Significant changes to the SAT, aiming to even out the playing field and test what students have learned in school, are coming the spring of 2016.

Some of these major changes include an optional essay, no markdowns for getting a question wrong, the removal of obscure language, and reverting back to a maximum score of 1600.

“Aligning the SAT with what is being taught in high school makes it equitable for everyone,” math teacher Jennifer Gilson said.

The College Board, responsible for the redesigning of the SAT, strives to accommodate those who may not be able to afford expensive tutoring or score reports.

The three new sections will be evidence-based reading and writing, math, and the optional essay. The test will be available not only on paper, but also on computers.

The new SAT will be aligned with Common Core standards, a change that has already received backlash from many.

“I don’t like the changes,” senior Connie Hsieh said. “I feel it’s unfair for those who already took the SAT and going to college.”

On the other hand, there are others who believe the test changes will more closely evaluate a student’s college readiness.

The College Board believes that this new test will create equal opportunity for all students.

There is a stigma that those who can afford expensive tutoring for the SAT obtain a higher score.

The new test, College Board’s partnership with Khan Academy to provide free tutoring, the addition of four free test scores reports for low income students to send to colleges, and the option to even take the test for free will help even out the playing field.

Khan Academy, an online resource with thousands of educational instructional videos, will start administering tutoring sometime in 2015 in the form of free practice problems and instructional videos on its website.

The College Board divides all of its changes in eight different categories.

The first change addresses the removal of challenging vocabulary.

According to collegeboard.com, these words will be replaced with those currently used in high school, and will be used in the future.

“I think [the new test is] easy because you don’t have to study as much vocab,” sophomore Amy Kan said.

The second change will be seen in the evidence-based reading and writing section, where students must be able to support answers with quotes from the text or graphic representation in order to simulate more of what students will do in the future.

The third change, and one of the biggest, is an optional essay analyzing a source. If they choose to do the essay, instead of being asked to respond to a prompt, students will have to read a passage and explain how the author builds an argument. It will be 50 minutes instead of the previous 25 minutes.

Even though the essay is optional, some colleges will require students to take it.

The fourth change will refocus math in three key areas: problem solving and data analysis, the heart of algebra, and passport to advanced math.

These subunits will focus on what is being taught in math classes today, such as linear equations. The “passport to advanced math” section will contain the more complex math equations.

Calculators will be banned from certain math sections of the test as well.

Gilson said she thinks the math changes to the SAT are helpful.

She believes it is better to test what students are learning in class instead of raw mathematical ability and that a student’s score will represent how hard they worked.

The fifth change sums up the whole SAT revamp. The aim is to change problems and root them from current, real world experiences. This change will be seen in all three sections.

The sixth change will introduce texts and graphics pertaining to the three sections that students must read, comprehend, and sometimes revise. This also includes solving problems based in science and social science. This change will be seen in all sections except the optional essay.

The seventh change will be found in the evidence based reading and writing section.

According to collegeboard.org every time a student takes the redesigned SAT they will encounter an excerpt from one of the Founding Documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, or a text from a current event.

The last and final change will be no penalty for wrong answers.

For a detailed list of all the changes, go to collegeboard.org.