SAT Syllabus 2026: What Is on the Digital SAT, Section by Section

Sriram Venkataraman

30/12/2025

10 min read

The SAT syllabus is shorter than most students expect. The test has two sections, Reading and Writing and Math, and each section tests four content areas. That makes eight areas in all, and College Board publishes how many questions come from each one. There is no list of set texts, no essay and no calculus. What there is instead is a fixed set of skills, tested in a fixed proportion, on a two-hour-and-fourteen-minute digital test that adapts to how you answer.

This guide sets out that syllabus section by section: what each content area covers, how many questions it carries and what the questions look like. It also maps the syllabus against what a CBSE or ICSE student has already studied by Class 11. Most of the maths will be familiar; a few question types will not, and those are where preparation time pays off most. Every figure below comes from College Board’s own SAT structure page and its Digital SAT Suite specifications.

What is on the SAT?

The SAT tests two things: whether you can read, analyse and edit short academic texts, and whether you can solve algebra, data and geometry problems. It is scored from 400 to 1600, with each section scored from 200 to 800. There are 98 questions in total, and you have 134 minutes to answer them, plus a 10-minute break between the sections.

Each module includes two unscored pretest questions that College Board is trialling for future tests. You cannot tell which ones they are, so treat every question as if it counts.

How does the adaptive format change the SAT syllabus?

It does not change what is tested, only which questions you see. The first module of each section contains a mix of easy, medium and hard questions. How you do on it decides whether your second module is harder or easier. A stronger first module leads to a harder second module, and that harder module is the route to the top of the score range.

Two practical consequences follow. First, accuracy in the first module matters more than speed: careless errors there can cap your score before the second module begins. Second, you can move back and forth within a module but not between modules, so budget your time module by module rather than across the whole section. The test is taken in College Board’s Bluebook app, and our guide to using Bluebook practice tests covers the interface in detail.

What is the SAT Reading and Writing syllabus?

The Reading and Writing section uses short passages of 25 to 150 words, drawn from literature, history and social studies, the humanities and science. Each passage (or pair of passages) carries a single question. There is no long passage with ten questions attached, which is the biggest change from the paper SAT. The 54 questions fall into four content domains.

Within a module, questions appear grouped by domain: Craft and Structure first, then Information and Ideas, then Standard English Conventions, then Expression of Ideas. Knowing that order helps you pace yourself: the Standard English Conventions questions in the second half are usually the quickest to answer, so leave yourself time for them. For a closer look at the grammar and vocabulary side, see our SAT English syllabus guide.

What is the SAT Math syllabus?

The Math section has 44 questions across four domains. About three-quarters are multiple choice, with four options; the rest are student-produced responses, where you type in the answer yourself. About 30% of the questions are set in a real-world, science or social-science context, so they are word problems rather than bare equations.

Algebra and Advanced Math together make up about 70% of the section. If your time is limited, that is where it should go first.

A calculator is allowed on the whole Math section. Bluebook has a Desmos graphing calculator built in, and you may also bring your own approved calculator. You also get a reference sheet of common formulas, including area, volume and the special right triangles. Learning to use Desmos well is worth real marks: many systems-of-equations and quadratic questions can be solved in seconds by graphing. You can practise both question formats on our SAT math practice page.

How does the SAT syllabus compare with CBSE and ICSE?

For most Indian students, the SAT maths syllabus is a subset of what they have already studied by the end of Class 10, with some Class 11 material. The difficulty lies in the question style rather than the content. The reading section is further from the Indian curriculum, because Class 11 and 12 English papers do not test the same skills. The table follows the CBSE syllabus for 2025–26.

ICSE students meet most of the same topics, some of them earlier. Simultaneous linear equations (solved algebraically and by graph) and basic trigonometry come in Class 9, the slope–intercept form of a line in Class 10, and ogives and quartiles in Class 10 statistics. The ISC Class 11 syllabus then covers radians, the unit circle, circle equations, and variance and standard deviation. Two differences to note: ICSE Class 10 inequations are in one variable only, so graphing inequalities in two variables will be new; and the matrices taught in ICSE Class 10 are not on the SAT.

Two things follow for preparation. First, there is no calculus, no matrices and no vectors on the SAT, so almost none of Class 12 is needed. The one overlap is conditional probability, which the SAT asks through two-way tables rather than formulas. Second, Problem-Solving and Data Analysis is the domain most Indian students under-prepare for, because the statistical reasoning it asks for (margin of error, whether a sample supports a claim) is not taught as a topic at school. It is only about 15% of the section, but it is where marks are most often lost.

How is the SAT scored?

Each section is scored from 200 to 800 in 10-point steps, and the two section scores add up to a total from 400 to 1600. There is no negative marking, so a wrong answer costs you nothing more than a blank one. Never leave a question unanswered. Because the test is adaptive, your score depends both on how many questions you answer correctly and on how difficult those questions were. That is why two students with the same number of correct answers can end up with different scores.

Your score report also shows a percentile: the share of test-takers who scored at or below you. College Board explains how to read it on its What do my scores mean? page, and publishes the current SAT user percentiles. Colleges read your total and your section scores against their own admitted-student ranges, so check each college’s published range rather than a single “good score”.

How has the syllabus changed from the paper SAT?

The SAT moved to a digital, adaptive format internationally in March 2023 and in the United States in March 2024. The content domains stayed close to the old test, but the format changed in ways that matter for preparation:

• It is shorter: 2 hours 14 minutes against about 3 hours for the paper test.
• There is no separate no-calculator maths section, and a graphing calculator is available throughout.
• Reading and writing are one section, with short passages and one question each, in place of long passages with many questions.
• Each section adapts to you, module by module.
• There is no essay. The optional SAT essay was discontinued in 2021.

Paper-era practice books still help with maths content, but their reading passages and timing no longer match the real test. Take at least one full-length digital practice test before you plan your study schedule.

How should you prepare for the SAT syllabus?

Start with a diagnostic, not a syllabus checklist. A full-length adaptive practice test tells you which of the eight domains is costing you marks, and it shows your pacing across modules. Our free SAT practice test reports results by domain.

Then work the domains in order of weight and weakness:

1. Algebra and Advanced Math first. They are 70% of the Math section and mostly familiar from school, so they give the quickest gains.
2. Standard English Conventions next. The grammar rules are finite and learnable, and these questions are quick once you know them.
3. Craft and Structure and Information and Ideas through daily practice. Reading skill builds slowly; ten questions a day beats a weekend of cramming.
4. Problem-Solving and Data Analysis deliberately, because it is the domain school did not cover.
5. Desmos throughout. Practise with the built-in calculator from the start, not in the last week.

If you want a sense of how hard the test feels at each score level, our guide to the SAT difficulty level covers that. For dates, fees and how to book a test, see the SAT registration guide.

The SAT is one part of a US or international undergraduate application. If you are also deciding where to apply and how to present your profile, our counsellors can help you build a college list and plan your application.