<p>There is a definite correlation- the most intelligent students I know always score higher than the not-so-intelligent students I know. But preparation also plays a major factor. The SAT, because you can prepare for it, overestimates peoples’ intelligence most of the time.</p>
<p>A test you can’t prepare for would be much more indicative of intelligence.</p>
<p>Yes preparation plays a role but I would argue that there is a ceiling which can be reahced after which practice won’t improve one’s score. In this way the SAT can measure intelligence accurately, provided everyone studies.</p>
<p>Without studying there’s a correlation just not as high.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree to an extent. Vocab can indeed be memorized, but those who read a lot throughout childhood have a considerable advantage in that they start out already knowing a lot of the words and have a good working knowledge of their shades of meaning. A working knowledge is what matters, and that takes more than rote memorization.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The examples used do not matter nearly as much as how they are used. You can write about taking a shower and get a 12 if you relate it to the prompt.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Trial and error and guess and check help on some problems, but they are not the most efficient way to solve most of the questions. If you rely on them too much, it’s going to hurt you. In addition, the ability to use these methods efficiently and to know when to use them has something to do with intelligence. A lot of kinds don’t understand how to apply them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe if you’re over 80 or have vision problems…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, memorization helps, but those who have been exposed to good English throughout their lives have a significant advantage. It’s not just about knowing rules; it’s about having a good ear and understanding how good English is constructed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Now that’s what I call a rock-solid logical argument based on firm evidence.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, because schools aren’t supposed to be teaching reading, writing, and math, and knowing about subject-verb agreement and having a sophisticated vocabulary are totally obscure concepts that serve absolutely no function in the real world.</p>
<p>
And there’s a lot of people who are smart that don’t do well on the SAT too. Testing knowledge always plays on a factor of intelligience, but to say that the SAT is related to an IQ test is ludicrous.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, it’s learned as a skill-set not something your born with like, for example, IQ.</p>
<p>
Unless you’ve seen the particular math problem in the past, there’s a very high probability that you will need to test out new things to work problems out. The SAT almost always has several algebraic questions that require you to the generic “put them together” problems hopefully making it work and an answer revealed. The best examples are questions that follow the example: if (x+y)^2 is something and xy = 24, what is x^2+y^2… or something similar. Great, so to solve this, you need to do some trial and error. Without prior experience or knowing the obfuscation behind (x+y)^2, you will be forced to test out some messed up choices… and you also have to notice that the expression can be factored. No, I don’t consider being able to tell if an expression is factorable based on past knowedge or being able to test try random methods as a test of intellect… All it’s doing is checking if you can make a checklist in your mind to go through every step in an attempt figure out which way to solve it. Note, this is also very much true on the Writing sentence part consisting of underlined words that may or may not be incorrect. Trial and error, that’s all-- instead of just giving you the information, it has to be an ass about it. Thank god for the ACT though; if you think logically, the answer choice you think up is always on the test in plain sight.</p>
<p>Guys, any test – including the ACT and the SAT – which can be successfully coached does NOT measure raw intelligence. It measures how well you can learn the strategies for mastering the test. If the ACT or the SAT measured raw intelligence, then why are Kaplan and a dozen other test prep companies making a fortune teaching college applicants how to raise their scores?</p>
<p>^Agreed. And the problem cjone gave might seem difficult at first (I had no idea myself where to start) but the solution is uber easy once you see the problem and solution one time. You just expand to get x^2+2xy+y^2=whatever and you know what 2xy equals so x^2+y^2=whatever-2*whatever else. So, this takes what, ten seconds? Five if you skip some steps? All you need to have done is to have seen the problem before. If you didn’t see the problem before, you have to spend a considerable amount of time figuring out where to start (like I did, and I’m an 800 math II guy). This problem isn’t an anomaly, either. There are tons of other difficult problems that can be EASILY solved once you see the solution once. That is not intelligence. Not even close.</p>
<p>Cj, you say that certain aspects of one’s thought process which go into solving that problem aren’t intelligence… If that’s the case, then what exactly is intelligence? That question is posed to all who read this post.</p>
<p>Intelligence: the ability to take unconnected pieces of knowledge and put them together in unique ways during the process of problem solving. The ability of an individual to manipulate information and gain an understanding of that information. </p>
<p>The SAT is for the most part an intelligence test, barring two things: the writing section, and CR vocab. Aside from that, the test and it’s questions fit nicely into any definition of intelligence a reasonable person may think of. </p>
<p>Besides, we can take apart the questions, dissect the sections, and say it’s all bogus, but the truth is, intelligent people do well on the SAT. This isn’t an absolute, there will always be exceptions, but for the most part, people who are intelligent do well and people who are intelligent don’t. The SAT is used because humans value tangible measures by which they can judge and rank other people. Maybe with hard work dumb people can succeed at Harvard or Princeton, but those colleges want the smartest, not the hardest workers. Something innate, like intelligence, is always valued more than something seen as external, as in hard work. It may be unfair, but that’s the way the system is set up.</p>
<p>^I have no problem with how the SAT is used. What I have a problem with is people saying it’s an intelligence test and that it tests practically only intelligence. It tests intelligence to an extent, hence why there is some correlation. But it is far from a solid intelligence test, and one can not use results to effectively judge intelligence between two different scorers, whereas with an intelligence you can.</p>
<p>Unholy Sigma,</p>
<p>The following is taken from a PBS transcript of interviews with representatives of the College Board. Please read and learn. I assume that a representative of the College Board stating that the SAT does not measure any innate ability is good enough for you, or are the people who designed the test wrong about what it supposedly measures? Please also note the comments made in the following paragraph to the effect that an individual’s performance on the SAT is NOT a very good predictor of success in college.</p>
<p>When it was first administered to a group of students, in 1926, (read about this first test and try some of its questions) the SAT was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the word “aptitude” meaning that the test measured an innate ability, rather than knowledge acquired through schooling. Today, the test administered by the College Board is still called SAT, but the name is just an acronym, with the letters no longer standing for anything. This fact illustrates the uncertainty that has surrounded what exactly the SAT measures (we are referring only to the SAT I: Reasoning Test, not to the SAT II Subject Tests).
The design of the SAT was based on the IQ test (see historical timeline) The French psychologist Alfred Binet created the first test of intelligence in 1905. It was to be used to identify slow learners so that teachers could give them special attention. This test would later be known as the IQ test–IQ standing for “intelligence quotient,” or the ratio of mental to physical age. </p>
<p>Because the SAT was devised as a tool to identify talented students from underprivileged backgrounds, it was thought of as a test that would measure an innate ability referred to as “aptitude,” rather than abilities that these students might have developed through school. </p>
<p>“When these tests were originally developed,” said Harvard social policy professor Christopher Jencks, “people really believed that if they did the job right they would be able to measure this sort of underlying, biological potential. And they often called it aptitude, sometimes they called it genes, sometimes intelligence.”</p>
<p>According to the College Board, the SAT now does not measure any innate ability. Wayne Camara, Director of the Office of research at the College Board told FRONTLINE that the SAT measures “developed reasoning,” which he described as the skills that students develop not only in school but also outside of school. He pointed out, for example, that students who read a lot, both in and out of school, are more likely to do well on the SAT and in college. The College Board says that the best way to prepare for the SAT is to read a lot and to take rigorous academic courses. </p>
<p>The SAT has been found to correlate with first-year college grades. But psychologist Claude Steele pointed out that the test has been found to measure only about 18 percent of the things that it takes to do well in school, and thus is not a very good predictor of how a student will do in college. “The SAT is not going to get you very far with predicting who’s going to do well in college,” he told FRONTLINE. Read the views of authorities on intelligence and testing for more on the SAT’s relation to the IQ test, its ability to predict success in school, and the debate over whether the test measures “aptitude” or “achievement.” </p>
<p>home | discussion | who got in? | interviews | the race issue | sat & test prep | history of the sat
the screening process | test score gap | getting in to berkeley | bibliography | links | video excerpt
tapes & transcripts | press | links
FRONTLINE | pbs online | wgbh</p>
<p>Perhaps I should have clarified my views before getting involved in the discussion. I do not think the SAT is an intelligence test the same way an IQ test is an intelligence test. I do think, though, that the SAT does a good job of testing one’s understanding of basic reading, writing, and math concepts and one’s ability to reason with them (which is where intelligence comes into play). Can you “cheat” and catch up on those abilities by studying them specifically for the test rather than learning them through the course of a K-12 education? Yes, but (a) the former is generally much less effective than the latter (studying usually won’t get you more than a couple hundred points’ improvement at best) and (b) as long as you learn the skills, does it really whether you learned them two months before the test or ten years before the test? Getting a good score with no prep shows raw intelligence. Getting a good score with prep shows intelligence and hard work. Aren’t both valuable characteristics?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Isn’t that exactly what the test should be making you do? If all you have to do is apply formulas you learned in school, it’s just a test of how good your education is. If you have to apply the formulas in creative ways and force your mind to adapt to novel concepts, isn’t that testing your reasoning abilities?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Anyone who’s taken pre-algebra knows that (x+y)^2 can be expanded. What matters is not knowing that it can be expanded, but knowing that given the specific circumstances it should be expanded and the way in which it would be beneficial to do so. It may seem obvious to someone with a good brain, but I bet you that a good number of students would struggle with the question no matter how many times they had been told that (x+y)^2 can be expanded.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A bad math student will run though a checklist and rely upon luck to come up with the correct technique. A good math student will automatically realize which method to use because he will notice the connection between (x+y)^2 and xy and know how to use it to his advantage.</p>
<p>True, if you have no past experience with the expression (x+y)^2 you’re in trouble. That’s why I think it’s a combination of your mastery of basic concepts you’ve been taught throughout school – i.e. things you can learn – and your ability to reason with such concepts – i.e. things you can’t learn. Both are important for success in college.</p>
<p>Most high scorers are generally intelligent. However, a low score does not necessarily mean you are unintelligent. You have to be both intelligent and a good test taker. A lot of the people who get high scores also study like hell and obsess over every single point. Some other very smart people just don’t think it is as important or don’t test well.</p>
<p>“Wayne Camara, Director of the Office of research at the College Board told FRONTLINE that the SAT measures “developed reasoning,” which he described as the skills that students develop not only in school but also outside of school.”</p>
<p>If this isn’t intelligence, I don’t know what is. </p>
<p>Let me clarify that I DON’T feel the SAT is an IQ test. That said, I don’t agree with those who say all the SAT does is measure one’s ability to take the test. The reality lies, as it usually does, somewhere in the middle. To say a 1600 student is smart and a 1590 student is average is ridiculous. Those scores are within the same range. A 1600 and a 1200, however, are certainly not in the same range and say something about their respective owners. In that way the SAT is an intelligence test. We don’t look to our IQ tests with expectations of such accuracy either. A 149 and 148 IQ mean nothing when compared, only that the individuals with those IQs lie in the same range.</p>
<p>Sigma, I find that the SAT tests more of how well you can actually take the test the way the SAT test writers wrote it. The only way to see how the SAT board members solve a problem is by going through trial and error. You don’t know how they arrive at the right answer, so it’s like a “black-box” system. I do not consider this intelligience and not to mention, with the SAT’s very rigid question structures that follow the same model time and time again, it’s easy to learn how to tackle a variety of scenarios through studying and getting familiar with the test’s format instead of having to do trial and error(studying, another factor that’s not based on intellect). </p>
<p>I can’t define intelligience, but from my personal experience as an extremely disorganized person, I don’t think linearly and the SAT’s format negatively effects me. If I saw the (x+y)^2 question (see above) for the first time, I would not be able to do it because factoring out the equation is not something that comes to my mind on the first look. On a question on the last SAT I took, I got a question wrong because it asked for a positive number in bold letters, but it didn’t register to me either. I don’t have a checklist mentality that some people with a very organized minds have. For example, when i’m taking the writing section, I don’t correlate pronouns with the words they modify when I look at them. I call this assocatiating and is a trained skill, definitely not intelligience. I’m at a huge disadvantage when I take the SAT because of my disorganization. I have to study–which is how the test was meant to be taken, not as an IQ test. I do not think I am “stupid” because of this though, but you can surely debate that. 
I’m sure people there’s other people with similar problems as me that can relate to mine.</p>
<p>I find the ACT’s mentality of testing academic achievement to be better then an IQ test or the SAT. It allows the test taker to take the test with a mindset that a person would normally have.</p>
<p>Haha I’m disorganized as well. I guess that’s the reason I score highly on the CR section but am poor on the Math section. And because you’re taking part in this discussion I consider you intelligent XD</p>
<p>“Thank god for the ACT though; if you think logically, the answer choice you think up is always on the test in plain sight.”</p>
<p>As I’ve made clear in the past, this is just because the ACT is an easier test. It just has easier questions and is good for the really hardworking kids who may not be naturally intelligent. This is why it is not valued as much as the SAT. On the other hand, smart underachievers always seem to score better than the hardworking studiers on the SAT. </p>
<p>So I think the SAT definitely measures intelligence to some degree.</p>
<p>^Agreed, 100%.</p>
<p>
The ACT easier? Haha, that’s pretty ignorant to say. Look at the percentiles – that’s what matter, not to mention that the ACT is valued equally to the SAT by most colleges. And to say that the SAT is valued more because it represents intelligience better is very naive. Colleges want hard-working people that are fairly intelligient. It’s great if someone is extremely smart, but if they don’t use it, it doesn’t matter. In correlation, the ACT test is a mixed bag of intellect and curriculum. The proportion of each is done fairly well for a standardized test. People who work hard do well. Smart people do decently. Smart people who work hard do the best.</p>
<p>The SAT is a mixed bag in a bad way. I have yet to find a skill-set that’s actually worthwhile to test on it.</p>
<p>
I doubt that most people who do well on the SAT just walked in on the day and got their score. There’s reasons why they made the blue book…</p>
<p>The percentiles are smaller at the high end of the ACT because to get up there one needs to do a whole lot of studying, this may be more difficult, but it doesn’t measure intellect in the same way that the SAT does.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Any test can be gamed, including IQ tests. Of course there’s no point in trying to game an IQ test, so there hasn’t really been any effort to do so.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Many don’t, but a fair number do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s just not true.</p>
<p>What evidence is there to support that the ACT tests how hard one works in there school years and is thus a test of knowledge of school curriculum? I just never seemed to understand that argument. How does being a hardworker throughout high school help on the ACT? It seems that of the hardworkers I know that just aren’t very intelligent, the max they can get is high 20s or a 30. And the ACT also recognizes those who don’t give a crap in school, as I know a few students with 35s and 36s that took easy classes and got poor grades. In fact, it seems that the SAT would be more apt for hard workers, as it is more studyable and needs more studying than the ACT. Hardworkers will be willing to put in the time to improve their score. </p>
<p>And how can an IQ test be gamed? Ever see the one with the grid arrangements? I don’t see how one can study for that (well they could, but it wouldn’t be effective). On the other hand, studying for the SAT can get points increases in the multiple hundreds, which is very significant. That is why so many students study for the SAT (just look at all the threads with questions and study techniques); because it works. People study for the ACT as well, but I don’t think as much studying is needed for that test to get a score that reflects well your reasoning skills.</p>
<p>And many people appreciate how the ACT doesn’t try to trick test-takers the way the SAT does.</p>