The College Board announced on Tuesday that it will remove the optional essay-writing component of the SAT and will no longer offer the subject-specific exams known as SAT subject tests. The changes to the key college admission tests were due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, which “accelerated a process already underway … to reduce and simplify demands on students,” the College Board said in a statement. “The pandemic has highlighted the importance of being innovative and adaptive to what lies ahead,” the Manhattan-based testing organization said in a statement. “We are committed to making the SAT a more flexible tool, and we are making substantial investments to do so.” The essay used to be a mandatory part of the SAT’s writing section. Following a major overhaul in 2016, it became an optional separate section with an independent scoring system, meaning that the essay score is not counted …