A question about (American) SATs

[We_come1]

Evenin all. i was just wondering if someone could explain the SATs to me? are they just general knowledge tests or what? A link to past papers would be massivly appreciated

 

[Transcendence]

The SATs are reasoning exams that test basic English and mathematical skills, so that colleges can measure your abilities compared to other students. They're mostly multiple choice with a short essay required for the English test. The tests are typically first taken near the end of your junior year in high school, and can be repeated as many times as you want in order to obtain the highest scores possible.

There are also SAT II subject tests, in which up to three different subjects (Literature, Math I and II, Physics, Biology E/M, Chemistry, world history, US history, and a multitude of foreign languages) are selected to be tested individually on. The SATs focus more on reading and logic skills, while the SAT IIs focus more on specific knowledge in a given subject area. However, only a handful of universities look for SAT II scores, while only about ten in the whole country require them.

 

[SonOF]

The SATs are reasoning exams that test basic English and mathematical skills, so that colleges can measure your abilities compared to other students. They're mostly multiple choice with a short essay required for the English test. The tests are typically first taken near the end of your junior year in high school, and can be repeated as many times as you want in order to obtain the highest scores possible.

To be a little more specific, the "new" SAT reasoning test (the main one most people refer to when they say "the SAT's") consists of three parts:

Mathematics - multiple choice questions
Critical Reading - essentially "reading comprehension" multiple choice questions, and multiple choice vocabulary type questions. The reading comprehension part presents passages of varying length and subject matter and asks both general and specific questions related to the passages. The vocabulary questions simply provide sentences or a short paragraph with one or two blanks and ask you to choose the word or words that correctly complete the sentences without altering meaning.
Writing - You must write one short persuasive type essay (25 minutes) about a topic that the SAT people consider general enough for any student to answer. The multiple choice part of the writing section involves finding errors in sentences and editing paragraphs and sentences to correct errors.

Each section scored out of 800, with a perfect score being 2400.