<p>College Board to Make Changes to SAT Exam article from Inside Higher Ed on 2/27/13.</p>
<p>The President of the College Board said the SAT should be more closely aligned with the new common core standards, to better connect the test to the kind of academic work expected of students in high school and college.</p>
<p>Next, they can stop re-using old test questions.</p>
<p>^ This…</p>
<p>I will read the article later when I have time, but I imagine the ACT is giving the SAT a run for it’s money.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Different strokes for different folks. </p>
<p>Both organzations have followed a different marketing path. The SAT is the old kid on the block, and the ACT had to follow a different tack since it could not compete with the SAT on quality and historical integrity. The ACT convince states to make the test mandatory, and by doing this reached parity with the better known SAT.</p>
<p>In the end, this parity is beneficial to students who can decide which test fits them better, as it rewards slightly different aptitudes (mostly speed versus reasoning.) </p>
<p>Whatever changes The College Board comes up with, let’s hope they do not find their inspiration at the clueless University of California system. We are still paying for that foolish decision to add a writing component. Paying a lot!</p>
<p>From when onward this new change may come in effect?</p>
<p>And if you look for the dumbest quotation in the article, here it is:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nothing new from the mouth of the leading crook and frofiteer at Fair Test! Robert Schaeffer’s qualification and training to understand stantardized testing? None. Nada. Zilch! Just a squeaky wheel that gets some grease, in the form of help in the wallet area</p>
<p>I sincerely hope this new change doesn’t take effect for several more years. My eldest was caught in the transition from the last “old” SAT to the new one and it was not ideal–lots of confusion and misunderstandings. I do not relish reliving this with my youngest.</p>
<p>about time…dump the ridiculous vocab sections where you see words you may never see or need the rest of your life. Get read of the abstract reading questions that were obviously made up by English profs who care more about fluff over substance.</p>
<p>My daughter did much better on the ACT than the SAT. She liked the format much better, plus she is better at science than math. The ACT is still less common on the East Coast.</p>
<p>Interesting because the science section of the ACT is hardly one that tests … science. It is a total misnomer.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>While not easy for anyone, the “ridiculous” vocabulary has never been a major handicap. Students struggle a lot more with the reading comprehension that do not necessarily require a deep knowledge of vocabulary. </p>
<p>ETS could make a test that is a LOT more difficult but uses solely very easy vocabulary. Fwiw, reasoning and reading comprehension are far more important that sections that reward speed processing of formulae and rote memorization. The latter being, unfortunately, what is mostly tested in our high schools. </p>
<p>We could use a verbal test that is more difficult, but that is an alternative that does not messh very well with the declining scores in that particular section. Unfortunately, if the SAT were to alin itself with the ACT, it will require dumbing it down and decrease the need to be thinking and reasoning and do it faster. </p>
<p>Hardly what college demands should be all about!</p>
<p>Getting rid of the vocabulary sections is a good start. If an essay must still stand, source material should be taken from the non-fiction texts in use during the SAT reading test.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps the people for whom this statement applies should not aiming for the Bachelor of Arts degree. I don’t think the words tested are so obscure.</p>
<p>The primary purpose of the SAT is to predict success in college, as measured by college grades. There should be no need for it to mimic the high school curriculum. If Raven’s progressive matrices help predict college grades more than the types of questions currently included, the SAT ought to use them.</p>
<p>If Coleman was not such an AP fanboy, we could hope for the real solution to the problem, which would require to flip the positions of the SAT and AP. </p>
<p>As it stands, the misguided explosion of AP is robbing valuable education time and, at most schools, a full two week out of the already atrociously short number of schooldays. </p>
<p>An expanded SAT should replace the current multiple administration and be offered only twice a year in May with a second chance in September. The expanded SAT shouid be a three-day affair that replaces the current SAT and Subject Tests, and only offered to juniors in May and seniors in September. The fewer number of administrations should allow for expanded security measures as well as the necessary inclusion of corroborating material such as essays and STEM tests written during the school yeat on similar subjects. In case of drastic changes in scores, the handwriting could provide clues to potential cheating. </p>
<p>The AP should be relegated to the current Saturday morning ordeal with rotating subjects for the annual six to eight administrations.</p>
<p>most science/math kids do not need half of their score to be based on a reading section with a number of abstract questions. This is not an indicator on how they will do in their Bio/chem/phy classes. </p>
<p>…and many of the words are indeed very obscure</p>
<p>I do agree somewhat with Xiggi in that SAT has bloated their test hoard with SAT subject tests…why not develop one test that checks to see if kids have learned the foundations that they should have learned in high school…but oops if you exclude the science section of the ACT which is, I agree, a strange section then it resembles the ACT, which tests math skills through basic Trig, reading comprehension, punctuation, and grammar. Plus the ACT is a much shorter test. My oldest did about the same on the two tests but he was totally exhausted after the ACT and if I remember is took an entire Saturday morning to get through it, the other two kids said thanks but no thanks to the SAT. Add to that I have a hard time understanding the value of AP tests and SAT subject tests…why on earth do kids need to do both? If anything it absolutely does test the testing endurance of students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agree this would be a good idea.</p>
<p>geeps –</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agree with this also. Some science and math kids are rather lopsided with perfect nonverbal scores but not so stellar reading and writing scores.</p>
<p>How about get rid of the SAT as a single test, add Math Level III, and bring back the old Writing Subject Tests, and just go with subject tests, which actually do an ok job. Just as they do today, colleges could require certain Subject tests.</p>