<p>Of course you learn real knowledge in a Physics class over the course of a year. However, unless one has a particular interest in the subject, or wants to pursue a career in such a field, studying for each test is nothing more than training and focusing “to get the most points out of a test.”</p>
<p>That is what you do in high school. You study only the material on the upcoming test, and hope that it is enough. Sure you do study “content” on a Physics exam, instead of the test structure, but who knows if your Physics knowledge will be any more important in college than your test taking skills?</p>
<p>Shall we call that intellectual development? It’s not just facts you learn in an academic course. You learn how to think, difeernet ways to come up with solutions. You exercise your brain to develop it much like athlets run to develop their muscles making them stronger in whatever sports they engage. In learning to take the test, you tweak one part of your brain overdeveloping a small area rather than make the brain stronger generally readying it for higher learning.</p>
<p>Wait, learning one subject is developing an entire brain whereas test prep is “tweaking” one part of of the brain? And developing one specific part of the brain is actually bad for you? And exactly how do you substantiate a claim that test prep is “overdeveloping” a small area? That’s just nonsensical rambling.
Learning how to think and find different ways to come up with solutions… Sounds like an a cookie-cutter syllabus for an SAT Prep class.</p>
<p>To extend your analogy, virtually everything in the weight room is not good for an athlete because it only develops one specific targeted muscle group? Seriously?</p>
<p>I’m unsure of the complete numbers for 2005, but 107 of the first 300,000 takers earned a 2400 (.000357). In 2006, 238 of 1376745 (.000173). In 2007, 269 of 1491749 (.000180). (I’m unaware of the 2008 data, unfortunately.) In 2009 and 2010, as aforementioned, the raw decimals were .000194 and .000239, respectively. Again, this is dealing with marginal decimal disparities in largely the hundred-thousandths place. Average scores have actually decreased since 2005, so there’s no tenable reason to speculate that tutoring and specialty courses are actually enhancing the scores. The notion that students comprising the upper percentiles are augmenting their scores with better available curricula, strengthening academic demands, or more ample explicit or peripheral preparation is hypothesis.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The 2400 scale has merely been in place since March of 2005. That makes less than six years. Ten to fifteen years ago, there was a far higher quantity of perfect-scoring students on account of their being only the Mathematics and Critical Reading portions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>382 and 297, actually.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is reading my posts as if the sole contention is that only high SAT scores enhance the prospects of admission, which is an inaccurate construal and covered in sufficient context. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Armchair witticism is scarcely accurate. But the basic assertion that mathematics and statistics – or numbers dressed up as statistics – can be corrupted to serve one’s own devious agenda is true (e.g., Immigration Act of 1924). But I’m unsure of how you’re envisioning that to be relevant apart from your own opinions of how the SAT should be utilized in undergraduate admissions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One would need to possess fairly deplorable analytical skills in conjunction with a peculiar bias to make the first and third claims. If there are professional studies contending that, I’d be interested in seeing them. But I would distrust that they exist, given the substantial odds of corrupting multiple aspects of the analytic framework of quantitative social science (and hence fail peer review).</p>
<p>Is it not a steady increase? I meant there were very few perfect scores 10-15 years ago not 2400. About the average decreasing, SAT prep is probably done at the upper level, not by everyone.</p>
<p>Thank you, silverturtle. That’s about the same as 297. Curiously, 2009 is the only year the number didn’t increase much. Parents were possibly not spending money after Oct 2008? The numbers are</p>
<p>There’s not really any suitable basis on which to discuss the precise behavior. The notion that more students are encouraged to select more difficult courses is largely true. But the perception that SAT preparation courses are inflating the upper percentiles is a hoax. Even the overall culture of College Confidential, which tends to attract high performers, notably lacks reverence for these. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s a rather impoverished inference. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also, I’m unaware of the complete 2005 numbers, but if one includes the 107 perfect scores based on the first 300,000 takers, that accords to a decimal of .000357.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And if the class of 2011’s quantity does not expand out of accord with the increasing number of takings, then what’ll be the conclusion? The test prep companies had a bad year fiscally?</p>
<p>I would have to say that the first year, the curve may not have been what they wanted. It was their first try at it, after all. They could’ve then decided they wanted to tone the scores down a bit more, contributing to the much lower percentage, then slowly raised it as they aim for whatever they’re going for.</p>