The College Board has made several substantial changes to the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) as well as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which are taken by thousands of students nationwide.

The changes “will make the tests clearer for students, more closely connected to K-12 course work and more useful for college admission officers,” according to the College Board.

Academy students take the PSAT three times, beginning in freshman year through the fall of junior year. Juniors take the SAT in the spring of their junior year and often a second time in senior year.

The tests will no longer include random vocabulary words. Instead, they will use words that students are more familiar with and that must be read in context to be understood. The notorious “SAT Vocabulary Words” are a thing of the past.

The revised assessments will also require students to provide evidence and encourage them to justify their responses and explain the steps for arriving at a conclusion.

For the SAT, the 50-minute essay is optional. The prompt will be posted online prior to the test; however, the passage and text will be different on the actual test. The College Board recommends that students check with the institutions they are applying to to determine whether they should take the essay portion.

The tests will focus on three essential components of math: problem solving and data analysis; the heart of algebra; and Passport to Advanced Math.

Problems on the assessments will have greater relevance to real-world situations. Questions will be “directly related to the work performed in college and career,” according to the College Board.

Students taking the PSAT and SAT will also use math, reading, writing and language skills to analyze questions and texts in science, history and social studies contexts.

The assessments will be more inclusive of U.S. history and current events.

“Every time students take one of the redesigned assessments, they will encounter a passage from a founding document or a text from the ongoing global conversation about freedom, justice and human dignity,” according to the College Board.

Previously, one-fourth of a point was assigned for incorrect answers. This penalty has been removed on the new assessments. Students will gain points for correct answers.

In the past, students had been advised not to guess if they did not know an answer to a question. With the redesigned tests, it is in students’ best interest to guess as they have a chance of getting the right answer without a penalty.

Students in the class of 2016 must take the old SAT. All students in the class of 2017 and later will take the new PSAT and SAT.