UK Ministers have announced a large-scale try-out of a national university admissions test. The purpose of this try-out is to evaluate whether the standardised test could help universities to select the most able candidates for undergraduate level.

The American-style Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) will be run by the National Foundation for Educational Research. The SAT is the most widely used standardised university admission test in the world, with nearly 1.5 million students taking it every year. In the UK test-run, several schools will be asked to volunteer to take part in the study and around 50 000 A-level candidates will be tested. The students will then be followed through their university studies to establish how well the SAT results match with degree success. The research report is due in 2010.