IQ and Critical Reading

<p>Hello CC,</p>

<p>Based on what I've read on this site and what I've heard from classmates preparing for the SAT, it seems to me that an individual's critical reading score is closely related to his/her IQ score.</p>

<p>I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this or agrees with my observation? Hear me out on this one:</p>

<p>Writing section scores can be drastically improved with practice.
Math section scores can be significantly improved with practice.
Reading section scores can only be slightly improved, or hardly improved with practice.
IQ test scores can only be slightly improved, or hardly improved with practice.</p>

<p>An example: Student A has been doing test prep since his sophomore year. His math and writing scores have gone up 100 points, his reading score has gone up 20 points.
Doesn't this seem like an all too familiar scenario?</p>

<p>Does anyone else feel this way? Look at any number of threads and there will be countless cases of people who may not be naturally smart but have studied enough to get 800's in math and writing. These same people will only have improved their reading score 20 or 30 points! Coincidence? I think not.</p>

<p>I would even go so far as to say the critical reading score functions as a barrier to discourage more asian students from scoring higher. They may work harder, but because they are not naturally intelligent their critical reading scores will prevent them from attending the top schools in higher numbers.</p>

<p>Perhaps I'm crazy, perhaps I've offended people, but perhaps I'm right.</p>

<p>I honestly believe the reading section is racist, and fosters unfair quotas and restrictions on highly qualified asian applicants at top universities.</p>

<p>While I do not agree that the CR section is racist, I believe that it is biased.</p>

<p>I do believe that reading skills can be improved with practice, it is just that there isn’t a proper method out there that can help yield those results.</p>

<p>No. The SAT doesnt measure anything but speed & luck. Critical reading section is mainly good guessing, as is the SAT as a whole.</p>

<p>I disagree that CR predicts intelligence. It tests your ability to critically analyze and understand passages, thus giving an advantage to people who read a lot, not people who are more intelligent. </p>

<p>CR was always easy for me because I was a very avid reader. This means that I was basically ‘practicing’ CR for years and years (reading also builds up your vocabulary tremendously). It is probably harder to ‘learn’ CR than math or writing on relatively short notice, which is why it seems difficult to improve when studying for the SAT.</p>

<p>CR is by FAR my best section(800 on it compared to 700 on math), and I haven’t read avidly since I was around eleven years old. I’m not sure what it truly “measures” other than the ability to understand a passage. I also don’t think that the only way to be good at it is to read a lot, some people will just naturally be better at it than others.
Overall, I think the SAT is a terrible way to measure one’s abilities, as it is somewhat based on luck</p>

<p>If this is true about SAT CR section and IQ, I would be very offended. I mean I don’t think I have a low IQ but my SAT CR score is pretty low. Maybe because I wasn’t adapted to English that well from childhood to now. I only improved by most 70 points in a year for CR.</p>

<p>@ lime</p>

<p>Well if you don’t speak or understand English well, I wouldn’t necessarily say you have a low IQ because you have a low CR score.</p>

<p>The general pattern seems to be high IQ scores = high critical reading scores. Low IQ scores = low critical reading scores/no major score improvements.</p>

<p>Now sure a tryhard could study huge lists of words and bump up their score a decent amount, but most people who score in the 800’s don’t do this. </p>

<p>The countless number of threads with overachievers going through 2-3 different practice books for cr, memorizing huge lists of words, and trying out various strategies to get around their lack of comprehension seem to suggest that the correlation between critical reading scores and IQ scores is fairly high.</p>

<p>Again, I feel it is a glass ceiling used by the collegeboard to limit certain ethnicities in the admissions process. They’re favoring those with higher IQs to those who work harder. Seems unfair.</p>

<p>You’re wrong, OP. I have taken IQ tests and my CR score is furthest from my IQ. Interpreting CR passages in the bizarre way that College Board does under time constraints and having a top notch vocabulary says little to nothing about my intelligence. I think that the math section is a much better indicator.</p>

<p>I also recall reading about a company in China that is testing people with top IQs. They are recruiting math and physics PhDs (not English) to be tested. They are also recruiting students with 800s on the SAT math section (not critical reading). I can’t remember what it’s called right now, but I’ll try to find it.</p>

<p>I have a high IQ (a little less than 140) but I’m still struggling in CR, so your statement definitely has exception. Maybe it’s because English is not my mother tongue (but I’ve told that I have a great analyzing ability and mind from my teachers at boarding school), maybe it’s lack of practice… I don’t know. I don’t know the truth, but I really hope people do not use this to make an assumption of other people. But I really do think, it’s more about strategy once you hit certain point. If you get unusually low score, then it primarily means you haven’t read good books to enhance your reading ability, or your range of vocab is rather limited, rather than your IQ is low. My bro’s IQ is 147, and that’s what he got from the legit test when he was 7. Still he had to practice to get better score in CR. I really think it’s all about practice. Well, I guess IQ may affect a little bit, but most of it is about practice. I don’t know what your cases were, but I saw many kids who raised CR score from the mediocre (500, 600) to the top (750 or more) just by practice.</p>

<p>With your logic, OP, all of the school and college matters (i.e. education) should be unfair, because people with higher IQ are faster understanding. They might be excel and study further and further, when people with low IQ are stagnant in the course of study. But nobody says education itself is unfair, because effort actually takes the most part to be a successful student. I think if somebody says “CR is unfair because my IQ is low,” it’s just a pure excuse of their laziness. If you tried hard already, try harder. Why not?</p>

<p>And your experimental group is way too small to make such generalization. From your students? From CC members? Come on, aren’t you better than that? Why don’t you start the study with at least 5000 students and then post something like this in public? Is it due to my high IQ that I understand that you need a bigger experimental group? Haha</p>

<p>OP has a low math score and a high CR score. I can tell because he’s lacking in logic.</p>

<p>The harsh reality is that writing and math have a purpose, but critical reading is the most utterly useless section on the SAT. You won’t get reading comprehension tests in college, and you will rarely be tested on vocabulary. Btw, my CR score isn’t bad (around 95th percentile), just lower than my writing and math scores.</p>

<p>Actually, I do speak English pretty well. I was born here but my parents weren’t and so learning or adapting to English at home is a struggle. My parents know nothing about helping me in this college process and SATs etc.</p>

<p>This thread is a complete ■■■■■ job, as evidenced by completely unsubstantiated and deliberately provocative claims such as these:</p>

<p>“The general pattern seems to be high IQ scores = high critical reading scores. Low IQ scores = low critical reading scores/no major score improvements.”</p>

<p>Really? Studies? Statistics? Any evidence at all?</p>

<p>“I would even go so far as to say the critical reading score functions as a barrier to discourage more asian students from scoring higher. They may work harder, but because they are not naturally intelligent their critical reading scores will prevent them from attending the top schools in higher numbers.”</p>

<p>Asians are “not naturally intelligent”? They have low IQs? Source? Anything?</p>

<p>And OP, statistically from four to six Asian countries (Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, Singapore, China) top in average IQs, whatever source you are coming from. I don’t think I can link external website here, but you can simply google it. I saw one from one of the major newspaper online, but there are so many more sources saying the same thing. So what you said is just plainly wrong, sorry. Since you value IQ SO much, I guess you will have to look up your Asian fellows from now on, haha.
I think Asian students might have low CR, because many of them are immigrants or kids of immigrants (so they hadn’t learned English until age 5, or use their parents’ language at home as a child). If we get into whose IQ is higher, I can go on and on. </p>

<p>IQ doesn’t tell everything, really. I don’t care if Asians or other races have higher IQs or not. It doesn’t tell you anything much in real life. I don’t know the purpose of your thread, and you mentioning the false information that Asians’ IQ are low.</p>

<p>I know people who are clearly more intelligent than myself who received lower CR scores. I simply read complex “dense” works rather often and have done so for a while, hence reading, and reading comprehension comes quickly and easily to me. Someone who has slugged out difficult math problems for years will likewise be better at math. I think it appears like it is harder to improve on CR is because one would have to read lots of difficult works, which takes hundreds of times longer than an “equivalent” amount of math problems.</p>

<p>I think the writing section is easy to improve because it is a flawed section I.E. it can be gamed easily.</p>

<p>This has little to do with IQ, which I think is a system that people put far too much credence in.</p>

<p>MENSA itself no longer accepts SAT scores to supplant IQ scores for entrance into their society, if that means anything.</p>

<p>@ Orion</p>

<p>I brought my math to a 780 on the march test, so no I don’t have a low math score. I did start with one, but after some studying it skyrocketed.</p>

<p>@ Thread</p>

<p>You expect studies? I’m 17. I’d love to make a study on the subject, but I don’t have the resources or credentials to do so.</p>

<p>I’m simply trying to find out if other people have observed the same general trends that I have picked up on. It’s not a scientific fact. It’s not a scientific report. It’s my observation, and the observations of people I go to school with.</p>

<p>Edit: I realize that some of my posts may have been inflammatory, but this was unintentional. </p>

<p>Also @ humanities: The Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQs for a group of people followed by the Germans.</p>

<p>OP is just a kid. </p>

<p>Asian countries have the highest IQ scores:</p>

<p>[Countries</a> with the Highest / Lowest Average IQ | Statistic Brain](<a href=“http://www.statisticbrain.com/countries-with-the-highest-lowest-average-iq/]Countries”>Countries Ranked by Average IQ - Statistic Brain)</p>

<p>Lol, my math sat score raised from 570 to 680 (according to SAT practice test #1) whereas my CR score went from 560 to 580. I’m only in 8th grade, so I’m not too sure of my opinion yet, but it seems to me that a good CR score is made up of 30% natural intelligence and 70% hard work. I haven’t been exposed to a lot of “real literature,” so my CR score is naturally lower, but I’ve found that I’ve been improving with every practice test.</p>

<p>"@ Thread</p>

<p>You expect studies? I’m 17. I’d love to make a study on the subject, but I don’t have the resources or credentials to do so."</p>

<p>If you can’t cite any studies–or indeed, any evidence at all–they what business do you have making claims like this:</p>

<p>“The general pattern seems to be high IQ scores = high critical reading scores. Low IQ scores = low critical reading scores/no major score improvements.”</p>

<p>You’re just making stuff up. Seventeen is old enough to know not to go around posting unsubstantiated (and, as others have already pointed out, entirely wrongheaded) theories of racial superiority.</p>

<p>@ Orion</p>

<p>And you’re how old? I’d hope you’re a “kid” as well posting on a site like this. I’m glad you resorted to name calling though, real mature.</p>

<p>@ Thread</p>

<p>I don’t understand why people are so angry? I’m not acting my observation is 100% accurate, and I’ve stated multiple times that I’m simply sharing my observations and those of my classmates. </p>

<p>“theories of racial superiority”</p>

<p>Hah! If you’re going to deny that different ethnicities have different IQ scores, you’re going to be denying scientific facts. Spare me the political correctness.</p>

<p>“I haven’t been exposed to a lot of “real literature,” so my CR score is naturally lower”</p>

<p>My brother didn’t read as a child and he used sparknotes instead of reading the book for most of his English tests. He got an 800 CR. His IQ is also 156 Reading “real literature” doesn’t help your score at all.</p>

<p>Btw: Both my parents are Japanese, and I will still admit that Jews have higher IQs overall than us. </p>

<p>Keep it civil, sorry if I’m unintentionally knocking down people’s egos a notch or two.</p>