Everyone who took or is taking the SAT should read this

[monstor344]

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Interestingly enough, when you take away the stereotype and state that there are no gender differences, not only do the women perform better but the men perform worse, which evidences the other side of the superstar effect - that if you believe you are a superstar (even erroneously) you will do better on average despite your abilities. The same was true on race - when black and white students took an exam and were simply told that there were no racial differences on the exam, the black students did better and the white students did worse than in the condition in which they were NOT told that and were asked to identify their race before hand. Thus the students in the “no differences” condition scored about equally.

Few things.

1. Can we get some concrete numbers? Scores? Averages? How much did they really change?
2. By racial differences, do you mean perceptions of different races based on SAT scores, or do you mean supposed biases within the test itself? If the latter is such, then perhaps the folks that continue to scream “SAT IS RACIALLY BIASED” are themselves perpetrators of the problems dealing with the score disparity itself.
3. What of the fact that the SAT is still considered the most important test a teenager ever takes? Surely this weighs on the mind of any test-taker more than the “fear” of having one’s scores contribute to a pool of millions of anonymous data points. Were these studies conducted with this psychological element as well (as in were they taken from kids taking the real SAT/ACT)?</p>

<p>EDIT: And as for the superstar argument, helloooo? Aren’t top schools looking for kids who exude a certain self-confidence anyways? Not to mention that this supposed superstar effect essentially affects all except a elect handful of superstars, meaning there’s no discernible bias or real inconsistency anyways.</p>