<p>“There are a bunch of cheap reasoning tricks, and if you’re good at spotting and avoiding those tricks and traps, you can do pretty well. But that’s superficial game-playing, it’s not at all the same as real critical thinking.”</p>
<p>What exactly is a “cheap reasoning trick”?</p>
<p>If they are so cheap and superficial, seems like anyone could get very high SAT score with a small amount of effort. Or do you observe than the ability to figure out these “tricks and traps” is not correlated to anything in particular vis-a-vis ‘reasoning ability’?</p>
<p>Thousands of colleges seem to think the ability to navigate these “tricks and traps” is correlated to something relevant. I suppose they could all be wrong and you are right.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad said, “I expect most people who are fine with the SAT are those who do well on it.”</p>
<p>That’s the truth!</p>
<p>Yzamyatin said, “What exactly is a cheap reasoning trick?”</p>
<p>There are aspects of the SAT (and every other standardized test, frankly) that will trip up a taker, based only on whether he has some prior knowledge about the test and its structure.</p>
<p>Examples:
Is it better to take an educated guess or leave the answer blank? Knowing that makes a huge difference in a taker’s score.
Should you use prior knowledge of the subject or only what is given in the test readings when answering? My DH raised his MCAT scores quite a bit (many, many years ago) after taking a prep course that mostly taught HOW to take the test. Including forgetting any prior knowledge you might have when answering questions.
Should you read the entire paragraph or essay, or go directly to the questions and then go back and skim find the answers? </p>
<p>Test taking skills could be considered “cheap reasoning tricks”, that really have little or nothing to do with anything other than how to do well on a particular test. </p>
<p>It is designed to trip up any test taker who does not have the time or resources to spend preparing for it.</p>
<p>The SAT isn’t a measure of college preparedness. It’s just an accepted test based on the idea there is some standardized bar for hs learning or skills. When I hear of a 2400, I just think the kid took it seriously. Combined with a 4.0, the kid took lots seriously. But even straight A/2400 kids are still 17 or so. Experienced in high school, maybe some DE, but not college. And that’s why there is an application to fill out, questions to answer, info to list. And why so many schools review holistically.</p>
<p>My observation of the SAT is that it does test a natural ability, which is why some people can do so well on it with very little prep. I think it’s basically a kind of pattern-recognition ability. Some people can improve it a lot with prep, but some people just have it naturally. The question is whether that natural test-taking ability is related to other abilities that are more helpful in school and later life.</p>
<p>As a high school student, I figured that out just from reading the small booklet about the SAT that included the sign up form. Now that AP statistics is a common offering in high schools, shouldn’t this be obvious?</p>
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<p>For the SAT, if you know how to do high school algebra and geometry quickly, that helps on the math section. So does having a large vocabulary on the vocabulary-intensive (at least back then) verbal section.</p>
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<p>Presumably, this is for students who tend to run out of time. In this case, it is best to do all of the quicker vocabulary-based questions in the section first, then do the slower reading ones.</p>
<p>You did not mention the “trick” on the math section of plugging the answers back into the problem to test their correctness, which may be faster than solving the problem the usual way.</p>
<p>I think the CW is no. If you read a passage about something, the questions deal with what is in the passage, NOT what you may know about the subject beyond that. I read an example not long ago about a passage re: bears fattening up for winter which didn’t mention hibernation at all, and there was a trick answer about hibernating when the correct answer was about storing fat, or something along those lines. </p>
<p>That tells you all you need to know. It reminds me of a discussion with a “soccer mom” who explained that their pediatrician had told her that her son was in the 110th percentile in height for his age. Xiggi’s right. I don’t know who allows this tripe out there where people can be influenced by it. </p>
<p>For a different, rational perspective, try this one. </p>
<p>I agree, the SAT is nothing more than a monopolistic and cynical cash grab. The questions on their own are not even remotely difficult. (I mean come on, the math section doesn’t test past basic geometry, how is that college ready?) However, testing conditions are designed to make you rush and stress out so much that the only way you can do reasonably well is if you play the game of the SAT. Great, if I ever have to diffuse a bomb in 25 minutes by answering basic algebra and geometry from the SAT and somehow the bomb went off at the end of it with a force related to the number of questions I either answered incorrectly or omitted, then I would be glad that the SAT prepared me for that, otherwise it was a waste of my time. (Also, as long as you pay more money, you can reset the bomb as many times as you want and only get hit by the smallest explosion.)</p>
<p>I am curious about what you have in mind as a “cheap reasoning trick,” bclintonk.</p>
<p>Given the variability in average grades in courses in different majors, the SAT’s aggregate predictive capability for freshman-year grades seems like a pointless statistic to me. If there are studies of the predictive capability within majors in the same university, that would probably be useful. For quite a while at my university, faculty members used to provide academic advising for our undergraduate majors. I had only a small sample of that group, but can say that generally speaking, it seemed like an uphill trudge for a student with SAT M below 650 to major in physics or chemistry. The overwhelming majority of students in that group shifted majors, even when they were encouraged to stick with it. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if their GPA’s shifted up when they changed majors.</p>
<p>Perhaps relevant to what you observed: <a href=“[1011.0663] Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics”>http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.0663</a>
This paper describes the relation between the SAT math score and how well physics and math majors did. They found little success in those majors for SAT math scores <600 – not exactly a surprise that students who have trouble with the low level high school algebra and geometry on the SAT math have trouble with the more advanced math encountered as physics and math majors. No similar threshold was found for other majors, and they found that SAT scores were quite “noisy” as predictors of college performance.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, thanks for seriously addressing the “questions” I wrote. </p>
<p>The answers seem obvious to most thread readers, partly because we are interested enough to be on this thread on this site. And I’m guessing that most of our kids also know the answers to those “tricks”. But there are kids in the U.S. who don’t go to schools where kids talk about that SAT techniques, where self study materials are not readily available (one ratty ten year old copy in the library, and one in the guidance office), where there is no money for purchasing study materials or for private prep classes or tutoring. And there are kids who don’t have parental support, whose parents don’t have the time or interest or money to help their kids play the game. There are parents who don’t even kow there is a game to be played. It is set up to give an advantage to kids whose parents are educated and have money.</p>
<p>Maybe Hogwarts had it correct. We need a sorting hat. (Tongue in cheek.)</p>
<p>I’m with you on the savvy and able to help parents. </p>
<p>However, D has had access to dozens of great test prep books via the public library. Our own branch has some, sure, but we have access to the entire state’s libraries and there are up-to-date copies of all the major test prep books available through inter-library loan. I only bought one book for her - the SAT Blue - and that was before I discovered that the library system had them all. </p>
<p>What the SAT does is level the playing field. The kid who is bright and able enough can get a matchup against the Exeter and Dalton graduates of the world that he otherwise wouldn’t get. And the ones who are bright enough in that matchup displace those privileged kids to a destination that may be down a few notches from what their parents expected. </p>
<p>The article actually says/admits this:</p>
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<p>This is the problem that the rich and upper-middle class have with the SAT. It forces their kids to compete on an even playing field. That is why so many of them dislike it. Educators also dislike it because it exposes the time wasting that has been going on in their classes over twelve years. </p>
<p>@Hunt my point is that the difficulty of the test isn’t derived from the difficulty of the questions. If I were asked any SAT question in a vaccum where I wasn’t being timed, it wasn’t early in the morning, I hadn’t been already taking a test for the past several hours, and I wasn’t being treated like a prisoner, I could easily answer it correctly 99.99999999999999% of the time. So the test isn’t really testing to see what you know or your ability to solve problems, or your ability to function in college. It is merely testing to see how good you are at taking the SAT, and if you don’t like your score there are plenty of ways to essentially pay for a higher one. </p>
<p>That is my biggest issue with the SAT: the fact that you can pay to take it again. If the test was actually a valid assessment of your abilities, then a retake would not only be unnecessary, but would compromise the integrity of this fictions test. As the test stands today, the college board provides you with every incentive to pay them more money to retake the test for a better score. If I recall correctly, they even send you a message WITH YOUR SCORE reminding you of the option and the fact that cows er… Students… Generally get a higher score the second time around. Of course this might all be ignorable if the college board were a legitimate nonprofit entity only there to help you… But that simply can’t be true when the heads of it make so much money.</p>
<p>I don’t have such a problem with the idea that you can retake the SAT. We all have bad days. But there’s been a huge change in attitude since most of us were young, when generally people took it once at the end of junior year with the idea that if they messed up, they could retake as a senior. I only had one friend who did that, and yes, it was pretty clear she should have scored better. Now, there’s a culture of take, take, and take again. I think it’s just wrong that you can pay money to have parts of your record suppressed, and that people are being encouraged by the college board to use the inherent variability of these tests to their advantage, and to pay them to do so.</p>
<p>^^ The problem is that time is THE controlling element of the SAT. Unlimited time would make the test trivial and useless. The settings and early testing are just excuses. </p>
<p>Lastly, one can prepare for the test before taking it and avoid the multiple sittings that are meant to generate revenues for TCB. </p>
<p>Fwiw, how do you think that the cost of K-12 and the cost of college does compare to the paltry fees raised by The College Board. Heck, compare those fees to what is spent on postage and application fees during the application process. And should I dare to mention the cost of visiting colleges? </p>
<p>Maybe there is more recent research, and I guess that the frequency of testing has risen since this study. But even so, the data presented show modest gains in retesting, inversely related to the level of the first scores. At at the time of this study, 50% of the people only took it once. 38% took it twice, and 10% took it three times. Heck, I took it twice 40+ years ago. This data doesn’t support over testing hypotheses.</p>
<p>There is plenty of time pressure in college, and in real life as well. While there are reasons to question whether what the SAT tests is predictive, it’s not because there is a time limit on the test.</p>
<p>Consider a typical college-bound honor student with scores in the 630-670 range. Composite score is something around 1950, 91st percentile. Such a kid may have quite a bit to gain in scholarships and admittances to selective schools by improving the score. The averages, though, say that they will gain 3 in CR, 2 in math, and lose 5 in writing. On average, no net gain. But 20% of them will gain 50 or more points in CR. 15% will gain 50 or more points in math. And 18% of them will gain 50+ points in writing. The fact that nearly the same number will experience comparable score losses makes me think that you can’t attribute all those gains to greater proficiency. Take the test again and you have a very reasonable chance of at least a 50 point score bump in your superscore. And if you’re not one of the lucky ones, just pay college board not to tell the schools about that incident, and roll the dice again. According to the college board “SAT verbal and math scores must differ by 60 points (40 × 1.5) in order to indicate true differences of ability.” So, the college board thinks you could get to 2100 without actually improving your ability.</p>
Xiggi’s right. I don’t know who allows this tripe out there where people can be influenced by it. </p>