Review of the SAT Test

When one speaks of intelligence or how bright another person is, the often quoted figure is the IQ or intelligence quotient. It is the most often used standard of how smart a person is. This paper shall look at what intelligence tests measure, how the IQ tests measure intelligence and interrogate their history. It shall then apply the tests to school policy and hence evaluate their validity.

Most standardized test do not measure emotional or mechanical intelligence, actually a lot of educators argue that standardized test do not measure comprehension or actual intelligence but rather memorization. While others may believe that standardized testing just needs a few improvements, others believe that it is impossible to have a test that measures accurately the capability of a diverse student population. Today’s schooling depends heavily on the test scores from standardized test. Standardized testing should not have so much weight put on them because they have a negative impact on effective education, students’ self-concept, and learning styles.

Similarly, many teachers, statewide, feel that these exams that no significant value towards a student’s overall intelligence. According to a survey by both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic, of more than ten-thousand public school teachers, this report has found that teachers

There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude and achievement tests. Today I am going to be focusing on aptitude tests which predict how well students are likely to perform in some further educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT and ACT.

Standardized testing has played an important role in the college admission decisions. The role of admission exams is always changing and evolving with time. The most prominent exams used are the SAT and the ACT. Their purpose is for gauging student knowledge for placement and possible success rate. Each test is comprised of numerous educational factors to gauge knowledge. The SAT and the ACT derived from other test forms to become what they are today. In addition to being an entrance exam, the grades obtained from these exams are used to formulate statistical information. Knowing that these tests are a requirement for college entry, one wants to do well on the exam(s). With testing tips and early preparation acceptable scores can

The ACT test is a standardized test that is used when a student is applying to college. The ACT test is very similar to the SAT test, but it is scored up to 36 rather than 2400. I have not taken the ACT’s yet, but I plan on taking them this fall. I did however take the PSAT last year and I scored fairly well. I most likely will take the ACT more than once because I have heard you get much more comfortable your second time.

James S. Murphy wrote about how the SAT is a high Stakes evaluation of enormous magnitude in which colleges use to analyze the readiness and skills of high school students. Some students are not financial stable to pay tutors or discover other resources that enable them to get adequate scores on the various exams. These rigorous exams act as a subject course other than showing students abilities through their academic achievements in high school, something where colleges rather judge students on their SAT to determine if their good enough to attend college. The College Board are now proposing a program named Khan Academy; which better equip students to be prepared and comfortable taking exams under pressure, which allow the programs offer varies

Keep in mind that high school students have a lot going on in their minds and something such as the SAT test can really be overwhelming. Students try their best to prepare themselves for months and months and then in the blink of an eye they are sitting down staring at a four hour test, trying to focus because it is so crucial to their future. Well, thoughts like this are what soar through kids minds’ in these moments, It happens oh so often, when kids show up to take their SAT test mentally exhausted because they could not get any sleep the night before. And then despite being exhausted before the test even begins, three hours into the test kids are almost brain dead at that point. But we have to deal with it because being only three hours in means we got a whole other hour of scratching our brains trying to gather ourselves mentally to finish the test. This brings up the question, how can a test that weighs so much on our future be given all in one day over the course of four long hours? Well, that is a good question; the simple answer is it shouldn’t be this way. Students should have the luxury of taking different sections of the tests on different days or at least have more than a five minute break in between every other section. By doing this, student will be able to regain their mental composure and not be totally mush brain by the time they are half way done the

It tests students in four subjects along with an optional writing portion. These four subjects being, english, mathematics, reading, and science. The ACT takes approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes, and contains 215 multiple-choice questions. If you are taking the writing portion it will take just over 4 hours. The ACT is scored separately by by each subject on a scale from 1 to 36 and these scores are then taken into a composite score on a scale also from 1 to 36. On this scare 1 is the worst score and 36 would be the best score. The SAT is another standardized test that is said to get and understanding of how well students learn new information and can apply it to solve problems. The SAT tests students on, math, reading, writing, and language. It takes approximately 3 hours, plus an extra 50 minutes if the students chooses to take the optional essay test. The SAT contains a total of 154 questions. That scoring on the SAT is a scale ranging from 400 to 1600, 400 being the worst and 1600 being the

In the society of today, there are various educators who believe in assessment as proper method to measure the performance of a child in school as well as the overall achievement of a specific school system. The assessment may be presented in the form of verbal, written, or multiple choice, and it usually pertains to certain academic subjects in the school curriculum. Recently, many educators began to issue standardized tests to measure the intelligence of a common student body. (Rudner, 1989) These standardized tests were initially created to reveal the success in institutional school programs, and exhibit the abilities of students today. The standardized tests can reveal the strengths and weaknesses

Since most SAT preparation courses are large businesses, their focus is primarily revolved around how much revenue they accumulate rather than the actual performance of their students. SAT preparation courses tend to sway parents by guaranteeing “high scores if you hand over upwards of one grand in fees (Lander).” Economically speaking, large educational organizations such as Kaplan, Princeton Review, and The College Board “have together created an industry with a 2013 revenue of $840.4 million dollars” through selling SAT study books, [releasing] online practice tests, and [offering] SAT study courses (Braverman).” Meanwhile, “private SAT tutors charge in excess of $100 per hour and classes from companies like Kaplan or Princeton Review run about $1,000 (Braverman).” The high cost of SAT test preparation puts students from the wealthier families at a massive advantage over poorer family. Richer families “have average test scores that are more than 300 points higher than students from the poorest families on average, according to the College Board (Braverman).” Although these statistics may not apply to every student, it follows a common trend and generalizes families based on economic class. If highly funded school had more advanced

This differs from the ACT which colleges use for offering admittance. The PSAT differs from the ACT in every way that the SAT differs, except the PSAT is a shorter test. Students can start taking the PSAT in their eighth grade year, while the SAT and ACT can be taken in the tenth grade year. All tests can be taken multiple times. Colleges will accept the highest score attained at any time for the SAT and ACT.

Intelligence tests are inaccurate to measures true ability of a person because genes affect how a person responds to their surroundings, the tests cannot measure the person biological makeup or his true potential for being “smart”.

Everyone knows the importance that tests like the ACT and SAT play for students who are trying to get into their dream school. The preparations for these tests are not easy. From personal experience, these said tests were stressful, time consuming and hard to study for. Balancing time for things like school work and a job were hard enough as it was, so finding the time to study for the ACT was basically impossible. To top it off, I did not have the money to afford such study classes and materials for the test. I found it extremely discriminating. After doing some research, I found that I was not the only one who found these standardized tests to be bias and unfair towards specific groups of students. Due to such unequal treatment, I believe

The following category discusses the reliability and validity of the SAT. Firstly, the reliability measures the consistency and steadiness of the SAT scores and validity measures how the test is being consumed. The SAT is a reliable test for the reason that if an individual takes the SAT multiple times he or she would receive comparable or higher scores each time the test is given to the individual due to the culture of the test. The SAT is valid since the test is designed to measure an individual cognitive ability and the achievement of students. Research has proved that cognitive test validities are generalizable and predictive of academic performance (Shen, Sackett, Kuncel, Beatty, Rigdon & Kiger, 2012). The SAT shows that more selective