Education

Quiz: What Do You Know About the SAT?

Colleges have turned away from standardized testing in admissions. Are the tests really that bad?

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An illustration of standardized testing bubbles | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson
(Illustration: Joanna Andreasson)

In recent years, the tide turned against standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. Once a nonnegotiable metric for determining college admission, many universities have cast off such tests, declaring them unnecessary—or even racist. While many schools went test-optional during the pandemic, that trend seems to have continued even on the other side of COVID-19 panic. According to FairTest, an anti–standardized testing group, most colleges in America are now test-optional, and over 80 refuse to look at scores entirely.

But the trend against testing may be reversing. New data show that standardized tests predict student achievement better than high school GPA alone. Some schools have even reinstated their testing requirement—including Dartmouth College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), whose dean of admissions told The New York Times, "Just getting straight A's is not enough information for us to know whether the students are going to succeed or not."

SATAT: SAT Aptitude Test

To test your knowledge on college entrance exams, here's a standardized test of our own:

In recent studies, which of the following outcomes was not found to be better predicted by SAT scores than high school GPA?(Required)
Detractors often point out that SAT scores are linked with family income. Which of the following admissions metrics are also correlated with income?(Required)
MIT was test-optional for two years following the pandemic. What happened when the school resumed its standardized testing requirement?(Required)
Grade inflation is one reason why high school GPA isn't very effective at predicting later academic success. Where is grade inflation highest?(Required)

This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Quiz: The SAT, Reexamined."