<p>I read the article (I'd heard about the arguments made within before) and I've discovered something that I'm surely not the first to see. The argument made by the SAT-is-biased people is that minority students score better on the hard questions than whites, while whites score better on the easier questions. Your first response to this is confusion. If minority students score worse overall, why are they getting the HARD ones right more often than the people who are out performing them overall? It must be that they're smarter deep down. But wait. Getting easy questions wrong is bad. If you're better at English, shouldn't the easy ones be easier than the hard ones? It must be a fluke, dumb luck. But the statistics do show it as a definite trend occurring over and over, and I won't try to dispute that. So why the paradox? The argument is that the nature of the questions is inherently biased. The easy questions use more common language, which is more open to interpretation and therefore confusion, while the harder questions use more esoteric language, the meaning of which is clear-cut; you know it or you don't. For some reason the article can't explain, the minority students are worse at the more ambiguous questions and better at the less ambiguous ones. And up the critics jump, saying that the ETS and colleges nation-wide are playing with a racially stacked deck.</p>
<p>But wouldn't the more ambiguous questions, the more common use questions, be more important in everyday usage and in predicting educational success. The hard verbal questions test more esoteric knowledge, essentially how well you studied your SAT word list. That knowledge probably won't help you much in everyday situations, especially if you struggle with the basics. So really, saying that common-use vocabulary questions are racially weighted and should therefore be removed from certain scores is tantamount to saying that minorities are, as a whole, worse at English than whites. But this is the very statistic that they're trying to get away from. The conclusion that's hard to ignore is that minority students might just be less academically successful on average that whites and that torturing the statistics into saying otherwise won't change that fact. A much more important variable than race would probably be socio-economic status, one that would probably show a similar, if not better correlation to the above discrepancies in scores on various questions. Rather than being outraged at the test for being "biased", maybe there should be some outrage about the fact that minorities are less socio-economically advataged than whites. But that's a whole 'nother ball 'o' wax.</p>
<p>In the end, it all comes down to one question which these test critics are afraid to address. Does the color of your skin affect your knowledge of English and its idiosyncracies? How about math? If I was born black, no matter where or how I live, would I be at a disadvantage in school and when I apply to college? If you compare minority and white students within the same socio-economic status, would you expect something about one student's whiteness or blackness to correspond to significantly different ability? So far this kind of matched pair analysis hasn't been done. All that's been compared is all whites versus all blacks.</p>
<p>Maybe some blacks tend do to do worse on verbal because some grow up in "ghettos" replete with "ebonics". The improper use of english in your surroundings is certainly going to impair your verbal ability as compared to living around say a group of Oxford professors.I am going to get flamed for this, but its just what comes to mind.</p>
<p>California1600:
" Its funny why the Republicans don't consider Florida e-voting patterns a statistical anomaly, but they consider Black performance on SAT emotive logic questions as anomalies."</p>
<p>That's crap and you know it. Not all Republicans believe that.</p>
<p>yes, u will, because its a stupid position to take. what this all boils down to is that the elites in academia don't like the fact that whites outperform blacks so they're doing everything in their power to inflate the scores of blacks and lower the scores of whites. That's the whole solution reached in that paper. If a person grows up in a ghetto speaking ebonics and being bad at standard English, shouldn't he get a lower grade? Well, since the assumption is that our mystery person is black, no, he shouldn't get a lower grade. It's not HIS fault he never took the time to learn how to speak English, it's the SAT's fault for being racist. What it boils down to is that it's okay to be worse than everyone else if you're a minority, you are inherently less capable than the rest and cannot be expected to perform at the same level and meet the same standards. It's condescending at best, racist at worst.</p>
<p>oh, and california1600, i didn't see anything in that article about "emotive logic questions" being removed for being too easy for minority students. i did a few well thought out google searches and couldn't find anything involving emotive logic questions and the SAT. oh, and why do you have 1600 in your username. Of all numbers, why that? It wouldn't happen to be your idolization of a perfect score on a racist, bigoted test run by Republicans with an agenda would it? Nooooo....</p>
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<p>Of all numbers, why that? It wouldn't happen to be your idolization of a perfect score on a racist, bigoted test run by Republicans with an agenda would it? Nooooo....>>>></p>
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<p>Actually, my score in the 1994 SAT would be higher than a 1600 today. Back then a 1490 is the equivalent of a 1600 today. I scored above 1490. </p>
<p>My goal is to Firstly help the state of California, and help underpriveledged minorities such as Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans within the state of California. I think affirmative action should not have been lifted at the UC's. In the short run, it discourages too many Blacks/Mexicans/Native Americans from seriously considering higher learning. Also, to implement government loans to underpriveledged minorities at a zero interest rate strictly for starting up businesses for those that scored above a 3.6 GPA at non UC schools, and 3.0 at UC schools. Research shows that Northern Irish being discriminated against mentally do poorer on IQ tests than rest of Irish, even though they are of the same genetic stock. </p>
<p>Secondly, make the US universities competitive enough in an academically legitimate way to hold on to dominance of the world universities for the next 40 years at least.</p>
<p>This S H I T is F U C K I N G R E T A R D E D!!! How could they give you a job on the basis of a measly test that is now becoming the test which decides our future in this world? What type of bull s h i t is this? Omg. i swear this reallyyyyyyyyy ****es me off to see whats going on.</p>
<p>Some companies mistakenly think that the SATs measure potential and intelligence. For some people this is true, but it's really discriminatory against those who just don't perform well on multiple choice tests.</p>
<p>SATs shouldn't really matter after high school, unless your employer wants to know your scores, then you just give the scores and are done with them.</p>
<p>Our teacher left and a Grad is subbing for us. One class period, he asked my friend and I (who were studying together) if we took our SATs. "Yes" Then he asks, "What'd you get?" Assuming that he'd drop the topic, I said "We did well" and went back to work. But he asked twice more, "What'd you get? Why can't you tell? I'll tell you mine! I got a 1560." A 1560 is a good score, so I congratulated him, but he still asked and I still didn't want to say...then another friend butted in and answered for me and the Grad seemed to deflate and told me good job. </p>
<p>He's a nice guy, but from his interrogation, I got the feeling that even years after high school, he still asks people about their SAT scores so that he can show off his admirable score, and certainly not balking at asking high school students... really why do we need to know them after high school? The real world is harder than filling in blanks with the best word or calculating where two trains travelling at different speeds will meet up.</p>
<p>I'm glad that the addition of the writing section to the New SAT will cause people to be less familiar with a "good" score for at least a couple years.</p>
<p>i think it's amazing that the college board has been able to run a virtual monopoly on something as important as college testing, especially when these tests have built in flaws.</p>
<p>on that note i have a question about my own scores. since i will not be applying for financial aid and i live in a fairly affluent region, will college's look at my scores, assume i am little rich girl who got my parents to spend thousands on sat prep courses, and then use that to deflate the value of my already mediocre scores?</p>
<p>chatterjoy: i think that's really funny about your sub...he obviously has major insecurity issues that he feels the need to brag about his scores to high school kids. so much for sats being an indicator of intelligence and future success...</p>
<p>listen all you people who are taking the SAT now...
"SAT Scores stays with you for life"?
Maybe California1600 simply meant that it will reappear on your work resume for 1% of the jobs, but don't go crazy if you do badly on it. I'm not saying totally ignore it and expect to cruise down "easy street" for the rest of your life.
However, there's simply more to life than a few scores, and even if you get a 1600 that does not mean automatic sucess just as a 210 does not mean automatic faliure.
There's probably people who gone to Cornell, Princeton, Stanford who still can't find a job! There's probably people who gone to SUNY's (my doctor went there), and other state colleges that are getting paid way more than some P.H.D.'s at an Ivy League school. There may even be people who dropped out of highschool, enrolled in a local community college, and managed to get a decent job and make a good living.
Listen, the world does not revolve around a few scores, and I understand I may be hypocritical at times by saying this... being a Chinese-American who also wants to please his parents. But sometimes we all need to prioritize our lives, and make the top a more worthwhile one than simply your SAT's.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, all of the minorities with lower verbal scores can be explained somewhat by the lack of english use or at least proper english use in their respective neighborhoods. When you walk around in mexican parts of LA, no one is bending over backwards to speak english. With asians from what i see, english speaking is far more common. The asians i see, (I live near UCLA) are either speaking their native language or fluent unaccented english. There are kids in my class who are born here yet speak english with a (persian) accent. Thats pretty sad. In my class, there is a kid who was born in Iran and moved at 5 or 6 and has no accent, while 2 or more kids whos parents were born in iran but not themselves speak with an accent, all because of the school and people they hung out with, and dont do well in english.</p>
<p>basically: the more exposure to proper english, more likely to read>more likely to do well in verbal.</p>
<p>math scores are a whole other topic. The explanations for the low math scores also apply to the low verbal scores. Those could be explained by lack of prep, motivation, confidence, actual caring about the test (it may be that minorities are more likely to take it with no intention of going to college and thus not caring and not studying).</p>
<p>too be honest with u some companies can care less about the college you went let alone your sat score... i kno mannnnnnnnnnny people who work for prestigious law/financial firms and they were never asked their sat scores. Most of the time the college only matters for your first job...most important i would have to say is the grad school you go to. A state education with a Harvard MBA is going to be more impressive than just a yale bachelor's or something.</p>
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<p>too be honest with u some companies can care less about the college you went let alone your sat score... i kno mannnnnnnnnnny people who work for prestigious law/financial firms and they were never asked their sat scores.>>>>>>></p>
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<p>Prestiguous law firms yes. Prestigious Financial Firms NO.</p>
<p>Perhaps your friends were stockbrokers working for a financial firm.</p>
<p>The difference herein lies with those who work in Research, Corporate Finance, M&A, LBO, Venture Capital. Sure, the stockbrokers won't ask for SAT, but the other finance types will.</p>
<p>Also, management consulting and general consulting all ask for SAT as well. However, some tax consultant firms will not ask for SAT.</p>
<p>my brother actually worked for a prominent financial firm where he was a portfolio manager...and he was never asked this sort of thing. I am not trying to say that you are wrong, but I have heard many instances that aside for listing your scores for college, you will rarely ever need to list them or give them for work. My brother goes to MIT Sloan and he showed me this thick book of resumes and in not one resume did i see an sat score given...my parents who work for citigroup also have a similar resume book and again same thing.</p>
<p>The point I am trying to make is one bad sat score is not going to ruin your future; there are people who barely pass out of medical schools and still become successful doctors...do you think a bad sat score can hinder your success? It really is up to the person...if you're a go getter, hardworking, and ambitious no bad sat score can halt your success. To be honest I noticed the one thing preventing people from doing well is proving how they got that sat score because frankly i know a lot of people with high sat scores who can't even formulate a coherent sentence, or talk about anything remotely intelligent...sometimes makes me wonder if people with high sats aren't just people trained for those tests rather than people who haven any sort of reasoning abilities.</p>