<p>No one said that academics were “more special”. I don’t think Pinker even said his goal was to create a class of future professors. People assumed that this is what would happen if you put his suggestions into action.</p>
<p>I am puzzled by this belief that SATs and GPAs measure excellence beyond a very narrow kind. One of the high scorers I know started SAT prep in 7th grade. Yes, he had a certain amount of smarts to start, but really, what does 2300 mean in this context? What does a 100 points difference mean in any context? GPAs are nice for noting due diligence, but so often HS coursework is about a narrow kind of mastery and not thinking outside the box. Furthermore, if some one is a brilliant writer, but a bad scientist, a GPA will look mediocre. </p>
<p>I would like to see more academic emphasis in US culture, but I have no reason to believe that testing measures more than what is tested. . . and certain kinds of very valuable intellectual strengths are hard to quantify. As ambivalent as I am about athletic recruits, I’ll take the system as it is.</p>
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<p>The test prep fallacy again? You can prep for just about anything. It doesn’t invalidate what it measures. If you are measuring academic skills required for the SAT, then you should be able to acquire that in the course of normal schooling. There may be some people who would not have gotten high scores without some test prep; these would be false positives if you are trying to assess pure talent alone. But there is no reason a Harvard-caliber person in a decent school (e.g., with AP’s, etc.) would need an excessive amount of test prep. And some of the test prep is building academic skills that the test is supposed to test anyway. If you practice critical reading and get better at it, then your reading comprehension has improved. I wouldn’t say that learning vocab words is really “test prep” either; you are building academic skills. For me, I needed zero prep for the math section. However, it did help me to go through a review book for the critical reading and go through passages. I also made an effort over years to learn new words. It’s an academic lifestyle, not learning test tricks.</p>
<p>Secondly, a person may be prepping in 7th grade if they need to take the SAT in middle school to get into an enrichment program or to high school. The high scorers tend to take it earlier because they have some academic talent and so they end up needing to take the SAT earlier.</p>
<p>As for the limitations of testing, I believe Pinker wanted a harder standardized exam.</p>
<p>“I disagree with Hanna’s idea that basing admissions on SATs and GPAs would yield a class full of future academics”</p>
<p>Oh, that’s not my idea at all. It’s my interpretation of what Pinker was saying. I could be wrong.</p>
<p>"I am puzzled by this belief that SATs and GPAs measure excellence beyond a very narrow kind. One of the high scorers I know started SAT prep in 7th grade. Yes, he had a certain amount of smarts to start, but really, what does 2300 mean in this context?</p>
<p>The test prep fallacy again? You can prep for just about anything. It doesn’t invalidate what it measures. "</p>
<p>I think you missed her point. There are multiple types of intelligence, and SATs measure only some of those types of intelligence. </p>
<p>Steve Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard. He knows and understands standardized testing. I am always amazed at how much disinformation is there in the media concerning this topic. As a result, even educated lay people get it all wrong. Is this the final taboo?</p>
<p>I have posted this TED talk from one of the world’s leading authority on the topic twice before, so I apologize for doing it again. It is necessary to have correct information, however, before we can talk intelligently on this controversial topic.</p>
<p><a href=“Do standardized tests matter? | Nathan Kuncel | TEDxUMN - YouTube”>Do standardized tests matter? | Nathan Kuncel | TEDxUMN - YouTube;
<p>I didn’t say standardized testing doesn’t measure what it measures. I said there are different types of intelligence and standardized testing doesn’t capture them all.</p>
<p>Right now, I am in a difficult personal situation where I need to convince someone dear to me, who is digging in her heels not to do XYZ, that she needs to do XYZ, without ruining our relationship, perhaps permanently. My usual approaches have not been working, and I’ve been asking people whose emotional intelligence I respect, what ways they have of broaching this topic and how I can position the need to do XYZ in a way where this other person feels heard and understood, but at the end of the day does XYZ, which is only going to benefit her. That’s because there is emotional intelligence required, and I only have so much of it; other people have more emotional intelligence than I do, even though I’m whiz-bang better at math and always kicked butt on any standardized testing (SAT’s, AP’s, GMAT’s) I ever took in my life. And all my perfect 800’s of the past do me no good in THIS situation. Get it now? <strong>Different kinds of intelligence.</strong> </p>
<p>To paraphrase myself, testing does not measure more than what is tested. Memorizing long lists of vocabulary words does not transfer in any simple way to speaking and writing with a more complex vocabulary. It can happen, but it also might not happen. There may be some small correlation between leadership and creativity in some tests, but the correlation is not the same as demonstrated creativity and leadership in life. </p>
<p>Tests are written by people who have beliefs, and they represent a set of cultural values. When I took the SAT in the late 60s, girls did better on reading and boys did better on math. Then the SAT reading was changed (more readings about engines?), and boys did better on both for a while. I believe there are SAT parodies which create knowledge that white kids fail. Certainly there is evidence that suggests racial biased questions in SATs: <a href=“https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat”>https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat</a></p>
<p>Tests are not useless, but they are limited.</p>
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<p>I don’t think Pinker says anything remotely like that --at least in the linked article–so I assumed your “interpretation” was your own view. I wasn’t trying to misstate your view–just misunderstood it. </p>
<p>I think that Pinker is saying that the “emotional intelligence” Pizzagirl values and/or the other types of intelligence that say Howard Gardner (sp?) describes shouldn’t be considered in determining who gets into Harvard.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that are ACADEMIC types of intelligence that aren’t measured by the SAT. To me, the ability to grasp foreign languages quickly and intuitively is an aptitude that should be considered in college admissions. The math test has very limited usefulness in measuring spatial perception, an ability that architechts among others, need. And maybe Harvard students shouldn’t be running off to a cappela performances, but does anyone seriously think Harvard made it a mistake when it admitted Yo Yo Ma? Isn’t musical aptitude a type of “academic” aptitude as well? </p>
<p>But most importantly, the SAT isn’t fine tuned enough to measure differences in aptitude at the highest levels. I forget the exact #s–but I think an 800 means you were in the top 1% of CR test takers and top 2% of math test takers. It’s quite possible that if you could measure “total aptitude” a kid who scored 2 800s would have less than the kid who scored an 800 on the math and also qualified for the international math Olympiad but “only” scored a 740 on CR. </p>
<p>I know that the two kids my D viewed as the most brilliant in her high school class didn’t get 1600 scores. However, one did end up as valedictorian of his Harvard class. </p>
<p>“Personally, I think that are ACADEMIC types of intelligence that aren’t measured by the SAT. To me, the ability to grasp foreign languages quickly and intuitively is an aptitude that should be considered in college admissions. The math test has very limited usefulness in measuring spatial perception, an ability that architechts among others, need. And maybe Harvard students shouldn’t be running off to a cappela performances, but does anyone seriously think Harvard made it a mistake when it admitted Yo Yo Ma? Isn’t musical aptitude a type of “academic” aptitude as well?”</p>
<p>This is exactly it. But then you’ve got the very linear thinkers all over CC who think math aptitude uber alles. And hey, I’ve got plenty of math aptitude and can hold my own in any standardized testing situation, but I’m not so shallow as to think it’s a superior skill to have versus being able to learn languages quickly, or to have that spatial perception, or to understand the human psyche, or compose music, or whatever. Sometimes it’s like wandering into Flatland – people who are so one dimensional they don’t even realize they are one dimensional. </p>
<p>PG, from my perspective, you have high E IQ as well as IQ. You travel the world, present material, socialize with strangers. </p>
<p>My son would have loved academic career, but alas, he is not the super genius. He describes some classmates as being in the stratosphere. He expects one friend to join a think tank. By the time one is in grad school, one can sense who is really super smart. There are so few academic jobs out there, only the most elite have a chance. What one scores on the GREs is irrelevant. I suspect that everyone in his program earned an 800 on math GRE. That score just opens a door. Similarly, most of his peers have NSF fellowships. </p>
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<p>I don’t think that academe rewards pure intelligence apart from other qualities. There is a lot of schmoozing going on. Promotions depend upon recommendations. Lone genius types with terrible social skills don’t do as well in academe as people who know how to get others to do favors for them. Also, many academic careers depend on being at least a competent teacher/lecturer, which requires some social nous. Being super bright is not enough.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks Pinker is a limited thinker hasn’t read anything written by him. Other than Gladwell, he is easily the most creative, out-of-the-box thinker among public intellectuals today.</p>
<p>So if the SAT only measures certain types of intelligence and those types of intelligence don’t always translate perfectly into super successful, productive adults aren’t we back at the reason for holistic admission’s decisions? And I’m aware of Pinker’s academic world super stardom, but does anyone know if he was knocking it out of the park in high school? Would his ideal admissions committee have accepted him? I don’t know. I truly enjoyed his article, but did anyone else sense a significant degree of self importance? Harvard shmarvard. Some of these academic people need to get over themselves.</p>
<p>"So if the SAT only measures certain types of intelligence and those types of intelligence don’t always translate perfectly into super successful, productive adults aren’t we back at the reason for holistic admission’s decisions? "</p>
<p>Of course. Which is why Harvard et al want to capture tomorrow’s movers and shakers, not necessarily tomorrow’s Sheldon Coopers. Or only a limited number of Sheldon Coopers. </p>
<p>Why is it so hard for many people to believe that some people more or less walk into the SATs and knock it out of the park? Without tutoring, prep, or efforts to “memorize” vocabulary? The best preparation for the CR section is 12 years of avid reading.</p>
<p>“does anyone know if he was knocking it out of the park in high school?”</p>
<p>No, we don’t. But other star professors have talked about it. When I was in Stephen Jay Gould’s class, he mentioned several times that he would never have gotten into Harvard. He went to Antioch.</p>
<p>Some people walk in an knock the SAT test out of the park, but nowadays some students start prepping in middle school. How does any one know how much prep went on? As long as the SAT was based on tricks, it was a test that needed some prep and orientation, which not everyone gets. Even the College Board has rethought the values of the test and what it tests (more than once).</p>
<p>Anecdote: When I went back to graduate school iin the humanities, I was worried that my math GRE would be wretched. I prepped and scored a 760. My first response was: “I should have been an engineer!”</p>
<p>They are just tests. They correlate to somethings, but they are really just a snapshot of a few hours working on a few questions. </p>
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Well, we read this article that he wrote, which presumably reflects his thinking on this topic.</p>