<p>I just had to share this. No criticism please, but do try to convince me though.</p>
<p>After reading countless posts about what really determines your SAT score, I've come to one solid conclusion. Well, many of you will disagree, but I think that SAT is solidly determined by your IQ level and how innately intelligent you are.</p>
<p>Yes, Yes, Yes, settle down now, many of you reading this will throw at me "well, a good test taker doesn't mean your smart". But just think about. IQ levels , for most people, stay the same with a slight deviation throughout their whole lives. The SAT is a test that can't be "aced". If the test could be aced with one simple way, that is just by studying, the college board's testing service would shut down. They can't have over half the test takers scoring 700+ in all parts. </p>
<p>So the SAT has to be testing your IQ or intelligence level. although many will say that preparation will play a role and can boost your grade up, for a fact, i know it will help out your SAT score. But it won't go up "drastically" such as an improvement of 200 points in one section, if that was the case, then the average student out there who scored a 500 would have a score of 700 by just studying. Now this doesn't make much sense does it?</p>
<p>The SAT has a limiting factor, and that limiting factor can't be changed, which is your IQ level, which stays particularly stable and the same throughout your life.</p>
<p>Everyone with me now? I'm not trying to discourage anyone but I think this is the harsh fact everyone wants to cover up all time. Please try to persuade me to believe in something other than this because this is also giving me some sad and harsh times...</p>
<p>I see your point. But in the end, it IS all about studying. Not how innately genius you are. Granted, people with higher IQs are able to put forth less effort and achieve the same result. However. I believe that anyone with enough studying can get a high score. I’m not talking about just studying for the SAT. If someone has had an inadequate high school education, of course it would be much more difficult to do well on the SAT. But I do think that usually people who work harder in school score higher on the SAT. You can’t simply study your butt off for the SAT, without having worked super hard to learn your stuff in school and expect to do well. But I DO believe that anyone, under normal circumstances, can score well on the SAT, given that they also studied hard in school.</p>
<p>Sorry if this is rambly and hard to uderstand lol.</p>
<p>Possibly the two most annoying and pervasive CC cliches are the following:
“The SAT doesn’t test anything other than how well you take the SAT. You have to learn how to game the test. It’s all about identifying patterns. Trust me; I increased my score from 1750 to 1900.” and
“The SAT is all about IQ. Attempting to study for critical reading is a pointless endeavour, because you’re either good at it or you’re not. If you’re not smart you just can’t do well. Oh and btw, I got an 800. Do you want a shout-out when I accept my Nobel Peace Prize?”</p>
<p>In reality, neither of these extremes is the truth. While yes, people who are “innately smarter” will probably have a faster, more expeditious journey to SAT nirvana, someone who isn’t so smart could still ostensibly make the journey, even if it is less smooth. </p>
<p>While it does give me a serious justice-boner when I hear that the people who think they’re especially erudite for being in a math class that is 10 grade levels above curriculum can barely eke out a 1900, it’s probably moderately unjustified.</p>
<p>For me, the fine line for my success has probably largely been my love of thinking. It allows me to be enthusiastic towards the ups and downs of SAT preparation as I pursue the thought process that it entails.</p>
<p>For as long as there will be jackasses bragging about their math classes, their will be jackasses touting their SAT scores. In the end, both actually epitomize the idiocy that they shun so harshly.</p>
<p>And the sat is knowledge, knowledge is not IQ. Imagination is. think about. being able to comprehend something better and faster than makes your iq go up. knowing defintions of words does not test that, it tests knowledge, which, once again, is not an indication of a high IQ.</p>
<p>You also fail to mention that majority of the people who take the SAT take it once and frankly don’t care what they get… they only take it because they are forced to by the school/college. CC users care about the score and obviously retake. If the majority of the test takers were like CC users, everyone would be scoring 700+ and CB would shut down. There is no IQ, no intelligence. If you were only allowed to take the SAT once, and it somehow was designed so it couldn’t be studied for, then it would a completely different story.</p>
<p>“although many will say that preparation will play a role and can boost your grade up, for a fact, i know it will help out your SAT score. But it won’t go up “drastically” such as an improvement of 200 points in one section, if that was the case, then the average student out there who scored a 500 would have a score of 700 by just studying. Now this doesn’t make much sense does it?”</p>
<p>It’s absolutely possible for students to go up 200 points (or more) in a section. I see dozens of students do it every summer and winter. It takes a ton of very hard work, but it’s totally doable. I’ve seen 1400-2000, I’ve seen 1600-2200, and I’ve seen 1900-2400. Not everyone has what it takes to do that work, of course…</p>
<p>My D tutored someone whose SAT score on the math section then improved 200 points. My D made a 27 on the science section of the ACT the first time she took it, and a 36 the second time. I recognize that these are only two examples, but they show that studying can lead to drastic improvement.</p>
<p>My son had a PSAT Writing score of 45 in sophomore year. A year later he scored 76, an improvement of 300+ points. On the SAT Writing MC he scored 78. </p>
<p>In middle school he scored below 1200 on the SAT. By senior year above 2100.</p>
<p>^^ But that’s due to natural progression of age. Obviously as a child grows older, he/she is able to process more information more quickly and has greater mental capacity.</p>
<p>In my experience, the SAT is determined mostly by natural talent, but has a few factors that can sway the score very heavily.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Age. As mentioned above. My SAT jumped 210 points in 2 years without practice. As you get older, you can process more info.</p></li>
<li><p>Knowledge of the test. Every test is undoubtedy going to have its own quirks. Students should practice the test enough to know it well (about 5-10 times) but realize that additional practice, beyond this point, will not make much of a difference.</p></li>
<li><p>Knowledge of subject matter. I see this most in the Writing section, since our public schools have pitifully little formal grammar instruction.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Once you’re at the optimum age, and you know the subjects the test covers, and you’ve taken a couple practice tests to get the hang of the timing, etc., doing additional practice tests doesn’t help, in my opinion.</p>
<p>@dragooner.
“You also fail to mention that majority of the people who take the SAT take it once and frankly don’t care what they get… they only take it because they are forced to by the school/college. CC users care about the score and obviously retake. If the majority of the test takers were like CC users, everyone would be scoring 700+ and CB would shut down. There is no IQ, no intelligence. If you were only allowed to take the SAT once, and it somehow was designed so it couldn’t be studied for, then it would a completely different story.”</p>
<p>what you said is way off. CC users don’t always score over 700 and to give it to you all, most of you guys don’t and you know it. only a fraction of the community can score that well.</p>
<p>guys, I really agree with Nihilus. The SAT is basically testing your innate intelligence and how you are able to apply concepts that were not actively covered in school. The SAT doesn’t just throw at you, simple concepts, such as easy algebra. They usually give you some complex problem that includes a lot of playing around and using your logic (ability to rationally reason). </p>
<p>For those of you who say that the SAT doesn’t measure IQ, think of this. yeahyeahyeah. ofcourse. memorizing “vocab” will let you score higher on your SAT and that doesn’t require any IQ. But think of it. you have to be able to know how a word fits in a sentence and make it the most effective out of all the choices. So you need some sort of logic. If you know a college level vocab word such as, “idiosyncratic”, and you don’t know if that word makes the sentence most effective, then it will be useless.</p>
<p>SAME GOES FOR THE MATH SECTION. you may know pythagrean theorem, but you need to be able to know how to decipher an undrawn triangle in a rectangular prism or something like that. so that ALSO requires some good old rational thinking, or logic, i would say. AND THAT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, is IQ.</p>
<p>-.- so for all of you who keep rejecting this… you’re clearly not understanding what I’m trying to say. hope you get what I mean.</p>
<p>I got a 165 on my PSAT. In one year, without radically becoming a genius, I raised my SAT to a 2190. How is it an IQ test it in one year I gained 540 points? I didn’t become much more intelligent, I merely learned how to take the test.</p>
<p>Let me end the argument for you. You’re simply wrong, OP. </p>
<p>For one thing, you didn’t even comment on what I said, but more important is this:</p>
<p>In 2003 (before the writing portion was added to the test), a study showed SAT scores to have a .82 correlation with IQ. That was before analogies were omitted and the writing section was added. You can bet that the correlation is now even weaker being that the writing section is based on a standard set of grammatical rules and idioms.</p>
<p>Also, I might add, even that correlation doesn’t mean very much, since scores tend to rise very significantly with equally significant practice. If one studies for a month and raises their SAT score 200 points, does that mean their intelligence has just skyrocketed?</p>
<p>Anyhow, your premise is innately flawed because intelligence isn’t quantifiable and has no standard definition. It’s a common and complete fallacy that IQ measures intelligence. And then to try to say that because the SAT correlates slightly with something that correlates slightly with something that we might occasionally consider be deserving to be called intelligence, you have a weak argument.</p>
<p>What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. The funny part of it all is that you definitely haven’t actually looked at anyone’s IQ versus their SAT scores in order to tell that they correlate (not that such anecdotal evidence would matter anyways). Again, you’re drawing on some extremely tenuous tangential reasoning in order to say that what you discern to be natural intelligence in someone is equivalent to their IQ. You’re making a massive argument about IQ scores, when you haven’t looked at a single medically verified IQ score in your life.</p>
<p>Perhaps your own IQ is not as impressive as you think it is.</p>
<p>In my son’s grade there are 5 kids that scored in the National Merit level, all 5 of those kids were in the district gifted program and therefore had been tagged as a high IQ in very early elementary school. 3 of the 5 did absolutely no prep. So, I tend to agree. </p>
<p>I do think that you can increase your score by practicing, but I think it is crazy when I hear about kids going to 3 week courses that are all day long to “game the system”. If you have to work that hard, you are trying to get into schools that probably aren’t a good fit for you. But heck that’s just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>I’m “sure” it’s an IQ test because people are born knowing 6000 vocab words, all the rules of English grammar, and helpful math formulas. If you ask me, IQ helps slightly. Sure, a high IQ might help with when and how to apply a math formula, but it really is hard work and studying. How do you explain that kids in China get 2400 on SAT. They are NOT innately smarter than us. In fact, they would appear to have a disadvantage of not being in an English speaking country. The reason they do so well is due to their hard work and study habits. This “SAT is just an IQ test” is complete bull in my opinion.</p>