By John Fensterwald

A dozen California school districts are joining more than two dozen states and a fast-increasing number of districts that are making the SAT or its rival, the ACT, available to all high school juniors for free in an effort to encourage more students to apply to college.

Beginning this month, the students are taking the new SAT, which debuted last week. The College Board, the nonprofit that developed and administers the test, says the latest version better measures the core skills that students learn in high school, such as citing evidence from lengthy reading passages to back up their answers. The test also aims to reflect what students learn under the Common Core standards. Among the changes, it eliminated the vocabulary quiz of arcane words that students would rarely see outside of SAT prep courses.

Source: Dozen districts offer free SAT to all juniors | EdSource