The SAT will drop the pencil and go completely digital by 2024

The SAT standardized college admissions tests will be taken exclusively on computers starting in 2024, The New York Times has reported. The new system will spell the end to tests taken on paper with No. 2 pencils, a right of passage for American high school students since the SAT was first administered nearly a hundred years ago.

Students will instead complete the exams on laptops or tablets, either their own or devices issued by the school. If students don’t have a device, the board will provide one on the test day. And if a student loses power or connectivity, “the digital SAT has been designed to ensure they won’t lose their work or time while they reconnect,” said the College Board, which administers the tests.

On top of the technical changes, the testing time will be shortened to two hours instead of three. It’ll feature shorter reading passages with one question for each, reflecting a wider range of topics more representative of what students will see in college. For the math section, calculators will finally be allowed. And students and teachers will get test scores in days rather than weeks, with educators no longer having to deal with packing, sorting or shipping test materials. 

It felt a lot less stressful, and whole lot quicker than I thought it’d be.

The College Board said that in pilot testing, 80 percent of students found the digital-only tests less stressful. “It felt a lot less stressful, and whole lot quicker than I thought it’d be,” 11th grade student Natalia Cossio told the board. “The shorter passages helped me concentrate more on what the question wanted me to do.”

The new testing standard was announced amid a growing trend for schools across the US to drop the SAT (or rival ACT) tests altogether. For Fall 2022, around 1,815 schools (of nearly 4,000 degree-granting institutions) have eliminated the requirement for standardized test scores, according to the FairTest non-profit foundation. 

“Schools that did not mandate ACT/SAT submission last year generally received more applicants, better academically qualified applicants and a more diverse pool of applicants,” FairTest Executive Director Bob Schaeffer told the Los Angeles Times last year. 

Critics have also noted that the SAT tests handicap students who don’t have access to expensive test preparation courses or who can’t afford to take the $55 test multiple times. The digital SAT shift “does not magically transform it to a more accurate, fairer or valid tool for assessing college readiness,” Schaefer told the NYT. The College Board, meanwhile, has said that SAT scores can actually help students who don’t have top-flight grade-point averages. 

California City Approves Law Requiring Gun Owners To Carry Liability Insurance

The San Jose City Council overwhelmingly approved the measure despite opposition from gun owners who promised to sue.

KTM X-Bow GT2 race car is getting a 600HP road-legal variant

<img width="1280" height="720" src="https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dea262c4cf5b2a5bded7a298a0f10cf4.v2-1280×720.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="KTM X-Bow GT2 prototype" loading="lazy" style="margin: auto;margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%" data-attachment-id="708739" data-permalink="https://www.slashgear.com/ktm-x-bow-gt2-race-car-is-getting-a-600hp-road-legal-variant-25708736/dea262c4cf5b2a5bded7a298a0f10cf4-v2/" data-orig-file="https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dea262c4cf5b2a5bded7a298a0f10cf4.v2.jpg" data-orig-size="1440,810" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="dea262c4cf5b2a5bded7a298a0f10cf4.v2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="

Images: KTM

” data-medium-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dea262c4cf5b2a5bded7a298a0f10cf4.v2-1280×720.jpg” data-large-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dea262c4cf5b2a5bded7a298a0f10cf4.v2-1280×720.jpg” />Austrian motorcycle manufacturer KTM is prepping up the road-legal version of its X-Bow (Cross-bow) racing car. KTM announced that its latest street-legal supercar had inherited all the quirky details of its FIA-homologated GT4 racer like a pop-up, canopy-style cockpit and a 600-horsepower turbocharged Audi inline-five engine. The KTM X-Bow GT2 prototype on this page is currently undergoing testing in Europe. … Continue reading

Amazon's 'pay-to-quit' program won't cover most US workers this year

Amazon won’t be paying most warehouse workers in the US to quit their jobs this year. According to The Information, the e-commerce giant has paused its “pay-to-quit” program for majority of its workers for 2022, and it’s unclear if it will be reinstated. The publication has obtained a copy of Amazon’s message to its employees, which was then verified by a spokesperson from the company. Typically, Amazon pays its warehouse workers up to $5,000 to quit their jobs after peak seasons like the holidays as a way to pare down its workforce in the slowdown that follows. 

Jeff Bezos also once told shareholders in a newsletter that it’s a way to give employees an out if they’re no longer happy working for Amazon. The company would usually make “The Offer,” as it’s also called, towards the end of the first quarter of the year. For 2022, however, it told employees that only workers who graduated from Amazon’s Career Choice training program will be eligible for the payout. They’re also only eligible within 90 days after graduating. Amazon pays tuition reimbursements for workers part of the Career Choice program, which expands this January to include GEDs, English as a Second Language (ESL) certificates and bachelor’s degrees. It only used to cover certificates for technical skills and associate degrees.

Karen Riley Sawyer, the company’s representative, has confirmed the changes to the pay-to-quit program, telling The Information that it’s currently only available “to graduates of Career Choice to support their transition to a new career should they choose to leverage their new certifications.” While Sawyer didn’t say why the program’s scope has been narrowed down, it could be because vaccine mandates and the rising infection rates caused by the spread of the Omicron variant are making it hard for Amazon to find adequate staffing. Earlier this month, Motherboard reported that over 1,800 workers at a single Amazon facility in New York were out on leave due to COVID. A source also told The Information that the warehouse had been facing severe staffing shortages over the past months. 

Russia’s Potential Invasion Of Ukraine Tests Biden’s Anti-Putin Diplomacy

Biden is tasked with establishing a strong western alliance against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Neil Young gives Spotify an ultimatum: It’s Joe Rogan or my music

<img width="1280" height="720" src="https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/young322-1280×720.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="Neil Young" loading="lazy" style="margin: auto;margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%" data-attachment-id="708809" data-permalink="https://www.slashgear.com/neil-young-gives-spotify-an-ultimatum-its-joe-rogan-or-my-music-25708779/young322/" data-orig-file="https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/young322.jpg" data-orig-size="1440,810" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="young322" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="

Gary Miller/Getty Images

” data-medium-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/young322-1280×720.jpg” data-large-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/young322-1280×720.jpg” />Neil Young has just reportedly presented his record label and Spotify with an ultimatum: Either get rid of Joe Rogan’s podcast or remove Young’s music from the platform. The singer and musician has taken this drastic step as a response to vaccine-related misinformation. As a protest against Spotify’s indifference, he requests that all of his music be removed effective immediately. … Continue reading

Blizzard is diving into the survival game genre

Blizzard, the studio behind Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft, is getting into a new genre with the announcement that it’s working on a survival game. It seems the project is in the early stages of development, so don’t expect a finished product (or even a splashy trailer) any time soon, but it’s notable that the publisher is playing around with fresh mechanics and new worlds.

Blizzard’s job post about the survival game says it will be “a place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.” So, yeah, they’re keeping things vague for now.

The studio has confirmed one detail about the project: It’ll be available on “PC and console.” It’s hard to say if the use of the singular “console” is prophetic — after all, Microsoft just announced plans to purchase Activision Blizzard, and the cross-platform future of its games is uncertain. Operating as a subsidiary of Microsoft, it’s possible that Blizzard would build a game just for Xbox consoles, leaving PlayStation and Switch players in the lurch.

It’ll likely be at least a year before we hear platform details and concrete information about the game, but Blizzard is looking to hire a handful of people in art, design and engineering to fill out the team. 

Activision Blizzard is currently facing a lawsuit and several investigations into allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the studio, where CEO Bobby Kotick has been in charge for the past 30 years. One Blizzard employee went public with her experience, saying she was “subjected to rude comments about [her] body, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriately touched, subjected to alcohol-infused team events and cube crawls, invited to have casual sex with [her] supervisors, and surrounded by a frat-boy culture that’s detrimental to women.” 

Blizzard head Mike Ybarra last week promised to rebuild trust in the studio and establish “a safe, inclusive and creative work environment” as it transitions to Microsoft’s roster.

Trouble For Trump? Jimmy Kimmel Spots An Ominous Sign For The Former President

The late-night host finds a survey the former guy almost certainly won’t like.

EA and Respawn announce three new Star Wars games, including Fallen Order follow-up

<img width="1280" height="717" src="https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Star-Wars-Jedi-Fallen-Order-AT-AT-screenshot-1280×717.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="" loading="lazy" style="margin: auto;margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%" data-attachment-id="708782" data-permalink="https://www.slashgear.com/ea-and-respawn-announce-three-new-star-wars-games-including-fallen-order-follow-up-25708767/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-at-at-screenshot/" data-orig-file="https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Star-Wars-Jedi-Fallen-Order-AT-AT-screenshot.jpg" data-orig-size="1440,807" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order AT-AT screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="

Image: Respawn Entertainment/EA

” data-medium-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Star-Wars-Jedi-Fallen-Order-AT-AT-screenshot-1280×717.jpg” data-large-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Star-Wars-Jedi-Fallen-Order-AT-AT-screenshot-1280×717.jpg” />In the years leading up to Disney’s revival of the Lucasfilm Games brand, Electronic Arts was the sole license holder for Star Wars video games. While Star Wars may be spreading to other developers like Ubisoft and Quantic Dream, Electronic Arts isn’t finished with the license yet. In fact, it’s nowhere near finished, as Electronic Arts announced today that three … Continue reading

NYC's app-based delivery workers can finally use restaurant bathrooms

Back in September, a slate of landmark bills successfully passed through the City Council of New York granting a variety of common sense provisions to the many delivery workers of the five boroughs. Well, the first tranche of new laws came into effect this week and crucially, they now guarantee couriers the right to use the bathrooms of restaurants. 

The lack of access to toilets has been a major point of contention for this class of workers (no doubt you’ve seen reports of Amazon drivers urinating in in bottles — something the company is reportedly well aware of.) The situation has been no different gig workers in NYC, and so bathroom access became a rallying cry for Los Deliveristas Unidos, a group of couriers who have been pushing for change. What was a long uphill battle resulted in a legislative win backed by progressive lawmakers in the states, and Local Law 117 — sponsored by District 2 Councilwoman Carlina Rivera — guarantees that:

“food delivery applications include a provision in contracts with restaurants requiring them to make their toilet facilities available for delivery workers’ use, as long as the delivery worker seeks to access the facilities while picking up a food or beverage order for delivery”

Why this was not already the case is a total mystery. Keep in mind that, while the pandemic has certainly put a spotlight on the working conditions of couriers, Seamless launched in New York City in 1999, and has been leveraging its own fleet of gig workers since around 2014. A law addressing the discrepancy between “working everywhere” and “being allowed to use a toilet almost nowhere” took this long to address.

Free use of restrooms isn’t the only quality of life change for gig workers. Two other laws which became enforceable yesterday provide greater pay transparency. The first requires informing delivery persons of the amount each customer has tipped them on an order, while the second mandates the information related to the previous day’s total pay and total tips for be shared with the courier. These also might seem like small, perhaps even obvious features one might expect to already be available in these apps. But once again, this has been a long-running issue for gig workers; both Amazon Flex and DoorDash have been forced to pay hefty settlements for using tip money to subsidize contractor wages. 

Additional provisions for couriers will go into effect near the end of April that will require companies to provide insulated bags, routing directions for accepting an order and to pay workers at least once a week. Another law will also allow delivery workers to set the maximum distance they wish to travel, and give them the freedom to avoid going over bridges or through tunnels which can sometimes be dangerous. Finally, this coming January 1st, apps will be required to pay an as-yet-to-be-determined minimum rate to couriers, similar to how the city enacted a pay floor for rideshare drivers in 2018.