Young Chinese planning to study in the United States are being advised to seek alternatives to the Scholastic Assessment Test, as a recent overhaul has made it more challenging for non-English speakers.

Liu Xiaowei, consultant director of the Undergraduate Department at Beijing-based AW Education International, said she was advising all her clients who plan to enroll in the fall semester of 2017 that they'd better prepare for the American College Test, another college placement test in the US, instead.

Sample questions from the revised SAT that have been released by the College Board, which administers and develops the tests, do not include many of the question types that Chinese students are usually good at, according to Liu.