<p>^You don’t have to study as much for the ACT because you’ve been studying for it since you entered kindergarten. The day you start studying for the SAT, you have to go out and a buy an external book.</p>
<p>I have not met anyone with above a 30 that isn’t a good student (except like one), but I know lots of people with 2000+ that aren’t that impressive to me.</p>
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No, to get a 36 you still have to be really smart and dedicated. A higher IQ is necessary for a 33+ generally, but studying more helps significantly.</p>
<p>The SAT doesn’t measure intelligience in my opinion so I don’t agree with you.</p>
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<p>90% of the SAT math bases itself on trial\error. Then there are even a few questions that tell you to find the correct answer through trying them out…Seriously, common sense. </p>
<p>To many SAT fanboi’s I think. Judge the test yourself and stop reading up what some psychologist who lived in an underground laboratory for his or her whole life thinks about it.</p>
<p>I have this friend who took an SAT prep class; they scored 1230 on a practice test at the beginning, and then scored a 1890 on the actual test. Could they have gotten up to 2400 with more coaching? No, probably not, so I guess there is some correlation between SAT score and intelligence. But if coaching can make a 660 point difference, the correlation is weak enough that it’s rather useless.</p>
<p>^Yeah, there’s a weak intellegience correlation, but most tests even in school have some correlation. Studying definitely allows a person to improve his or her score by a large amount.</p>
<p>At the lower levels studying can drastically improve scores. This is why the lower to medium range test takers make up the majority if Princeton Review classes. Once you hit the 2000’s, 100 point increases are considered pretty high. </p>
<p>The SAT does a fantastic job at identifying people of high intelligence.</p>
<p>I’m a near 4.0 student. I have a 36 on the ACT, 3 5s and a 4 on AP tests, and above 770 on all the subject tests I have taken. But I did not take an SAT prep class, and ended up with a 2080. I doubt that’s because I’m stupider than my friends who took a prep class and got 2300.</p>
<p>I’m just amazed that I post a quote on this forum from the COLLEGE BOARD that says that the SAT doesn’t measure ANYTHING and some other posters continue to insist otherwise. It’s like telling the tide not to come in . . .</p>
<p>Funny, somehow I manage to make it through the vast majority of the questions without resorting to trial and error. If you reason through the problem, you don’t have to make random stabs at how to solve it.</p>
<p>I don’t really see why you’re so biased against the SAT. You seem to think that the ACT is the god of standardized tests and that the SAT is total rubbish. I don’t mind someone thinking that one test is more valuable than the other, but the tests aren’t different enough to warrant such an extreme viewpoint.</p>
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<p>It said that the SAT doesn’t measure INNATE ability. It does say it measures developed ability, which is what’s important anyway.</p>
<p>Raw intelligence has an impact on developed ability. I think the logical conclusion of this thread is that what the SAT measures is a student’s reasoning ability that is rooted in raw intelligence but can be improved by studying, reading, and general learning. Ultimately, this is intelligence, not some innate ability which can only be measured through indirect reasoning tests like IQ tests and the SAT. </p>
<p>The SAT can certainly be studied, but only those with high reasoning ability can attain scores above a certain level.</p>
<p>Both SAT scores and IQ test scores estimate “scholastic aptitude,” as was the considered view of the late Julian Stanley. See </p>
<p>Hopkins, Kenneth D. & Stanley, Julian C. (1981). Educational and Psychological Measurement and Evaluation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. </p>
<p>for discussion of this long-studied issue, and see </p>