New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | March 17, 2005

Recent reforms are to the SAT as:

(A) polish:turd
(B) rearranged deck chairs:Titanic
(C) dress:pig
(D) all of the above

Kerry Howley has the answers.

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|3.17.05 @ 5:29PM|#

Are you equating my Polish ancestors with Turds? Poland is much better than Turdistan.

|3.17.05 @ 5:33PM|#

Not to say I love the test or anything, but isn't finding a 16% variance better than some of the other alternatives, like affirmative action.

Warren|3.17.05 @ 5:36PM|#

After reading that, I'm too pissed to put a good post together. I'll just say this; The SAT, however flawed, is still better than everything else.

|3.17.05 @ 5:41PM|#

still better than everything else

they could just administer an IQ test and save everyone a lot of time and worry.

i bet that would account for more than 16% of the variation in first year grades.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.17.05 @ 5:52PM|#

One could also just skip the SAT and move on. Many of the most financially successful people I know have never taken an SAT test and many others have never seen the inside of a college classroom.

Not to disparage college but it isn't always necessary. And going to the "best" schools doesn't always translate into the best jobs or the most money--but since the public education establishment has been beating that into our heads for at least the last six decades nearly everyone believes it.

|3.17.05 @ 5:55PM|#

Note, I have not read the article. However, if it is true that there is only a 16% variance, that means that the current SAT is about as good as its older version. You'll find that LSAT, GRE, and other such tests also suffer from the same problem.

|3.17.05 @ 5:56PM|#

I wish I HAD taken the SAT. I was an utter failure of a student, but was unnaturally good at taking intelligence tests.

|3.17.05 @ 5:57PM|#

Are you equating my Polish ancestors with Turds? Poland is much better than Turdistan.

ROTFL.

I witnessed test-score capitalism firsthand in highschool -- all these rich brats with lawyer/doctor/businessmen parents, paying to train themselves superficially (i.e. learn the test material in advance) to do better on the exam. This annoyed me considerably, myself being of the proud few naturally gifted in reading comprehension and verbal skillz. (Typo was for emphasis). In a backassward sense, though, I find it funny that some of the richest people had to struggle the hardest to prepare (whereas as capitalism is concerned, the tradition has been that the downtrodden and working classes had to struggle more). As a formerly poor, literate student, I guess I don't really care if people buy their way into good test scores - because if they don't do that, they'll just buy their way into good schools, anyway. It's best to make them work for it, at least.

|3.17.05 @ 6:02PM|#

The problem with the SAT is that people over-rely on it. It should be just one factor among many, not some sort of magic predictor of future results.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. People treat the Dow-Jones, Nielsen ratings, and popular vote the same way.

|3.17.05 @ 6:04PM|#

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I've read of more than one study that found that SAT scores are the best single predictor of college grades.

|3.17.05 @ 6:06PM|#

I very nearly aced my SAT and made up for years of mediocre grades and unfinished homework.

Without the SATs, lazy kids in shitty schools like mine would be indistinguishable from the plain old dim.

|3.17.05 @ 6:14PM|#

I didn't take a SAT. Took some other moronic tes called ACT or something like that. I must have scored pretty high. My high school counselor who had never paid me much attention suddenly was on my butt for being an under-achiever. I figured achieves ass! Working a full time job, going to school just enough to get by and trying to support a car and a gold digging girlfriend. If thats not achievement he could kiss my grits.

|3.17.05 @ 6:14PM|#

Note: when they say SAT scores predict 16% of the variation in first year scores, they probably mean that the correlation statistic for SAT vs first year GPA is r=0.4 --> r^2=0.16

But it will probably matter in which kind of school (e.g. selective private school vs state university) that data was sampled from; the former being a restricted range of SAT scorers.

|3.17.05 @ 6:15PM|#

Rikurzhen wrote:
they could just administer an IQ test and save everyone a lot of time and worry.

You can teach IQ testing as well. Pattern recognition, 3-d shapes and thinking, etc. Any test that has a standard basis can be taught.

This isn't to say I disagree with the testing altogether, I just agree with the author's assessment that any test, changed, new, different, wierd, etc, once standard can be taught.

|3.17.05 @ 6:16PM|#

"One could also just skip the SAT and move on. Many of the most financially successful people I know have never taken an SAT test and many others have never seen the inside of a college classroom."

The "people I know" is, of course, a dead give-away that this is merely an anecdote; but statistically, what you are saying is bad advice. True - college is NOT for everyone, but (no link available) check out the corrolation between educational levels and income. Unless you're a plucky self-made man/women with good business sense (or a computer whiz), you'd be hard pressed to 'make it' today without a degree.

|3.17.05 @ 6:22PM|#

Unless you're a plucky self-made man/women with good business sense (or a computer whiz)

...no, sire, I am a smacky self-made woman, thank you very munk.

|3.17.05 @ 6:24PM|#

Education vesrus Income 2003

These should serve as accurate statistics comparing income and educational level.

sage|3.17.05 @ 6:27PM|#

I must say that after reading the article I am disappointed. I was hoping to get the answers to the SAT. I may take it someday and could use all the help I can get.

Kevin Carson|3.17.05 @ 6:38PM|#

smacky,

And those competency tests that start in elementary school, associated with meeting "No Child Left Behind" standards, are just an early start. Their main effect will be to gear little kids to becoming the kind of shameless, climbing resume-whores you describe. Back in high school, I noticed that just about every student organization was overrun by obnoxious cloned bastards in identical blue blazers and khakis, whose attitude toward doing anything whatsoever was "will it add a line to my resume?"

Worse yet, this regime will have the side-effect of teaching millions of kids that "learning" is a chore that you perform for authority figures, a hoop you jump through at somebody else's command, in order to attain advancement in some bureaucratic hierarchy.

The publik skools are a training ground for little apparatchiks, where they absorb the lesson that the key to success in any aspect of life is to identify the people in a position to do you good, and then figure out how to ingratiate yourself to them.

|3.17.05 @ 6:44PM|#

Kevin Carson: Yep. Of course once out of college and in the business world it is called networking. Seems to be the way to find a job. We use to call it the good ole boy syndrone. Hire him, I know him and he's a good ole boy. Knew the crazy bastard in FFA and 4H--

|3.17.05 @ 7:10PM|#

Survey: Do high standardized test scores really guarantee admission into Ivy League schools?

Sample size = 1.

Sample mean GMAT Score: 760 out of 800.
Sample mean GMAT Percentile: 99+
Percent of sample gaining admission to Harvard Business School: 0%

|3.17.05 @ 7:11PM|#

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I've read of more than one study that found that SAT scores are the best single predictor of college grades.

It could be that the SAT is indeed the best predictor but is still a bad predictor.

I don't know if any test can do what we really want, but I think what everybody wants is a test that will:

1) Identify talented people in spite of poor formal training (i.e. bad schools)

2) Filter out people who have gotten by on the crutch of grade inflation.

Going by class rank rather than raw GPA may satisfy those criteria somewhat, but once again it carries its own baggage.

In the end, there is no perfect way to identify talent. I wish there was. I'm certainly not convinced that the SAT is the best of the various imperfect options, but I do think that tests should be evaluated relative to other available methods rather than on an absolute scale that all methods are doomed to flunk.

Maybe what we need is an SAT for the SAT.

|3.17.05 @ 7:23PM|#

Education vesrus Income 2003
These should serve as accurate statistics comparing income and educational level

Don't confuse correlation with causation.

As food for thought, consider the following.

Doctors MUST attend college. Doctors have a higher than average income.

The industriousness, and willingness to delay gratification, of doctors may be the causal factor.

Contrast this with the lack of those qualities found in the lower paid occupations.

Just food for thought.

Jeff

|3.17.05 @ 7:24PM|#

thoreau,

Thanks Cathy. :)

|3.17.05 @ 7:26PM|#

Gary, I will grant you that I certainly am not helping my case concerning my identity. I guess that's what I get for being reasonable ;)

|3.17.05 @ 7:29PM|#

thoreau,

You're not reasonable, you are just wishy-washy. Take a stand.

|3.17.05 @ 7:41PM|#

Gary, scientists don't take stands. We take data! ;->

To the extent that I do have a stand, however, it's that there's too much noise and not enough signal to draw a conclusion. Many of the criticisms leveled against the SAT could probably be leveled against ANY evaluation method. No matter what you do, kids with wealthy and pushy parents will find a way to gain an advantage. And no method will ever find every diamond in the rough.

The questions to ask should be:

1) "Which system is easier to game?"
2) "Which system will overlook fewer talented kids from disadvantaged backgrounds"

The questions that we should not ask are:
1) "Can the system be gamed?"
2) "Does the system ever overlook talented kids from disadvantaged backgrounds?"

The answer to the second set of questions is "yes, obviously", while the answers to the first set of questions require more information than I typically get from commentary on the SAT (be it pro or con). For all I know the answers may be out there somewhere, but they aren't being presented in most of the public commentary on the SAT.

When somebody complains that a test can be gamed I have this image of that person looking at a Carnot engine and saying "Not 100% efficient? We'll have to fix that right away!"

And when somebody on the other side points out the necessity of some method other than high school grades (which can be inflated), I have this image of any typical politician saying "Well, we have to do something!"

|3.17.05 @ 7:43PM|#

thoreau,

I read scientific literature. Scientists do take stands (when they have enough data to do so). :)

|3.17.05 @ 7:44PM|#

Non-sequitor:

Chattanooga may not win, but they are currently taking Wake Forest to the cleaners. You nearly always lose a two or three seed in the first round, and Wake Forest might be it this year.

|3.17.05 @ 8:10PM|#

'Bama goes down! Fuck yeah!!!

~War Eagle~

|3.17.05 @ 8:15PM|#

As someone who has served on graduate admissions committees, I'll point out that the GRE, SAT, etc. help those students who don't have an advantaged background. Without the GRE, our department would favor applicants from a few brand name universities that we know well. Students applying from less-known schools would not be considered because we wouldn't know how to calibrate the GPA and the coursework (e.g., were the classes rigorous or easy?) However, an applicant from No-name College will get admission if he or she also has good GRE scores. The same goes for the student who has a lower GPA due to a rigorous courseload at a college without grade inflation. Having a high GRE shows that the student has talent. Standardized test scores are not the first factor in our admissions decisions, but getting rid of them would mean we would preferentially admit students who come from the "right" schools. Such an outcome won't help students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

|3.17.05 @ 8:30PM|#

I'll make the essentially worthless observation that tests are tools, subject to misapplication, mishandling, and unexpected failure.

I'll also observe that there have been increasing complaints that and undergrad degree is not as valuable as it once was. We've got too many graduates for the labor market and/or the jobs available require further specialization (advanced degrees).

Maybe we're using a decent tool to fix a broken buggy. Making the tool better doesn't change the problem that nobody wants buggies anymore.

|3.17.05 @ 8:45PM|#

I read once that the LSAT is a poor predictor of law school performance but a better predictor of success at law practice than is law school GPA. Ponder on that a while.

|3.17.05 @ 8:56PM|#

Enderby,

Well that's easy enough to solve. Law school has very little to do with being a lawyer.

|3.17.05 @ 9:09PM|#

Therein lies the scandal, my friend. Three years at thirty grand a year for what, exactly?

|3.17.05 @ 9:17PM|#

Enderby,

You know, they introduced the third year so that law schools could be more profitable, right?

|3.17.05 @ 9:18PM|#

No, but it doesn't surprise me in the least.

|3.17.05 @ 10:03PM|#

I think law school is far too short. Make it 6 years and double the tuition, so we don't have so many lawyers.

|3.17.05 @ 10:07PM|#

thoreau,

Like that would dissuade us from our evil ways. :) Muuuahahahaha!!!

Enderby,

Maybe I ought to curse thoreau by giving him a copy of the Model Rules of Professional Ethics (2002)? :)

|3.17.05 @ 10:45PM|#

"The industriousness, and willingness to delay gratification, of doctors may be the causal factor."

oh man, that's precious.

how many doctors do you know? maybe just seen em in picture books?

|3.17.05 @ 10:58PM|#

You can teach IQ testing as well. Pattern recognition, 3-d shapes and thinking, etc. Any test that has a standard basis can be taught.

Indeed, and you can teach quantum mechanisms too, but it harder to teach people QM than geometry. Likewise, because many IQ tests are more highly g-loaded than the SAT is, it's less likely that people's IQ scores can be strongly affected by training.

|3.18.05 @ 1:37AM|#

99 percent of lawyers give the other 1 percent a bad name.

|3.18.05 @ 2:37AM|#

So an engaged couple died in a car crash and went to heaven. They told St. Peter that they'd still like to get married. He told them that he'd have to get back to them.

A while later they approached Peter about it again, and again he told them to be patient. This went on for a while, and eventually Peter told them that they could get married.

Well, the couple enjoyed it for a while, but the afterlife is eternal and it's hard to spend eternity with the same person. So they told Peter that they'd like to get divorced.

Peter looked at them and said "It took us long enough just to find a priest. Do you have any idea how long it will take us to find a lawyer up here?"

Or how about this one: A guy dies and goes to hell. Satan takes him around and shows him the various punishment options. Most of them look pretty nasty, but there's this one lawyer who's having non-stop sex with a hot model. The new guy asks Satan why the lawyer gets to have sex with a hot chick when he's supposed to be enduring an eternity of torment. Satan replies "That's her punishment."

Finally, what's the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of pond scum?

Answer: The bucket.

|3.18.05 @ 3:34AM|#

A man is hit by a bus and killed. He finds himself in front of St. Peter and is told that his name is not on the list of entrants to Heaven. He turns around and goes straight to Hell. Satan says, "You're not supposed to be here. What did you do in your old life?"
The man replies, "I was an engineer."
Satan says, "As long as you're here, do you mind looking at our cooling system?"
The engineer says, "I would love to tackle that challenge."
A few weeks later God notices a lack of bitching and moaning in Hell. He calls Satan to see how things are going. Satan says, "Everything is great. We found an engineer who made our cooling system operational. In his spare time he has utilized some of our excess geothermal energy to power icemakers and other luxuries. I'm drinking a frozen margarita as we speak. He thinks he can even finish building a hockey rink under budget by next weekend. I am so thankful we finally have an engineer."
God shouts, "You must give him to us. Our agreement states that all engineers go to Heaven. I am going to sue you for breach of contract."
Before hanging up, Satan says, "Good luck finding a lawyer."

|3.18.05 @ 4:57AM|#

A bus loaded with lawyers drives off a cliff and explodes. Tragically, there were two empty seats.

|3.18.05 @ 5:51AM|#

Are you mofos intentionally inflicting emotional distress on me? See you all in court!

raymond|3.18.05 @ 6:25AM|#

No matter what you do, kids with wealthy and pushy parents will find a way to gain an advantage.

Yup. They make their kids study.

My parents were poor and pushy. And they made _me_ study.

Probably the "pushy" is more important than the "wealthy" in the success-in-school equation.

Long live pushy parents!

|3.18.05 @ 6:30AM|#

raymond-

Depends on whether the parents are pushy with their kids or pushy with everybody else. Good parents are pushy with their kids and make them keep their brains sharp the old-fashioned way: lots of studying and reading and hard work.

Bad parents are pushy with everybody else. Instead of making their kids study regularly and think, they pay for a quick fix test prep course to compensate for years spent slacking off. Those courses can impart test-taking skills and improve scores, but they can't make the precious kid any brighter in the ways that matter in life.

|3.18.05 @ 6:31AM|#

Great fake SAT question, Julian. Got a chuckle out of it, which is unusual for me in these environs.

|3.18.05 @ 6:33AM|#

BTW hope you used that ten bucks for ill, not good...

|3.18.05 @ 7:55AM|#

Lawyers can swim with sharks and never get a bite. A matter of professional courtesy.

Maybe we should declare open season on politicians, lawyers, and politicians for at least one week each year. It worked to decrease the wolf population and as I see it all three are predators preying on the unsuspecting--

|3.18.05 @ 8:15AM|#

I have painful memories of the SAT. I felt like I was herded along with hundreds of other cattle. For one thing, the test was way, way too fucking long. I don't care how bright someone is, there is only so much gas in the tank for one sitting.

And now, from what I understand, the test is a hundred times worst. The kids are surely enough as it is.. we don't need to cultivate outright hatred.

I don't have any brilliant alternatives, but I'm very leery towards something that is so blatantly collectivist. And we're conditioned from day one to assume that this is acceptable.

|3.18.05 @ 8:17AM|#

"surly".. grr...

|3.18.05 @ 9:00AM|#

How do you get a lawyer out of a tree?

Cut the rope.

|3.18.05 @ 10:35AM|#

Worse yet, this regime will have the side-effect of teaching millions of kids that "learning" is a chore that you perform for authority figures, a hoop you jump through at somebody else's command, in order to attain advancement in some bureaucratic hierarchy.

Weel, that's one thing public schools DID co-opt from the Catholic schools.

|3.18.05 @ 10:39AM|#

What do you call 200 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?

A good start.

|3.18.05 @ 11:18AM|#

Brigham was a prick, but his bona fides as a racist seem short-lived, according to the link identifying him as a "bona-fide racist":

"Remarkably, Brigham would have a complete change of heart, and in 1930, would publicly reject his earlier 'race hypothesis.'"

|3.18.05 @ 11:38AM|#

No matter what you do, kids with wealthy and pushy parents will find a way to gain an advantage.

Yup. They make their kids study.

Or, they complain to the school district that Johnny didn't get an A in his class, and then they demand that the school lowers its grading scale so more kids can "do better". (

|3.18.05 @ 11:40AM|#

The post I made a minute ago at 11:38 was also supposed to say that that actually happened at my high school when I was attending it. Parents complained, and then the grading scales for classes were all lowered. Problem solved! (sarcasm)

|3.18.05 @ 2:00PM|#

Testing is the more efficient way of selecting high achievers. Interviews and entrance projects (because not everyone can write and applciation essay for various reasons) would seem to be a better solution to accurately representing a student's potential.

Imagine if colleges and universities didn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on their "celebrity" professors. At USC, we had a septegenagian film professor who basically taught the intro film class and a Hitchcock class and made $250k a year for his troubles. He was terrible, and verging on psychotic because he had been coddled for so long. Billon-dollar fundraising presidents make over a millon dollars a year, and wage inflation tends to trickle down from these lofty examples. When you pay someone more money than their function is generally thought of as being worth, they don't take more pride in their work--they take more care in preserving their salary Education has fallen into the celebrity/flavor of the minute media hype in efforts to attract students. Flashy new Atkins and South Beach testing methods are bound to follow.

So standardized testing seems to be the best all-around solution because it is economically most reasonable for the colleges. They want a good pool of applicants, and they want to be able to compare themselves to other colleges. They don't really care about the individual. The SAT has brand recognition and is seen as the market leader, regardless of its' shortcomings.

It would be unnatural for people not to game the system. After all, this is one of the precepts of intelligence; figuring out the limits of the equasion and pushing them or remolding them. The barrier to acting on this is the prohibitive cost of the prep courses. However, the prep materials are relatively available at low cost through libraries.

In short, the truly intelligent will find solutions to the barriers imposed by society. Unfortunately, those hardy souls don't always have the means or the foresight to do so at 17. C'est la vie.

|3.18.05 @ 2:08PM|#

Are you suggesting that it's futile to polish my turds? And so what if I like to have tea parties with my pet pigs? They look nice in ruffles....

|3.18.05 @ 2:23PM|#

Erik-

Are you at USC now? Or did you graduate?

I'm class of 1998.

|3.18.05 @ 3:08PM|#

1) My high school gave test prep for the last six months of sophmore year to all students so that the SAT average would be through the roof and they'd have pull with college admission boards. I'm surprised more schools do not do the same thing.

2)My SAT score got me enough scholarship money to get through a state school with no loans, so I say keep the darn things going! I either couldn't have gone or would have had 60K+ in loans when I got out.

|3.18.05 @ 4:05PM|#

No real graduating class, but I came in in 1995 and got my degree from Marshall B-shcool in 1998. I it got done in 3 years w/AP credit and summer school at community college. And yes, I got a partial scholarship because I had a good SAT score ;-)

Most people I knew there didn't have had two philosophical brain cells to strike a spark with. Congratulations on Hamlet'ing yourself or growing or whatever made you into the interesting and thoughtful person you seem to be.

|3.18.05 @ 4:34PM|#

Three lawyers and three engineers are in Europe traveling by train on business. They arrive at the station in the morning and the three engineers each buy a ticket. They notice only one of the lawyers is buying a ticket so they ask him, "how are all three of you going to travel on only one ticket?" To which the lawyer responds, "just watch."

They all board the train and take their seats. Shortly before the conductor approaches taking tickets, the three lawyers get up and crowd into one of the restrooms at the end of the car. When the conductor reaches the occupied restroom he knocks and says, "ticket please!" The door opens just a crack and a hand reaches out with the ticket.

After the meeting the six travelers are back at the station and once again the lawyers buy a single ticket between them. This time, however, the engineers don't buy a ticket at all. One of the lawyers approaches and says "How are all three of you going to travel with no ticket at all?" To which the one of the engineers replies, "just watch."

Once again they all board the train and once again the lawyers pile into one of the restrooms. This time as soon as they do, the engineers get up and pile into the restroom opposite the lawyers. Just before the conductor comes through one of the engineers steps out and knocks on the door of the other restroom and says, "ticket please!"

|3.18.05 @ 8:08PM|#

So the engineers are just leeching off the lawyers? Figures. Fucking engineers.

|3.18.05 @ 9:27PM|#

Do you think Dershowitz supports torture to make up for all the swirlies and wedgies he must have had to endure in school?

Kevin
(once wanted to be a lawyer, but I got better)