The site offers questions from past SAT exams, video tutorials, practice tests, and other supports for students preparing to take the SAT. Khan Academy and the College Board announced their partnership in March 2014 and the new online practice system made its debut in June 2015.
But Khan said he believes the gains show “an independent association” with Khan practice because they held steady across all socioeconomic groups. They acknowledged that they didn’t know which of the students using Khan might also be using outside test-prep companies, so they couldn’t rule out that such practice might be responsible for a slice of the gains. Officials of the two organizations did not produce breakdowns of the PSAT-to-SAT score gains by racial, ethnic, gender or income subgroups, saying only that the gains held constant across all groups. But the system is being used by students of all family-income backgrounds, races, and ethnicities, he told reporters. Salman Khan, the founder of the Khan Academy, told reporters that he and his team worried initially that a free service might be stigmatized as being of little value. He said students who use it aren’t learning quick test-prep strategies, but mastering the academic skills and knowledge that matter-an echo of the guiding idea behind the redesign of the SAT. “Practice is an equal opportunity employer, and it’s free,” College Board President David Coleman said in a conference call with reporters.
The correlation of higher scores with more use of the practice system led the College Board to praise it as an important opportunity for students who can’t afford the high pricetags of many test-prep courses.