including better software and more training -- and even providing pencils and erasers at test centers -- could improve the reliability of scoring the SAT, a consultant’s report says.

The report, commissioned by the College Board, says the scoring system for the college entrance test has improved since more than 4,000 of the tests taken in October were given incorrectly low scores. On the whole, scores are reliable, it says.

But the report by Booz Allen Hamilton identifies a series of continuing risks -- such as scanners affected by debris or misinterpreting erased marks -- and suggests a range of mostly technical steps to provide further safeguards.