<p>wow....where did she go to college?</p>
<p>I don't really see how the SAT is racist... It seems like a pretty high number of the reading passages that I've come across on practice tests, the PSAT, and the real thing have been about the first black person to [insert accomplishment here]. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, it's just that skin color doesn't have an impact on how well you score. The SAT may have some issues with wealthy vs. poor, but that includes ALL skin colors- black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, etc. </p>
<p>The SAT does not discriminate against the color of somebody's skin. The real problem is in the inner-city and poor public schools. Statistically, black people may make up the largest percentage, but it depends on the area where you live. If you go to a poor inner-city school in San Antonio or Phoenix, it's probably mostly Hispanic. If you go to a poor inner-city school in Chicago or Richmond, it's probably mostly black. If it's a poor school in rural South Dakota, it's probably almost all white with some Native Americans. So do you see what I'm saying? The problem isn't the skin color, it's the background that the person comes from. To improve scores and success of under-privileged kids, we need to improve the terrible educational system in this country... we don't need to blame the SAT for being "unfair."</p>
<p>^ agreed. the SAT highlights inequalities elsewhere in society, but the SAT in and of itself is fair.</p>
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[quote]
racism exists no longer, so should be this thread
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</p>
<p>And the most ignorant contribution of the thread goes tooooo: <em>drumroll</em></p>
<p>Racism no longer exists?
please look at McCain's ignorant supporters. lol</p>
<p>^^ever heard of the “Bradley effect”?</p>
<p>I was actually reading "The Language Police" in English, and it sort of addressed people's arguments of bias. It's like.. why do you think most of the passages in standardized tests are so dull? They screen out the offensive, biased passages so no one can argue that kids in country would know more about milking cows than city kids or something. When people do badly on a test, people automatically think the test is at fault and more revisions must be made. The test can't be perfect. Maybe the problem lies somewhere else.. like economic standing or quality of schools.</p>
<p>Have you ever seen that guy holding a Curious George toy that had an Obama sticker on his head?</p>
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[quote]
African American 2400 scorers?
Do you know of any? My math teacher(who is black) claims that the SAT is racist because as far as he knows no black student has aced it in its current form.
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<p>People who have scored 2400 since the SAT test went to three sections are very scarce. There are only less than 300 each year. </p>
<p>The quoted post that opens this thread confuses an anecdote with statistics. Sound statistics probably do NOT show that the SAT is biased against any ethnic group identified by the federal government for data tracking, because the test publisher takes great care to test the item content of the test to eliminate such bias. See </p>
<p>SAT</a> Reasoning Test </p>
<p>for links to the numerous research reports on the SAT published by the College Board. There are also many third-paper research papers about the SAT. </p>
<p>It's simply a fact that the committees who write the questions for the SAT check the answer choices very carefully, and the computers that score the SAT have no idea which test-takers belong to which ethnic group. So the key idea for scoring well on the SAT is to learn how to distinguish preferred answers from wrong answers. That's learnable for anyone.</p>
<p>Some of the replies have been very thoughtful, but some have violated the Terms of Service (and have already been deleted by other members of the moderation team). Usually when a thread sinks to such depths, it is closed, so that is what will happen here.</p>