Fairtest guessed the test-takers' sex by first names because data are not compiled on the sex of the semifinalists. The P.S.A.T., the criterion for choosing the scholarship's semifinalists, is taken by more than a million high school juniors each year. Boys have long outscored girls on the verbal and mathematics sections. Some years boys have won more than 60 percent of the awards, though girls are 56 percent of the test-takers. In 1997, under pressure from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, the College Board added a writing section with multiple-choice questions on grammar and sentence structure.
Girls tend to outscore boys in such sections.
On the new writing section, girls outscored boys by nearly 1 point.