Job Discussion Forums

[Crazy Eagle]

Don't know how many of you out there are interested in the case against the SAT and other such tests, but I have been active in this cause now for a while, and have a website. It is at:

http://www.homestead.com/testcritic/

It contains a critique by Kimberly Swygert, a psychometrician for the Law School Admissions Council, the owners of the Law School Admissions Test. And right now I am involved in an exchange with Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist, because of something she said as host of Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered (Friday, March 11).

So, hope you like it.

[moonraven]

Thanks for the article. There was quite a flap in the early Seventies about racial skewing in regard to those tests. I found that the ACT had fewer problems of that sort--but universities tended to disregard afro-american students' scores on the exam and place them in remedial level classes anyway--at least in English. I complained at the university where I was teaching in the late Sixties and early Seventies because afro-american students ended up in "Bonehead English" who were bright and articulate and fairly decent writers--and when I checked their ACT scores it was clear that they should have been placed in "Honors". I facilitated their replacement--but I am sure a lot of profs didn't bother with that.

Basically, standardized tests are skewed towards folks who are skilled at taking standardized tests. I am one of those folks. But I disagree with the blanket statement made in your article that folks who score very high on those tests are necessarily superficial thinkers. I am not a superficial thinker, but I did have the common sense to know that my test results would affect my receiving scholarships and being admitted to sought-after university programs.

[distiller]

I have taught SAT prep on and off for the last few years for an institute for extra cash and I more or less agree that such standardized tests are next to useless. The kids I taught were idiots but they were upper crust idiots so their parents forked over a fair sized amount of cash to learn techniques and vocab. Test prep centers like the ones I have worked for charge thousands of dollars US and I can confidently say boost scores considerably. You learn how to beat the test, not how to be a better student or finish what you begin which are both much more valuable. The question that comes up in the US that needs addressing is: Are we going to then base admission criteria for universities solely on grades from high schools that vary widely in curriculum and quality? We have statements of purpose for applicants which are helpful but I think there probably needs to be a writing sample as well. The issue with those of course is how to verify who wrote it. A writing test would probably be most useful. As I understand the new SAT this year has a writing section on it, so hopefully it is at least moving in the right direction although the other parts are still flawed and I haven�t seen the new SAT format myself.

[Crazy Eagle]

Thanks for your comments. Moonraven, I did not say that all high scorers had superficial minds, just that the tests reward superficial thinking. Some high scorers are capable of deep thought, but this ability is not captured on these multiple choice tests.

But many high scorers lack intellectual substance, yet out-score their betters. That's all.

These tests should be scrapped, in favor of indications of actual accomplishment.

[Justin Trullinger]

I've been teaching SAT prep for some time, and agree with Moonraven that tests of this type highly reward people with good test taking skills. Those people are obviously not necessarily shallow thinkers, but certainly the deep thinking they may do is not what the tests measure. Technique seems to be the most significant fact in determining standardized test results.

The problem is, accurate, unbiased, "indications of accomplishment" are hard to come by. Should we use high school grades?Surely, they should be a factor, but one that will only be unbiased when we can overcome the inequality of different school districts. Or extracuricular success? That, also, should be a factor, but we know that racial, socio-economic, and geographical factors affect the availability of such activities. I have heard suggestions that entrance interviews be given greater weight, but in the worst case, this would just substitute the prejudices of the interviewer for the biases of the exam.

I agree that the SAT (the ACT perhaps less, but still somewhat) represents part of a biased system. But what to replace it with certainly presents some problems.
As an intermediate step, prior to scrapping the exam, I might suggest limiting the number of times a student can take it. We all know, poorer students generally take it once. Richer students take it several times, with special coaching, and send their best result. At least this small bias of the system could be easily eliminated.

Thanks for a thought provoking thread,
Justin [/quote]

[ls650]

[Stephen Jones]

The vilest thing about the SAT is the English test. What they love doing is putting in "mistakes" that are in fact perfectly correct grammatical Engish, even in American reference books such as the American Heritage book of usage. They then offer the mistake as one item in the multi-choice together with the fiendishly Machiavellian choice "none of the above".

If the candidate really knows English grammar he is in a bind. "none of the above" is of course the correct answer, but he is forced to guess whether the examiner really knows English, or is simply suffering from ignorant prescriptive pre-conceptions with no base in reality. In fact, the latter is nearly always the case.

[moonraven]

Standardized tests of any kind essentially measure one's ability to take tests, as I posted earlier. I fell asleep for an hour in the GRE (had been up all night partying), and still made the 98th percentile, and I hit the 99th in the German achievement test or what ever it was called for graduate school, and had never taken a single German class.

HOWEVER, the real problem is that in most undergraduate university courses, tests have the biggest share of the evaluation process. That's because most profs are lazy--not because tests--especially multiple choice hahaha--are useful evaluation tools. The use of standardized tests for admission to university is a pathetic admission that universities don't know how to teach or evaluate students. If a cooperative learning model--or even an individual-based model--were the norm, there would be no need to subject students to tests--much less ones created to a supposed "standard".

MOD EDIT

[Justin Trullinger]

I'm glad you're on our side. Now all we have to do is learn "Newspeak"...