SGP has checked with www.snopes.com to see if this was a hoax or not, and sadly, we could not find this story there. However, as of yesterday I received this notice from a friend who contacted the SAT people and this is what they said, “A satirical posting on the web has generated a number of phone calls and emails. There will be no new text in the SAT in the fall of 2005. There is only one version of the SAT and it is given in all fifty states. Sincerely, SAT Program, The College Board, 45 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY 10023. I still want this on the outRAGEous page of this website because it is so very believable and who knows, in another year, this story just might not be satire any longer if the current administration keeps encouraging Fundamentalist Christians that they have a mandate to make the USA a Christian nation.

New SAT Questions Replace Evolution with Creation
Students attending school in districts that have phased out the teaching of evolution will no longer be forced to answer SAT questions about the controversial theory. Instead, they’ll answer questions about the six days in which God created the earth and the great flood that took place 4,300 years ago.

New version of test to be administered in ‘red’ states of Georgia, Kansas

By Cole Walters
Education Correspondent

NEW YORK, NY-Officials from the College Board, the nonprofit entity that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT, have announced that they are producing a new version of the test for students who live in school districts where creationism rather than evolution is taught in science classes.

Students who take the revised test, which will be introduced in school districts in Kansas and Georgia in the fall of 2005, will no longer be tested on their ability to comprehend passages from scientific texts that are based on the controversial theory of evolution. Instead, they will read excerpts from writings on such creation-related topics as the six days in which God created the earth or the great flood, then answer a series of questions to indicate how well they’ve understood the passages. [SGP: if you go their website, you can see this: http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2004/12/new_sat_questio.html#more]

The revision, says College Board spokesman Lester McCue, is a reflection of the changing nature of science content being taught in high schools around the country. “The SAT has to keep up with these changes or risk being left behind. We can’t test kids on material that they are not being taught,” says McCue. “In the past, we’ve evaluated students’ ability to comprehend passages about historical scientific events, and while we’ll continue to do that, the test now assumes that the world is 6,000 years old as opposed to hundreds of millions of years old.”

On the eighth day, test
In the aftermath of the election, proponents of science education based on creationism rather than evolution have made headway in school districts across the country. In Kansas, conservatives who want to challenge the teaching of evolution now represent a majority on the state school board. They are expected to change the state science curriculum as early as the spring; the new version of the SAT will be introduced in Kansas soon after that.

In Georgia, school district officials in Cobb County have placed “just a theory” stickers on the covers of high-school science books that contain information on the theory of evolution. While a US district court is currently weighing whether or not the county will be allowed to continue to use the evolution disclaimer stickers, administrators have already approved the use of the modified SAT test.

Testing students on the Truth
“This is exactly what we’ve been fighting for,” says parent Marla DeVries, who has been working with other Cobb County parents to replace atheistic science education in the schools with an approach that credits the role of the Creator. “It doesn’t make sense for our kids to have to be tested on something that they don’t believe. Would you have them read a passage and answer questions about Santa Claus? I don’t think so.”

In recent surveys, a majority of Americans indicated that they favor teaching a variety of explanations of human origins and evolution in schools. According to an ABC news poll taken early last year, 61% of Americans believe that the Bible’s book of Genesis is “literally true” rather than a story meant as a “lesson.”