College Board Error on June 6, 2015 SAT?

You should have a blind choice as to whether the section counts, or not, if you were one of the people who got less time.

Everyone needs to forward the petition to their local newspapers and TV stations. Discussing here helps but doesn’t hve the effect we need. Just sending to individual people is good but not enough. YouTube, vine, Instagram, more Twitter. We have to make this stick.

Has the college board actually said in a statement the experimental is counting? I can’t imagine that could possibly be true as it would make things worse, not better.

What a colossal waste of time and energy. Why not accept the situation for what it is. It might help a few, hurt a few, but will make NO difference whatsoever in the grand scheme of college applications. It’s OK to vent a little but the exaggeration of the impact on scores has been amazing.

Move on. Get the revised score … be happy with it (as it will entirely in line with your 10 sections score) or if unhappy, simply do NOT release it or add a note to the applications sent to schools that do not accept score choice.

Let Fairtest and its moronic leaders stick with the non-sense. They line their pockets with their tactics; you just waste your time!

WHAT WOULD BE FAIREST: Since some test takers will be adversely affected if the the last math and reading sections are not counted, College Board should score the whole exam for each student in 2 ways on a preliminary basis–one including both questionable sections and the other not including those sections. College Board should then award students the higher of the 2 preliminary scores as their final score on critical reading and math. Spread this idea around so perhaps College Board will be pressured into doing the right thing on students’ behalf given that it was their mistake!! No one should wind up with a lower score because they are pulling 2 sections out of the exam!

Why does one assume that the (now) deleted sections yielded better scores? Why does one assume that the students really scored better on those sections. Fwiw, if there is one thing we learned here is that students tend to be surprised by the number of errors they made and tend to overstate the score … until they get it or see the mistakes on the QAS.

The reality is that, at the end, this might help the students who did very well (perhaps perfectly) on ALL the remaining sections. Nobody knows how ETS will revise its “curve” and penalize the mistakes on a shorter test. However, what CANNOT change is that a student who did NOT make a mistake in the remaining sections will get a PERFECT 800 score.

If it works that way, count your blessings. If not, you are able to ignore the result and take it one more time. And THAT last part is exactly the same it would have been with a full test.

Hmm…You are only reinforcing our point. If it was truly a waste of time you would not bother to post. You would simply ignore the thread. The anger that your post reflects suggests that perhaps you have a contrary motivation or work for the College Board. Otherwise, why would you care? If it doesn’t affect you or you are happy with the College Board’s position, good for you. No reason to attack those who disagree. Keep publicizing the petition everyone!!!

The College Board should just give everyone who took the June 6th test an 800 on the affected sections of the test, and they should refund the fees and lose their non-profit status, and all the executives should have to wear a sign around their necks that say “I’m a poopyhead” and everyone should get a pony and admittance into the school of their choice and not have to pay taxes for the rest of their lives!!!

It’s only FAIR.

^^ How am I reinforcing points that make no sense?

Do I work for College Board? I’d suggest you might look up a bit of my history here before posting comments that reflect your contributions of 8 posts here.

My posts and comments on this issue reflect the pragmatic approach I have always followed with standardized tests and college applications. Some battles are simply not worth waging! One might not care for ETS and TCB and still find ways to beat them at their own games.

In this case, my point, if it was lost to you, is that there are better things to do than signing a futile petition and keep venting about the hiccup on testing days. Over the years, there have been countless issues with proctors of help, unusable scantrons, and plenty of cheating incidents. Yet, everyone survived.

People who understand how the test functions know that this incident will have no bearing on anyone’s college applications, and especially not if the tester followed an intelligent plan that hardly relies on one particular administration.

@johnnydoe123 “I’m not going to pretend I know the extent of their statistical analyses”

Yeah, then don’t make any claims. Any sane statistician (i.e. ones not employed by CB) can tell you this will give unreliable scores. Also, you ultimately bely yourself. You say we should get what we “deserve,” yet by un-standardizing the test, our scores are doomed to be artificially lower or higher. Since score distributions on these types of tests are usually rightwardly skewed, most of our scores are going to be artificially lower. We don’t want low scores.

MODERATOR’S NOTE:

To quote Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest: “Ah, but nobody ever said life was fair, Tina.”

If it makes you feel better, by all means complain, vent, sign the petition, don’t sign the petition. Know that nothing will change, however.

While we’re on the subject, enough with the back and forth challenging of statistical data; nobody posting here works for the College Board. The only vested interest that anyone has is that they of their kid took the exam. Again, feel free to vent, but attacks on members will not be tolerated.

I guess I just really don’t understand why the CB just doesn’t allow anyone who took the test on June 6 a retake date this summer if they do not want the revised score. If you do not want a retake then they will score it now and you accept the result. IF you don’t trust the new scoring system will be valid… don’t score it but get a free retake on June 20th.

seems that way they can go about their day claiming the last 2 sections don’t matter and those that agree are happy. Those that don’t feel it will reflect how they performed accurately will never know but can try again on the 20th (or a similar date).

At this point it seems at least it would be a compromise for both sides, no?

Here is a portion of their own policy that was already posted… but perhaps can be cited for those that want the no score retake option?

**** - ETS gives affected test-takers the opportunity to take the test again as soon as possible, without charge. These remedies are the sole remedies available to test-takers as a result of testing irregularities.

Sane but probably not well-educated!

CB basically is saying the scores are reliable, but what does reliable mean exactly? According to the Washington Post article, a CR score can be 620 or 680 and not be statistically meaningful. So when scores come out and we get a 620 when originally we could get a 680 without this mess, there is still no noticeable difference in CB’s eyes? Without doubt, the “curve” is going to have more point gaps per question AKA less precise than a standardized SAT test because there are fewer questions to be scored (CR and M). I would like it if someone could clarify please.

Let CB do their job.

When I called College Board, they said that their new method of grading would allow student’s scores to be in the same range they would originally be in. But that’s the whole problem! “Range” is not good enough! We want our ACTUAL scores, not some estimate! And when 10/20 points can make the difference between getting a scholarship or not, it is NOT okay to “estimate” our scores. However, the College Board doesn’t seem to grasp the severity of this, and it is ridiculous.

@lionbeast “a CR score can be 620 or 680 and not be statistically meaningful”

This statement in WP article refers to the SAT as it is normally scored - nothing to do with the June 6th test, except as a context for understanding the accuracy of the test in general.

@NickFlynn So does that mean the June SAT will be less accurate of a test than the normal standardized SAT tests? There are less questions for CR and M so each one missed would mean a larger point(s) deduction. How can the June SAT be reliable then; is the point difference almost unnoticeable or something?

That, in fact, is the essence of our claim. The College Board is not doing its job well or with transparency. It has gone AWOL making up alternative scoring methods (not even sanctioned by its own procedures as set forth on its own website) in an effort to cover a mistake rather than do their job properly. We want the College Board to do its job but we want it to do it right.

@lionbeast I really am not anxious to get too involved in the discussion here, because I think it ran off the rails a long time ago, but the essential point is that the scored June 6 test will be slightly more unreliable than a standard SAT test, but the magnitude of the effect and number of people impacted is low enough that the decision was taken that it was in an acceptable range.

The key point, which seems to be lost on almost everyone in this thread, is that it is almost certain that this decision was not taken without consulting with some or most of the colleges that use these scores. In my opinion, there is no way CB would have gone ahead without the colleges being in agreement that the resulting scores would be reliable enough for their purposes. And if the college’s are fine with the scores, as far as I am concerned, that’s the end of the issue.

A small (275 signatures on a petition that was publicized in the Washington Post) vocal group of people are trying to make a huge issue out of this, and they are welcome to do so, free country and all that…but the whole things seems pretty pointless to me.