North Carolina’s high school students are now achieving higher scores than the national average on the revamped SAT exam, even though the majority of the state’s seniors are now taking the ACT.
North Carolina’s graduating class of 2017 posted an average score of 1,081 on the new SAT exam – 21 points above the national average of 1,060. The College Board overhauled the exam with changes that lowered the maximum score to 1,600, eliminated obscure vocabulary words, dropped the penalty for guessing and made the essay optional.