<p>If receiving a higher score on the SAT/ACT is only achieved primarily by studying for it weeks/months in advance, then is it really an accurate assesment of a students' accumulated knowledge? </p>
<p>*** Vocabulary is a prime example***</p>
<p>…definitely not. but vocabulary maybe, cuz the vocab words on the SATs are pretty basic ones. you can do well in math without truly understanding all of it, which is just … useless. and you can pass the reading section just by memorizing a bunch of stupid tricks.</p>
<p>it’s supposed to be an aptitude test, not a test of knowledge.</p>
<p>Aptitude, not knowledge. I stand corrected. So, aptitude is innate, not acquired over a period of a few months?</p>
<p>The SAT tests one thing and one thing only…how well you take the SAT.</p>
<p>Pfffffft. Companies specializing in SAT Prep would not make so much money if students’ scores didn’t go up. You can blame it on the paranoia of today’s high-stress and pressure society if you want, but if their product didn’t actually RAISE your score at all, then no one would buy it. So no, it’s not a test for general knowledge, and it’s not a test for aptitude.</p>
<p>The SAT is a measure of how well you are at test taking, with a small amount of high school knowledge mixed in.</p>
<p>Did you ever take it in 7th grade and score extremely well? At one point it must measure something. Maybe it is talent (SET-Search for Exceptional Talent at Johns Hopkins follows up on students that scored 700 or higher in math/verbal before age 13 usually w/o prep).</p>
<p>It’s 8th grade math with some vocab words and a 5 paragraph essay.</p>
<p>There is no skill (other than test-taking skill) that it contains that any high school student hasn’t learned at some point.</p>
<p>It tests one’s ability to apply basic concepts to unfamilliar situations. It’s a test of problem solving skills rather than knowledge accumulation.</p>
<p>In a conditional with a false premise, the conclusion may or may not be true. An example is aashad’s statement:
“receiving a higher score on the SAT/ACT is only achieved primarily by studying for it weeks/months in advance”</p>
<p>Since that is NOT the only way to achieve a higher score, discussion of the conclusion is trivial.</p>
<p>In order to do well you must have: focus, some intelligence, good understanding of basic math, large vocabulary, and the ability to write a good essay. Some of these can be studied for…but some cannot.</p>
<p>i just learned this in ap psych! the SAT is not a measure of what a student has learned. it does not assess current competence. it is a aptitude tests which means it is designed to predict learning ability. basically the SAT measures your how well you’ll do in college.</p>
<p>I think it’s a test of pattern recognition ability for many of the questions (in CR and Writing, especially).</p>
<p>But you really have to think about this question long and hard. Yes, many students do take time out to study for the SAT? ACT ( which probably defects the purpose), but this shows that they have enough sense to study in order to achieve a goal( implying a high score). So this same practice must likely will carry over in to college, which is why i agree with xconn829, that the SAT measures how well you will do in college.</p>
<p>xConn829 and innocentaku are on the right track. What the SAT actually measures can be argued. What is does do is reliably predict potential academic success in college. Colleges keep track of how students do at their own college vs. their SAT scores, which is the data they use to interpret applicant SAT scores.</p>