SATs

this was mentioned in the other thread, but I was interested to know what you guys think of the SATs. Like, do you think they’re terribly relevant these days? That they’re accurate? Or undermined by prep stuff? How did you do, if you want to bring it up?

As for me, I do think they’re very worthwhile (you need to have some sort of baseline to evaluate scholary aptitude and achievement that is independent of school system-controlled grading) although I think they’re getting screwed with all the practice and “strategy” stuff out there.

I got a 1380 when I took the SATs, man, 3 years ago now. I’m sort of pissed about my score too; although if you didn’t score that highly you’ll find it fine. I did really really well on my verbal (a 730), but I got a 650 on math. The reason why I’m still sort of pissy about it to this day is that I actually took a prep-tutoring thing for the math, and it did basically nothing to improve my score. Just wasted money. Whereas my classmate who’s good at math but sucks at communicating took a verbal prep and just memorized tons of vocabularly and did very well on it. In terms of prep the test seems slanted to helping people with verbal more than the math, because most of the prep simply involves memorizing vocabularly. Plus I think if I had done a bit better on the math I would have been accepted to an Ivy school instead of just not quite making the cut.

1380… that’s a good score in my opinion! I haven’t taken the SATs yet, but my older brother got a good score on it.

I agree with you on the importance of the SATs. I would say more, but you pretty much said it for me.

I never took it, I took the ACT, more of an East Coast thing. I scorded decently, got a 29, which was as good as or better then 95% of the people that took it during that testing period in the nation (usually anything above 30 is quite rare, a friend of mine got a 35 and is retaking it. 36 is the highest possible score… Yeah…). Another of my friends took both the ACT and the SAT and said that the SAT was easier, just longer. I don’t remember off-hand how the scoring of the ACT relates to that of the SAT.

I find the ACT to be a much better designed test.

I think they are relevant, but that by changing them you can basically control high school education. So they can be used as a tool to shape high school education. For instance, the big thing with the SATs now is that they’re adding a writing section where you have to write an essay. The rationale is that SAT classes are giving too many kids high scores which aren’t necessarily reflective of what the SAT is designed to measure(how well you’ll do in college), and that writing isn’t something you can memorize or fake your way through. Its interesting because by adding this one extra section the College Board is going to drastically make high school curriculums more vigorous in writing skills.

I don’t know much about the ACTs, except a person I knew in high school took an ACT because he didn’t do well on the SATs. Academically ambitious people in my school were encouraged to take both.

I got a 1450 (770 Math, 680 Verbal) on it. Friend got a 1590 her freshman year, and another friend got a 1600 freshman year, bleh. I think it’s as good a marker as we can really get since it’s a standardized test used across the country. While the rich may have an edge because of prep courses, you can usually learn the same thing on your own.

I don’t like that some schools spend their time just preparing you to pass standardized tests for more funding, though. You go to school to get an education, not to pass tests.

My mom’s making me take a prep course. I think it’s a waste of money- $1000 for SAT drills that I can study alone, but she insists.

I’m more concerned about our schools teaching for the standardized tests like Michigan’s MEAP and such. But that’s just because after taking them a year early it was nothing but a joke to me (a joke I passed very easily mind you). I consider it a waste of time, my graduating class doesn’t even have proper grammar and writting skills. It’s scary when I can sit in a class and know exactly what people will break down and horribly fail when they get into any college English or writing classes. Terribly funny, but still scary.

I don’t think that they really mean that much, they are just good for getting you into certain things. It is just hat a President needs to be better than average in most areas. I onyl got a 21 on the ACT, but it hasn’t hurt me at all and considering I took it on a whim with no prep, it isn’t too bad. It is what most people get nation wide. It is just that President is an important spot and you don’t want Joe Smoe making all those important decisions.

Though, I just want to add that by adding a writing section I think it will make the test much more relevant and accurate as to how well a student will do in college.

Yeah, well, I got a 29 when taking it on a whim and getting 4 hours of sleep before-hand, but I have a very quick learning ability and am able to retain information and understand it easily. And no, I’m not gloating, every good ability has a drawback. Active minds cause insomnia, among other things, at least in my case…

I got a 1480 on the SAT in my junior year. Honestly, I think it’s a poor test- it goes out of it’s way to try to trick you. The way you learn to do well on the SAT is not by knowing the material better than someone but by knowing how to take the SAT better than someone. The prep courses my friends took weren’t really focusing as much on the material as they were on figuring out how to get past the tricks in the questions. That’s not the way to see if someone knows the material, in my opinion. The ACT, as 984 said, is a better test.

We all have active minds here, dude.

I got around a 1370… and I accidentally skipped a page…

…and my calculator broke in the middle of the exam.

I got a much higher verbal score, needless to say. =p

Originally posted by Curtis
We all have active minds here, dude.
Some moreso then others.

Originally posted by Epicgamer
Yeah, well, I got a 29 when taking it on a whim and getting 4 hours of sleep before-hand, but I have a very quick learning ability and am able to retain information and understand it easily. And no, I’m not gloating, every good ability has a drawback. Active minds cause insomnia, among other things, at least in my case…

Sounds like gloating to me asshole.

I think they’re completely irrelevant. Tests test what they’re testing you on. Nothing more. Anyone who’s taken any education on psychology will know that. A lot of people like to use stuff like SATs to establish their worth, when its completely meaningless and can easily be skewed depending on your background. I think there is a cultural aspect and there has been some support for some psychological aspects to test score variation to the SATs.

I came from a top private Canadian HS and they tested you veeeery differently there. So I got a 1260 when I took it 5 years ago. I got something like a 760 on the biology SAT2. Does that mean anything? No. I graduated HS with a 4.3 and I currently have a 3.8 with 2.5 quarters left before I graduate summa.

I also have 0 respect for multiple choice tests. Its too easy to prime individuals to do well on a specific type of test, to the point where it becomes meaningless. That’s what prep classes are all about and the US educational system has grown highly dependent on mc tests, making it such that you automatically have some degree of priming for this kind of event, on top of what else other institutions might make you do like PSATs to give people practice. Its common knowledge that schools will teach to the test when they’re being evaluated (like the STAR9 in CA).

Life doesn’t hit you in terms of multiple choice. You have to see what’s going on , analyse it , make conclusions and make a decision. If you read a book called the “taxonomy of educational objectives”, there are different levels of understanding you can test people on, from basic regurgation of facts to judgement calls and its very hard to surpass any kind of application level with a multiple choice test.

I haven’t taken the SATs yet. I was supposed to sign up for March, but I keep forgetting. PSAT wise, I did alright, although I never did figure out how to read the scoreing.

In particular, the Sats aren’t the tests that bug me; the TAKs thing they have in Texas is definetly not a good measure of our skills.

Sadly, I only did about average on the SAT (I don’t have the score on me at this very second). However, that also means that I will soon be ruling above all of you, so start grovelling in advanced. I might be merciful…

“Some moreso then others.”

Well, your mind probably isn’t as more active than other people’s minds as you might think.

Originally posted by Alice
[b]I got a 1450 (770 Math, 680 Verbal) on it. Friend got a 1590 her freshman year, and another friend got a 1600 freshman year, bleh. I think it’s as good a marker as we can really get since it’s a standardized test used across the country. While the rich may have an edge because of prep courses, you can usually learn the same thing on your own.

I don’t like that some schools spend their time just preparing you to pass standardized tests for more funding, though. You go to school to get an education, not to pass tests.

My mom’s making me take a prep course. I think it’s a waste of money- $1000 for SAT drills that I can study alone, but she insists. [/b]

You already scored a 1450 and your going to take a prep course? Why would you need a higher score? You’ve seen the part where it says what percentage of students who took it again had scores go up, down, or stay even, right? I took the SAT a second time in Junior year and both my scores went down (although still respectable), making it a waste of a Saturday morning.

The test is hardly an accurate guide for anything other than test-taking ability. The study programs only teach you how to take the test, i.e. understand and answer the questions. Anyone who got a passing grade in English and Math should know all the actual information involved, it’s just that some people don’t naturally understand the style that the questions are written in.

I’m not posting my score because it doesn’t matter.

Wait, changed my mind: 1100 and 1210, in 7th and 8th grade respectively.