SAT Accuracy?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

Hi everyone,

This post isn’t a question; it’s an outreach.

Unfortunately, I have some bad news. whispers The SAT isn’t accurate.

The SAT was designed to predict the success of any given student in a college or university. Please refer to the lists below that accurately depicts what the SAT truly does do, despite its intended purpose.

The SAT DOES:
1.) bring copious amounts of stress on innocent students
2.) take time away from a student’s studies (which should be more important than an SAT)
3.) require unnecessary effort

The SAT does NOT:
1.) predict the success of any given student in a college or university

Every year, students that have perfect or near perfect grade point averages, even while enrolled in advanced placement and/or honors classes, perform poorly on the SAT. Please refer to the brief Q&A below.

Q: Is the poor performance on the SAT the fault of the student?

A: No.

If the designers of the SAT genuinely desired to predict the success of a student in a college or university, then they SHOULD have made the questions on the SAT reasonable. There should not be so many “trick answers” or “tips to avoid trick answers”.

Let’s be real, here. If you’ve taken the SAT, then surely have stumbled upon that one critical reading question that really stumped you. Perhaps it was passage based, and you’ve narrowed the possible answers down to only two options; however, both options seem right. Now, is this hypothetical reading question truly defining the value of your intelligence or education or ability to succeed? Heck, no! All this question is doing is making you stress over a stupid test that doesn’t do its job.

I think I speak for many people when I say that I wish the SAT just didn’t exist. Unfortunately, we may just be stuck with this test’s existence for many more years, so if you get a bad score, don’t beat yourself up. It probably isn’t you; it’s the SAT.

Noah Krieg

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Not sure if this is true - a few sources I’ve read say its main purpose is to determine a student’s readiness for college.

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@MITer94 I understand that some sources state that the purpose of the SAT is to determine a student’s readiness for college, and if that is the case, then the SAT is still failing at its job.

4

Good or bad, the SAT is what it is. Perhaps you should go join Schaeffer’s camp of anti-testing, anti-Asian fanatics at Fair Test and co-author articles about how standardized testing creates a pipeline to prison for impoverished black teens or write a blog on the Washington Post with Valerie about ongoing cheating conspiracies in Asia that all stem from our obsession with high-stakes testing, beginning with the Common Core bureaucracy in America.

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If your post is an outreach, the definition of outreach ought to be “a rambling post that demonstrates how little the author knows about the SAT, its objective, its contents, and its value!”

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@xiggi the SAT doesn’t demonstrate how well a student has performed academically, is performing academically, or will perform academically. In addition, the only reason the SAT has a value is because of the hype it is given.

This post was definitely criticizing, but it was also meant to be taken lightheartedly.

@AlfredoKim You’re right. The SAT is what it is, which is very disappointing because of its inaccuracy.

7

So what was your score?

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@Yakisoba I like that you imply that I made this entire post because I was upset about my score. (Don’t worry, I’d probably do the same thing)

I got an 1810 and I’m happy with it. :slight_smile: