<p>To add: Many foreigners can feel very comfortable learning in English, but just uncomfortable to take an SAT in English Literature. You only need daily English to get around, SAT English tests however required very advanced English. Yet, foreigners have it harder because they are actually required to take an English based exam (The SAT critical reading and writing). At least your SAT language subject test is optional. Plus, When I say foreigners this can also include students who had to move to America in the middle of high school or middle school. My point is that your arguing against native speakers taking language exams, yet I find that native speakers have more right to complain at how they have to take difficult English exams.</p>
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<p>Granted. But what value does it have if the objective of testing is to show a student’s ability to perform well in college? In other words, what value does it have if the purpose of testing is to show a student’s academic aptitude?</p>
<p>You have to ask yourself why did you take the SAT II in a language, your answer to that question is that same reason why natives took it.</p>
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<p>I don’t think many internationals actually take SAT II in their native languages. It would look silly on them when they have to submit their TOEFL scores. I didn’t do it and neither did any of the internationals I personally knew.</p>
<p>So the “native” you are really referring to are those that have been here for a while and are PR or US citizens. So please don’t tell them not to apply to US colleges. You sound really bigoted that way. Now, as far as value goes, these students want to present the best credentials they possibly can and this is an easy one among all the things they have to do. That’s the <em>value</em> for them. You are free to think the non-natives are screwed in this single test and to focus on looking at this particular test in isolation. But keep in mind that these “natives” are also non-native English speakers. They are at an disadvantage when it comes to SAT I, US history…etc, which are viewed with far greater importance. Many of them are smarter (or have better ability to perform) than their SAT I scores suggest.</p>
<p>So, I ask, WHY would any of you who are native speakers of a language imagine that there’s any value whatsoever to be had from proving that, after living your whole lives either in China or with parents who speak Chinese, you actually speak the language? Does speaking your native language qualify you in some way to attend a university?</p>
<p>What makes you even think that the “native speakers” have spent their whole lives in China? I found people who have been in the United States since they were toddlers but obtain proficiency in the language and culture of their family to be very admirable and valuable. Many families even pay for outside tutoring and lessons just so that their kids learn the family’s native language.</p>
<p>I don’t see how “native speakers”, whether of Spanish or Chinese or any other language, cannot prove their knowledge with subject tests, just as native speakers can, and oftentimes do, take language courses on their native language. Whether or not the subject test is actually useful in the admission process depends on whether or not, based on their background, the admission officers can automatically assume proficiency with a language spoken at home. Once in college, subject tests can exempt a student from language requirements, qualify him or her to higher level courses, among many other benefits.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe so, actually. I would take a foreign language test to demonstrate my ability to learn and master a foreign language. Whatever else it might show, getting an “800” on a test of ones native language does not an ability to learn and master a foreign language.</p>
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<p>That’s good to hear! And, if that’s the case, then the problem I envisioned does not exist or exists on a much smaller scale than what I imagined. When I used the phrase “native speakers of Chinese,” I assumed that most such native speakers would, in fact, be residents of China and would have attended school in China. Being bilingual, as the result of having been raised in the US by Chinese-speaking parents, presents a different situation.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the kids who’ve worked for years to learn your language get screwed.Explain to me how this makes sense.</p>
<p>The true mark of having mastered a language is to speak it well enough among native speakers that you no longer stand out. With that said, adcoms are well aware of the demographics of students taking different subject tests –that’s the job they’re paid to do –and in holistic admission they adjust their evaluation after taking all factors into account. Students from immigrant families sometimes tag along a subject test in their native language as a way to show proficiency after taking other subjects to actually fulfill admission requirement.</p>
<p>Besides which, applicants ARE required to state what their native language is . . . as well as required to take the TEOFL if it’s not English!</p>
<p>Just because one is of a particular ethnic group does not mean that he or she speak the language of that ethnic group any better than the average person. Just because someone is Hispanic doesn’t mean I can assume Spanish is his native language. For many students of immigrant families, their native language is English because that is what they spoke first and speak best, but they still know the language of their parents well enough to warrant taking a subject test. I can technically count myself a native speaker of another language, but it would never occur to me to take the TOEFL as I know English just as well as the average person.</p>
<p>edit- cross-posted with dodgermom</p>
<p>Holy. A perfect AMC10…</p>
<p>I’m an American Born Chinese. While I spent my one-year-old life in China, I have since never remained in China for more than two months every other year. To maintain my skills in my “native” language, I studied in a Chinese school every Sunday after church until I graduated last year. From my observations in the classes, I have discovered that despite having parents that speak the language, many children with Chinese heritage cannot actually read or write in the language, and unfortunately some can only listen but cannot speak it. The SAT II requires both listening and reading comprehension. I don’t know if the fact that I took the SAT II Chinese warrants your frustration, but I must say that it proves for me my willingness to preserve my connection with my heritage. Furthermore, it proves that I care about both sides of my life, American and Chinese. My success on the SAT II most likely does not qualify me in some specific way to attend a university, but it shows at least that I can manage to keep both sides of myself alive. Besides, unless I were to major in Chinese, the language test actually is less important than most other SAT II tests. Colleges favor when students take subject tests related to their aspired major, and thus the Chinese SAT II for me would simply be auxiliary. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I should be guilty due to the advantage I had while taking the Biology M subject test (which I scored extremely well on) because both my parents have advanced degrees in biology. Does my natural familiarity with and regular immersion in biology qualify me in some way to attend a university? Is there any value in proving through the SAT II Biology M test, after listening and discussing biology all the time with my parents, taking so many advanced biology classes, and interning at laboratories, that I actually knew my stuff?</p>
<p>I see a huge difference between . . . </p>
<p>(1) being a native speaker of Mandarin who was raised and educated in China and </p>
<p>(2) being the child of parents who are native speakers of Mandarin.</p>
<p>For the former group, I’d agree with Sam Lee above that taking the Chinese subject test is rather “silly.” (And this is the group that I was focusing on when I started this thread.)</p>
<p>For the latter group, taking the SAT subject test could be significant in a number of ways - demonstrating not only an ability to learn the written form of a language that one might hear every day, but rarely see in writing, but also a commitment, as chewydog noted, to preserving ones culture.</p>
<p>For the kid for whom the Chinese subject test is a “no brainer” - because the student either lived and attended school for most of his/her life in China or grew up in a Chinese-American household where mastery of both the spoken and the written language was expected - I don’t see the point of taking the subject test. I expect that you speak the language you were raised with . . . what’s the point of proving it? If you want to place into advanced literature courses in college, you can always take a placement test later, although, for a native of China, would that even be required?</p>
<p>For the kid who’s spent much of his or her life in a country other than China, and who’s had to struggle to master the language, then mastery of the language is a significant accomplishment, and taking the subject test makes sense.</p>
<p>I had assumed that most of the students who identified themselves as native speakers, and who also took the subject test, fell into the former category. If I was mistaken, I apologize.</p>
<p>I also acknowledge that the two categories I’ve identified are not always so clearly delineated, especially for the children of native speakers who’ve grown up in the United States.</p>
<p>I am a Chinese mother, I grew up and got educated in China. But my child grew up and got educated in USA. You can define him as a Chinese native speaker. My question is: he has never learned any Chinese in his school setting and very little in his social setting. He is like every American child who speaks, reads, and writes English. I hope you understand how hard we have been working on Chinese at home. We can also argue that Chinese is his second language considering that he goes to school ( after school, summer camps) almost everyday including summer and winter since I am a working mother. We struggle in teach him oral Chinese and written Chinese. If he only gets the same credit as you on SAT English test, why he cannot get an extra credit on Chinese? I know how hard it is to learn a second language. I am a living example. I am fully bilingual. But please understand, it is not easy for so- called " native speakers" who have little access to their native tones.</p>
<p>Do those so-called native speakers got any extra credit on their SAT English test? If so, I would say that colleges should give them some credit on their performance on SAT subject test. Anyway, they master two languages.</p>
<p>Htxueditor - </p>
<p>I think I responded to this . . .
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<p>For your son, Chinese is a second language, so a high score on the subject test is a notable accomplishment. This is significantly different than a high score by a student who was raised and educated in China (and had Chinese as his or her first language both in school and at home).</p>
<p>There is no SAT II English test, by the way. There’s a literature test . . . but that tests knowledge of literature, which is quite different.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’ve talked to many admissions officers about native speakers taking language subject tests and they have all told me the same thing: “Their scores mean nothing to us.” Yes, a person born and raised in Beijing is allowed to submit a Mandarin SAT II. No, it doesn’t say anything about his/her ability. The SAT II is not designed for native speakers and therefore will not gauge their abilities as analysts, critical readers, etc. The SAT II is just a language proficiency test.</p>
<p>I took the Japanese SAT and bombed… Gotta take that again.</p>
<p>But Korean is the most heavily skewed. The average score is like a 790.</p>
<p>It was actually funny when I took the language test. In the room it was me and my friend (who’s black) taking Japanese, another white friend taking Chinese, and then 15 Chinese kids taking Chinese and a Korean girl taking Korean.</p>
<p>I’m Chinese, but Chinese was the third language I learned…</p>
<p>I think the argument is more like “The language tests should only be taken by those who are learning the language solely in a school environment.”</p>
<p>This thread is pointless and there’s no way that anyone can argue against a native speaker taking advantage of a test for their native language.</p>
<p>So I’m about to say something incredibly arrogant, but I think it’ll elucidate dodgersmom’s point. Here it goes: </p>
<p>I got a 800 on the Literature SAT II, and I find it sort of insulting that someone would equate my accomplishment to that of, say, a French citizen’s scoring perfect on the French SAT II. Do you guys realize that the College Board foreign language exams are at about a fourth grade literacy level? Frankly, a native speaker should be mortified if he/she doesn’t score perfect on a language proficiency exam. </p>
<p>The Literature SAT II tests not only comprehension but analytical and inferential skills. There are plenty of fluent English speakers who would do poorly on it. However, unless he makes bubbling errors, a person born and raised in Beijing could not possibly get lower than, say, a 780 on the Chinese SAT II. That is why it’s unfair.</p>
<p>I’m a Japanese, born in Japan but raised in Australia and my parents speak Japanese. Since I was 6, I attended Japanese Saturday schools every week to learn the language. Sure, you may be able to speak colloquial Japanese being at home but everybody needs to study hard to read and write. I know many Japanese kids who decided not to study Japanese, hence cannot read/write the complex characters or speak formally.
But I do understand your point. Maybe having a separate language subject test for the native speakers would solve the problem? This would enable them to really show that they’ve gone through the extra hardships of studying the language.</p>