SAT Scandal
It appears that over 5000 students from last October's SAT test had wrong scores -- up to 450 points off! As the dean of Admissions at Pomona College said, "It looks like they hired the people who used to do the books for Enron." Ouch. Maybe the University of California school system has the right idea by downplaying the test's importance. It's biased toward white, male America anyway. I say it's time for an educational revolution.
Comments
shane
Additionally, some of the questions in the laguage section (at least of the SAT-- I never took the ACT) contain idioms and colloquialisms such as 'ball-and-chain' and 'straight from the horse's mouth' that are indicative of a cultural understanding rather than an understanding of the English language, which is what the test purports to discover.
The SAT certainly isn't an intelligence test and doesn't serve as a good predictor of college performance. (The LSAT on the other hand does a pretty good job of predicting the grades of first year law students.) It really only tests how good one is at taking the SAT. That said, I've generally found that kids with a 1400 are smarter than kids with a 1200 who are smarter than kids with a 1000. Smaller score differences are virtually meaningless.
Even though it is only testing test-taking aptitude, insofar as it requires intellectual problem solving aptitude under pressure, it is at least somewhat useful. The ability to think and perform under pressure is important. And even though you can "learn" how to beat the SAT, learning this skill takes hard work and a certain sort of general "problem solving skill set" and intelligence.
Regardless, I don't see any alternative to large scaled standarized tests as gatekeepers to higher education. How else can adcoms be expected to compare applicants?
-David Gunther
-David Gunther