SAT也俗称美国高考，一般SAT考试分为按照地域分为美国和国际两部分，其中的考题自然也不一样。下面就来说说北美和亚太SAT考卷哪个难，大家千万别错过。
北美和亚太SAT考卷难度
每年家长问的我最多的问题就是在哪里考试，考哪个月份的考试?家长经常说，老师听说北美考试比亚太简单，听说3月份考试比5月份简单。对于SAT这样一个出题严密，组织复杂的考试来说，个体的那些“算命式”的预测显得不自量力。对于这个问题，我和大家讲两点：
第一， 我们发现很多北美的考题会在亚太考试重复使用，比如2016，2017，2018连续三年的school day test后来被用到了5月份的亚太考试中。再比如2017年1月份的亚太完整重复了2016年6月的北美考试。如果CB认定了亚太要和北美之间试卷有差异，那就不可能出现整套重复的情况。
第二， 我们每年有很多海外的学生在新东方学习，占我们SAT学生总人数约1/4，对于他们的模考分数和实际考试分数观察，我们发现是一致的。在我们班上模考分数是多少，在北美的实际考试中大差不差。而我们班上的模考题目既有亚太也有北美，所以从整体表现上来说，没有差异。
那么不同考试之间考题难度是否存在差异呢?答案是肯定。我们的确发现，有些场次题目相对简单一些，有些场次题目相对难一些。比如，去年8月份的北美考试大家发现高分特别多。这次考试题目的确稍微简单一些，有利于大家的发挥。但是通过这一次考试就推理出之后8月份北美会简单，这便很牵强。SAT试题的难易程度，至少目前的数据还不能得出不存在地域性差异的结论。而且，当题目难度出现差异的时候，官方都会用算分表来进行平衡。比如2017年12月语法错一题都可以满分，而2016年10月份语法错三题就要扣去40分。
很多家长在处理关于SAT相关信息的时候，很容易受到个例的影响，比如我们邻居的孩子去了北美考，就比我家孩子在亚太考得好，北美肯定简单。这些都在逻辑上站不住脚。所以，大家在规划考试的时候，不用把考试地点作为一个重要的参考因素，还是主要结合学生的精力、备考的时间做出决定。
北美SAT全新试题难度
鉴于考生选择考场的多种因素考虑，有少部分大陆考生赴北美考试，同时也有一些中国美高学生参加本次考试。据考生反馈:阅读部分历史类和文学类文章难度维持在一个相对非常友好的状态，值得我们注意的是今年出现了文法单项Curve偏低容错率的趋势(比如今年3月北美错2题370，10月和11月都是错1题38，错2题36，错3题34), 这就需要我们除了在强化考点意识和提高审题速度的同时，不断的通过模考、刷题和总结来高标准提升准确率。
阅读部分
1、本次北美SAT考试的阅读部分整体难度中等，文学难度相对不高，人物和情节非常好懂，主要讲Emma第一次离开Hong Kong来到美国上大学感到的单一和害怕，以及遇到一位非常热情友好的出租车司机Sergei带她周游城市的美景和唐人街美食的故事。(文章选自Night of Many Dreams)。
2、社科类文章出现在第二篇难度依然很低，主题围绕GMO scrutiny展开，主要讲人们传统意义上认为GM作物都是不好的，但是通过新技术研究表明GMO对于人类健康和自然环境的影响未必负面。文章题材在SAT官方真题和PSAT真题中多次出现，相信对于大家的理解来说没有任何障碍。
3、第三篇科学有关对于一种神秘的blackholes的分类和精确测量，属于非常典型的物理学题材文章，文章和段落结构非常清晰，修辞作用和观点题的考察也符合PSAT真题中同类话题的常规考点，可能的难点来自假设题(assumption)和需要进行推理的循证题。最后一篇科学讲Pleistocene Ice Age的影响，(目标与循证题的组合)循证题的特征更多是非简单字词对应的推理线索，如果考生对于时间把握合理应该对于这类真题中多次出现过的题材有一个正常的发挥。
原文:
Fascinating Rhythm: Light Pulses Illuminate Rare Black Hole
The universe has so many black holes that it’s impossible to count them all. There may be 100 million of these intriguing astral objects in our galaxy alone. Nearly all black holes fall into one of two classes: big, and colossal. Astronomers know that black holes ranging from about 10 times to 100 times the mass of our sun are the remnants of dying stars, and that supermassive black holes, more than a million times the mass of the sun, inhabit the centers of most galaxies.
But scattered across the universe like oases in a desert are a few apparent black holes of a more mysterious type. Ranging from a hundred times to a few hundred thousand times the sun’s mass, these intermediate-mass black holes are so hard to measure that even their existence is sometimes disputed. Little is known about how they form. And some astronomers question whether they behave like other black holes.
Now a team of astronomers has succeeded in accurately measuring - and thus confirming the existence of - a black hole about 400 times the mass of our sun in a galaxy 12 million light years from Earth. The finding, by University of Maryland astronomy graduate student Dheeraj Pasham and two colleagues, was published online Aug. 17, 2014 in the journal Nature.
Co-author Richard Mushotzky, a UMD astronomy professor, says the black hole in question is a just-right-sized version of this class of astral objects.
“Objects in this range are the least expected of all black holes,” says Mushotzky. “Astronomers have been asking, do these objects exist or do they not exist? What are their properties? Until now we have not had the data to answer these questions.” While the intermediate-mass black hole that the team studied is not the first one measured, it is the first one so precisely measured, Mushotzky says, “establishing it as a compelling example of this class of black holes.”
Ablack hole is a region in space containing a mass so dense that not even light can escape its gravity. Black holes are invisible, but astronomers can find them by tracking their gravitational pull on other objects. Matter being pulled into a black hole gathers around it like storm debris circling a tornado’s center. As this cosmic stuff rubs together it produces friction and light, making black holes among the universe’s brightest objects.
Since the 1970s astronomers have observed a few hundred objects that they thought were intermediate-mass black holes. But they couldn’t measure their mass, so they couldn’t be certain. “For reasons that are very hard to understand, these objects have resisted standard measurement techniques,” says Mushotzky.
Pasham, who will receive his Ph.D. in astronomy at UMD August 22, focused on one object in Messier 82, a galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. Messier 82 is our closest “starburst galaxy,” where young stars are forming. Beginning in 1999 a NASA satellite telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, detected X-rays in Messier 82 from a bright object prosaically dubbed M82 X-1. Astronomers, including Mushotzky and co-author Tod Strohmayer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, suspected for about a decade that the object was an intermediate-mass black hole, but estimates of its mass were not definitive enough to confirm that.
Between 2004 and 2010 NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite telescope observed M82 X-1 about 800 times, recording individual x-ray particles emitted by the object. Pasham mapped the intensity and wavelength of x-rays in each sequence, then stitched the sequences together and analyzed the result.
Among the material circling the suspected black hole, he spotted two repeating flares of light. The flares showed a rhythmic pattern of light pulses, one occurring 5.1 times per second and the other 3.3 times per second – or a ratio of 3:2.
The two light oscillations were like two dust motes stuck in the grooves of a vinyl record spinning on a turntable, says Mushotzky. If the oscillations were musical beats, they would produce a specific syncopated rhythm. Think of a Latin-inflected bossa nova, or a tune from The Beatles’ Abbey Road:
“Mean Mister Mustard sleeps in the park, shaves in the dark, try’na save paper.”
In music, this is a 3:2 beat. Astronomers can use a 3:2 oscillation of light to measure a black hole’s mass. The technique has been used on smaller black holes, but it has never before been applied to intermediate-mass black holes.
Pasham used the oscillations to estimate that M82 X-1 is 428 times the mass of the sun, give or take 105 solar masses. He does not propose an explanation for how this class of black holes formed. “We needed to confirm their existence observationally first,” he says. “Now the theorists can get to work.”
Though the Rossi telescope is no longer operational, NASA plans to launch a new X-ray telescope, the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), in about two years. Pasham, who will begin a pot-doctoral research position at NASA Goddard in late August, has identified six potential intermediate-mass black holes that NICER might explore.
This work is based on observations made with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), managed and controlled by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of NASA or the Goddard Space Flight Center.
4、而历史双篇对比出现在第四篇，涉及的话题为广告对于政府，企业和消费者的影响，两篇文章的观点都非常容易辨识，特别是涉及两篇文章的题型观点互联题和同异分析题选项的定性判断难度都一般，相信本次的Founding Documents部分大家会有一个比较好的表现。
数学部分
难度分析:
本次考试数学部分整体很有特点，不能使用计算器的Section 3 难度不高，对于代数、几何和函数的考察都相对容易，而对于数据分析和统计部分的考察相对密集且有一定难度，特别是可以使用计算器的Section 4，值得注意的是在Section 4对于学生的基本运算能力和快速审题能力要求较高，特别是非选择题部分的最后两题，几乎完全考察学生的阅读理解能力和计算基本功，并无知识点的难度。笔者建议未来备考的学生，特别是国内普高的学生，把复习重点放在统计学的学习和加强审题理解能力的训练。
考点分析:
·1、基本代数运算;
2、函数(特别是一元二次方程和二元一次方程组的解法，以及与图像的结合问题)包括基本的三角函数问题;
3、margin of error，笔者认为这是一个普高学生可能相对陌生的考点，在OG的数学部分和历年真题中虽有涉及但比例不高，注重对于概念的考察而非计算;
4、数据特征数(mean, median, mode) 与历年真题的考法相比并无非常规之处，这类问题需要注意的是结合图像的考点;
5、线性回归类问题主要考察数据估值。
写作部分
Adapted from Bryce Covert, “Teachers Shouldn’t Teach for Free.” ©2015 by The Slate. Originally published September 01, 2015.
1The Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania is $22 million in the hole and can’t currently guarantee teachers that they’ll be compensated for their work. Yet teachers are going back to school on Wednesday without paychecks, after their union voted unanimously to work without pay as the year begins. It’s happened before in the same district: In 2012 it faced a similar financial shortfall, and teachers agreed to work without pay. Other educators have made the same move under similar circumstances: In 2013, for example, a small district in Michigan ran out of money to pay teachers before the end of the year, yet the teachers decided to keep going.
2“Some of our children, this is all they have as far as safety, their next nourishing meal, people who are concerned for them,” explained John Shelton, the dean of students for Chester Upland’s only middle school, told the Washington Post. “We are dedicated to these children.”
3The motivation is noble. But the decision is not beneficial for Shelton and his fellow teachers, and by extension it’s not beneficial in the long run to the children they care about. The teaching profession is already vastly underpaid and underappreciated. Shelton and his fellow district employees get good grades for best intentions. But no teacher should agree to work for free.
4Elementary school teachers make about $53,000 a year at the median; middle school teachers make slightly more than that, and high school teachers make slightly more than $55,000. That’s not minimum wage, but teaching is also not a low- or even medium-skill occupation. It’s one that requires significant training and education. Teachers have to have at least a bachelor’s degree; many are required to have a master’s. They have to know how to manage a crowd, tend to a variety of emotional needs, comply with state requirements and regulations, not to mention pass on critical knowledge to a group of children in their formative years.
5Yet when compared with workers with the same or similar credentials, teachers make a whole lot less. Those who work in public schools and belong to a union have the smallest pay gap compared with other college-educated workers, but they still earn about 13 percent less than their peers outside the profession. Private school teachers who aren’t unionized have the biggest gap, making more than 30 percent less.
6Teaching has gotten caught in the “women’s work” trap. It’s a field dominated by women, where they make up about three-quarters of all workers. And unlike college professors, who make closer to $69,000 at the median, K-12 teaching is more closely associated with care work. That’s because of the idea that K-12 teachers do it out of passion and devotion, not out of a sense of professional ambition or monetary gain.
7Care work is still seen not as work; it’s seen as something women just do. Something they would do even if they weren’t paid. This is the dynamic that the teachers of Chester Upland are playing into by deciding to work for free. The message they send about their work-and the work of all teachers-is that it is motivated by love, not money. That weakens the call to pay teachers more money, or any money at all.
8Underpayment, in turns, weakens the education system. After years of budget cutting during the recession and recovery, the workforce is missing a whole lot of educators. School districts have eliminated 313,300 teaching jobs since the recovery began in June of 2009. Public school enrollment has continued to increase in the same time frame, which would normally necessitate hiring even more teachers to keep up. With that growth taken into account, as of October of last year there was a 377,000-person shortfall in teaching positions.
9Now that states and towns are spending more on education, they’re having a hard time enticing people back to the field. Pay is a huge piece of this puzzle. Why would a smart, talented young graduate seek out a devalued, underpaid profession when she could take her skills elsewhere?
10 Until we raise teacher pay, it’ll be hard to raise the status of teaching, despite the fact that we put our faith in the education system to cure society of every conceivable ill, from institutional racism to income inequality and lack of economic mobility. Teachers’ pay exposes what we think teachers are really worth. There’s no way to break down that mode of thinking if teachers agree to work for nothing.
8月北美SAT考试难度对比
阅读部分
难度：一般，接近5月的阅读考试难度。
文章顺序：
文学作品-历史文献(对比文章)-自然科学-社会科学-自然科学
第一篇：
标题： "The Sport of the Gods"
作者： Paul Laurence Dunbar
文章大意就是说：一个小女孩鼓足勇气在另一主角的冷嘲热讽中唱了一首歌曲后的内心转变。在唱第二首歌曲的时候主角内心也有个声音在歌唱。
第二篇：
两位作者就：New YorkConstitutional Covention in 1821 的话题进行了讨论：Onlyproperty-owning males should be granted suffrage。
点评：这个话题在老SAT也是司空见惯的，关于选举权;
第一篇观点是不应该给所有人投票权，只有property-owning males才应该有投票权;第二篇阐述property是众多权利中的一种，需要被保护但不能成为决定投票权的基础。
当然：两篇文章的观点要么互补和要么对立，这也是我们非常熟练的，所以在没有读懂文章的情况下做题，等于摸着石头过河，其效果肯定是大打折扣;平时，我们训练是3分钟读文章;对于历史，我建议，我们可以4到5分钟，在没有搞清楚主题和态度的情况下，万不要做题。
第三篇：
标题：Memory in Plants
作者：P.H.
第一段稍微嘲讽了下查尔斯王子：
When BritainPrince Charles once claimed that he talked to plants-and they responded-criticschalked it up as one more reason that he should never become king.
文章内容大致是：
植物是否具备记忆力?研究者以含羞草为例进行测试：从高处丢下来，观察叶子是否收拢。实验结果表明含羞草能够通过记忆学会不收拢叶子作为防御措施。文章还描述了两种不同的实验，以表明不同的含羞草叶子打开的程度不一样，另外在遇到其他威胁的时候，含羞草还是有相应反应的。
第四篇：
标题：Why so cynical
作者：Detief Fetchenhauer and David Dunning
两位作者DetlefFetchenhauer 和David Dunning的Why so cynical，然后做了一系列实验，证明人与人之间的信任是如何割裂开的。
第五篇：
标题：The deadly dynamics of landsilde
作者：Sigma Xi
词汇题
strange
object
made secure
claimed
exploited
preserved
语法和数学
语法题目考点都比较常规，属于基础语法题目，
语篇题较少，整体难度不大。
其中有一篇文章讲到了nikki giovanni,
一位黑人诗人。其余题目基本为词汇题，语法规则题。
数学总体难度正常，学生们只要仔细审题及计算，都能够拿到自己的预期分数。
写作部分
文章选自于the wall street journal
文章题目：Peter Downs：can't find skilled workers? Start an apprentice program
文章内容：
1 One key element to a competitive workforce almost entirely overlooked in the U.S. is apprenticeships. These days, American businesses typically want someone else—trade schools, community colleges, universities or even the federal government—to train their future employees. If potential future job seekers haven't been provided with the training they need, many businesses expect job seekers to take all the responsibility on themselves, often taking on serious debt without any guarantee of future employment.
2 Worse, in the face of greater competition, many American employers are slashing training budgets and running employment software that rejects every applicant who doesn't already have the perfect combination of training and experience to perform the job on day one. Then employers lament that job applicants don't already know how to do the jobs that they want them to do. So shortsighted is this attitude that some construction companies that don't support apprenticeship programs complain that companies that do have such programs aren't training enough new workers.
Yes, you read that right.
3 This sense of entitlement contrasts sharply with attitudes in some of the world's most competitive countries, where businesses are highly involved in preparing future workers through apprenticeships. In Switzerland, 70% of young people age 15-19 apprentice in hundreds of occupations, including baking, banking, health care, retail trade and clerical careers. In Germany, 65% of youth are in apprenticeships; in Austria 55%. All three countries have youth unemployment rates less than half of
America's 16%.
4 Last year, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Spain all asked Germany to help them set up similar systems. In 1997, Britain introduced a program called Modern Apprenticeships, based on the German model, and enrollment has increased every year. It now stands at 858,900. In 2012, the U.K. added apprenticeship programs for commercial pilots, lawyers, engineers and accountants that are considered the equivalent of a college education.
5 The U.S. is headed in the opposite direction. The number of apprenticeship programs has fallen by one-third in the last decade. With only 330,578 registered apprentices in 2013, the U.S. had less than 40% of the number in Britain, a country one-fifth as populous.
6 There are glimmers of hope that the U.S.—
or at least some savvy industries—might be starting to embrace apprenticeship. In St. Louis, technology entrepreneur Jim McKelvey convinced several large employers last year—including Enterprise, Monsanto and Rawlings —that it doesn't take a college education to become good at computer programming. What it takes is working with an experienced programmer.
7 These employers joined with Mr. McKelvey to set up what is essentially an apprenticeship program called LaunchCode. The program takes people with basic programming skills, pays them $15 an hour, and pairs them with experienced programmers for two years to give them the training to secure jobs as coders.
8 Some employers think apprenticeships could also work in other high-tech, high-growth industries. In recent years, the U.S. Office for Apprenticeships has registered new apprenticeship programs in information technology, health care, biotechnology and geospatial technology.
9 There is evidence that such apprenticeships can do more than just train young people for future careers: They can also improve student academic performance. In the few U.S. school districts that have offered apprenticeships, high-school juniors and seniors who have been apprentices have improved in the classroom.
10 In the Bayless School District in suburban St. Louis, for example, students who entered the district's Middle Apprenticeship Program with the Carpenters' Union had better attendance than before entering the program. The mean grade point average for these students was 1.7 at the end of their sophomore year, before they entered the apprenticeship program. By senior year, it was 3.13. They graduated with better attendance and better grades than did a group of similar students who weren't in the program.
11 To the extent that the American business community is involved in education reform, they are typically investing in faddish reforms such as banning tenure, that, even if passed, would do little to ensure the competitiveness of the nation's workforce. If this same money and effort went into pushing for a two-track education system—college or apprenticeship—it would do far more to produce students prepared to compete in the 21st-century economy.
