Yes. SAT experimental questions are part of every Digital SAT, and College Board calls them pretest questions. Every module has two of them, so you answer eight in total, and none of the eight count toward your score. They look like the scored questions, so you cannot tell which ones they are. The safe plan is to treat every question as if it counts. If you want to know what your scored questions add up to, our guide to what a good SAT score is shows where each score range sits.
Practice these skills, free
Practice your weak skills (free)
Question banks: October 2026 English question bank | October 2026 Math question bank
Practice needs a free account: one click with Google, and you land straight in your practice tab. You can preview the question banks without an account.
Everything on this page comes from College Board's own documents, checked on October 22, 2026. The main source is the Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite, version 4, dated September 2026. Where the official pages do not give a detail, we say so.
Pretest questions don't count, but you can't spot them. Create a free account and start practicing.
Start 1-day free trial →Does the Digital SAT have experimental questions?
Yes. College Board's term is "pretest" questions, and it calls the scored ones "operational" questions. The framework describes the design in one sentence: "a small number of pretest (unscored) questions are included, or embedded, among the operational (scored) questions."
So there is no separate experimental section on the Digital SAT. The extra questions sit inside the normal modules, mixed in with the questions that build your score.
How many SAT experimental questions are there?
There are eight SAT experimental questions on every test: two in each of the four modules. College Board's Reading and Writing specifications list "25 operational questions and 2 pretest questions" for each module. The Math specifications list "20 operational questions and 2 pretest questions" for each module.
| Section | Questions you answer | Pretest (unscored) | Scored | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reading and Writing, Module 1 | 27 | 2 | 25 | 32 minutes |
| Reading and Writing, Module 2 | 27 | 2 | 25 | 32 minutes |
| Math, Module 1 | 22 | 2 | 20 | 35 minutes |
| Math, Module 2 | 22 | 2 | 20 | 35 minutes |
| Whole test | 98 | 8 | 90 | 134 minutes |
The totals match College Board's How the SAT Is Structured page: 54 Reading and Writing questions in 64 minutes, 44 Math questions in 70 minutes, and 98 questions in 2 hours and 14 minutes. Our page on what the SAT is out of and how it is scored explains how those 90 scored answers become a score on the 400 to 1600 scale that the framework lists.
Do experimental questions count toward your SAT score?
No. The framework says: "Answers to pretest questions do not contribute in any way to students' Reading and Writing section score." It uses the same words for the Math section score. College Board's How Are Scores Calculated? page agrees: "Student responses to these pretest questions don't affect their scores."
See which question types are costing you points
Start with a free mock, free drills, or preview sample questions before using all 45 question banks.
Your answer to a pretest question, right or wrong, does not move your score. Your section score comes from the scored questions only. In the framework's words, "Student performance on all operational (i.e., non-pretest) questions across both modules is used to calculate the section score." The scoring also weighs which scored questions you got right, so "two students who answer the same number of questions correctly in a test section may earn differing section scores," per the same College Board page. Our page on whether the SAT is curved explains that method in detail.
Can you tell which SAT questions are experimental?
No, and College Board designs it that way. The framework says pretest questions "are otherwise indistinguishable to students from the operational questions on which their scores are based." In the section chapters it adds: "To students, pretest questions appear the same as operational questions, thereby ensuring students' maximal effort on the former."
Students try to guess anyway. On October 3 and 4, 2026, r/Sat threads asked "What were the experimental questions in the OCT SAT?" and "which were experimental questions in math?". In August 2026, a first-time tester asked "Any shot that any of these questions were experimental?" about three questions they knew they had missed.
You cannot answer those threads with certainty, and neither can anyone posting in them. A question that felt strange or hard may have been scored. The pretest questions carry no label on the test, and none of the College Board pages we checked list which questions were pretest questions on any date. Our SAT myths page covers related rumors, such as "easy" test dates, against College Board's own words.
Where do pretest questions appear in each module?
They sit inside each module, among the scored questions. The framework gives a different rule for each section:
- Reading and Writing. "Embedded pretest questions appear alongside questions testing the same skill/knowledge element." For grammar and punctuation, the framework says they sit "among the operational questions in that content domain."
- Math. "Embedded pretest questions appear in differing locations throughout the sequence."
- Module 2. "The same second-stage pretest questions are presented to students taking either the higher- or lower-difficulty module." In other words, the harder and easier versions of Module 2 share the same two pretest questions.
That last point matters for one common worry. Both routes share the same pretest questions, so one question that seems out of place in Module 2 tells you little about which route you got. College Board's scoring page also says students "won't be advantaged just for seeing a higher difficulty set of questions in the second module, or disadvantaged just for seeing a lower difficulty set of questions in the second module." Our Digital SAT glossary defines routing, modules and the other terms used here.
Why does College Board use experimental questions?
To try out new questions before they count on a future test. The framework says pretest answers "collect student performance data that will be used by College Board to help assess whether these questions are suitable for operational use at a future time."
The data also feeds fairness checks. College Board runs differential item functioning (DIF) analyses on pretested questions, a test of whether two groups of students at the same skill level score differently on one question. The framework says that "when questions pretested for the digital SAT Suite exhibit high levels of DIF, those questions are either discarded or revised and re-pretested." It also says pretesting of digital SAT questions began in 2020, starting with Math, and is still ongoing.
College Board keeps the number low on purpose. The framework says the count is "kept intentionally low so that students are not unduly burdened with answering questions that do not contribute to their score."
How should you handle experimental questions on test day?
Ignore the idea and answer every question as if it counts. You cannot identify the eight unscored questions, so skipping a question you suspect is a pretest question risks skipping a scored one. College Board's scoring page gives the same advice: "students should try their best on every single question."
- Keep your normal pace. If a question looks unfamiliar, use your usual time limit, flag it, and come back. The framework says you can move freely within a module and flag questions to return to.
- Do not let one odd question shake you. It may be a pretest question whose answer does not count. It may also be scored, so give it a fair try and move on.
- Guess rather than leave blanks. College Board's scoring page says "it's better to guess than leave a question blank, especially if a student can eliminate one or two answer options before guessing."
- Put your prep time into skills. The 90 scored questions decide your result, so practice the skills they test.
For practice that looks like the real test, start with our Digital SAT practice tests and question banks. The October 2026 Reading and Writing question bank has 300 questions, and the October 2026 Math question bank has 106. Our June 2026 Reading and Writing question bank is free, and you can create a free account with no card. Once you have a practice score, the Digital SAT score calculator and SAT percentiles page show where it stands.
How we built this page
Verified October 22, 2026. Question counts, timing, pretest rules and quotes come from College Board's Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite (version 4, September 2026), the Reading and Writing and Math specification pages, the How the SAT Is Structured page and the How Are Scores Calculated? page, all fetched on October 22, 2026. Student questions are thread titles from r/Sat, fetched the same day. Question bank sizes and the free June 2026 bank come from our own database (tests 4234, 4235 and 717), read the same day. None of the College Board pages we checked say which questions on a given test date were pretest questions, so this page does not guess.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Digital SAT have experimental questions?
Yes. College Board calls them pretest questions. Its Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite says a small number of unscored pretest questions are embedded among the scored, or operational, questions. There is no separate experimental section.
How many SAT experimental questions are there?
Eight. Each of the four modules has two pretest questions. Reading and Writing modules have 25 scored and 2 pretest questions each, and Math modules have 20 scored and 2 pretest questions each. That makes 98 questions in total, with 90 scored.
Do experimental questions count toward your SAT score?
No. College Board's framework says answers to pretest questions do not contribute in any way to your Reading and Writing or Math section score. Its scoring page says student responses to pretest questions don't affect their scores.
Can you tell which SAT questions are experimental?
No. College Board says pretest questions are indistinguishable from the scored questions and appear the same to students, so you give them full effort. None of the College Board pages we checked say which questions were pretest questions on any test date.
Why does College Board use experimental questions?
To test new questions before they count. College Board collects performance data to judge whether each question is suitable for future tests. It also runs fairness checks, and questions that show group differences are discarded or revised and pretested again.
How should you handle experimental questions on test day?
Answer every question as if it counts. You cannot spot the eight unscored questions, so skipping a suspected one risks skipping a scored one. Keep your normal pace, flag hard questions to revisit, and guess rather than leave a question blank.