How was today’s SSAT (December 9) and what were the areas of difficulties?
Verbal was surprisingly easy, reading was not bad, though, some questions were a bit difficult, math was of average difficulty for the SSAT, nothing impossible. The December SSAT had to be the easiest SSAT I’ve taken to be completely truthful.
We’ve heard the December test was MUCH easier than the October or November editions. Is it common for tests to vary in the degree of difficulty? Do the SSAT folks do anything to take that into account when scoring? @SatchelSF , do you know?
@CaliMex - They must vary in difficulty because in the norming process obviously different raw scores can map to the same scaled score depending on test administration. But I don’t have any personal experience with multiple SSAT score reports for the same kid, other than hearing the same thing everyone does from kids that one seemed harder than another.
Test writers obviously strive for consistency, but who knows if there is any “scale drift” based on systematic differences in test groups? (For instance, are test takers in December less proficient as a group because presumably the “best” kids are “one and done”? What about procrastinators - do the geniuses like to leave everything to the last minute in December or January - I bet you’ve all heard that from your teenager many times.)
Good question. This looks like some promising research to think about the problem, from ETS:
I’m confused. Does an easier December test give those test takers an advantage score-wise or not?
Just hypothesizing here, but it shouldn’t mean generally higher scores. What should happen is that the scaled scores are shifted to account for evidence that the test was easier. The scaled scores then map to their typical percentile.
I imagine professional testing companies know their business pretty well on this.
From our limited experience and hearing conversations of other students about the SSAT, it seems as though there is great variability between tests and within tests. Some Reading subtests seem to have longer passages than other versions of the test and highly variable content. I’m getting a sense that the Math can be variable, but less so than Reading difficulty or content. Math generally straightforward while the Reading seems to be tricky. No consistency of SSAT Reading content IMHO with what the students have to read for their Common Core curriculum at school. I think the test creators for Reading are just out of touch with what students are actually reading through lower school and middle school. A MS teacher we know in NY says that her students have told her that they earn highly variable scores between tests - one month they may get a 87 on Reading, but then take it again and get a 33% on Reading. The teacher says the Math scores of her students are reported to her as being more consistent. MY kiddo says she would love to give us a vocab test based on Instagram, Snap, and other forms of social media to see how badly parents and teachers would perform. I think the vocab and reading sections of the SSAT should be reviewed. Math was reported as pretty easy by the students in the carpool in October. However, Kiddo had not done parabolas in a while - so it knowing your “latus rectum” on a particular test day may be a “crap shoot”. :))
@Golfgr8 : Has your girl taken more than one test? Was her Math score highest in October?
Trying to figure out if score variability is due to test date or outside factors (sleep, focus, etc)
From kiddo and her friends’ reports, the October Math & December Math felt pretty straightforward. I can only tell you about those tests per kiddo - but I am hearing from other people on CC and parents that there is variability reported from the kids who took both the Oct & Nov tests. Not sure if the kids liked taking it a month a part, or not. So that may be a factor. I know there were complaints that the test center didn’t have a clock on the wall. A lot of kids had tournaments and district finals in November. Due to sports obligations throughout Fall (even on Flex dates) a number of kids we know are taking it in January O:-)
Having looked at the SSAT pretty closely, at least the sorts of practice prep stuff that’s floating around for free on the web and the commercial prep books, I think the SSAT is a fairly inconsistent sort of test. The PSAT/SAT clearly has a great deal more consistency and predictability. I’m sure that is because the SSAT has a relatively small group who take it, and so it neither has the resources nor the available descriptive statistics to ensure consistency at, say, the PSAT/SAT level.
Bottom line, differences in test difficulty should be accounted for by the scale conversion so that scaled scores should be comparable, but given the small sample size (only approx. 60K tests administered per year, so far as I can tell) and obvious variability among the different test administrations, I’m sure it’s a bit “hit or miss.” Some people might be pleasantly surprised! It’s actually a good argument for using a more widely available test. Perhaps if the PSAT 8/9 catches on, that would be a better test for private schools to use (larger sample sizes so more consistency). Simply using the regular PSAT 11 also could make sense for the more selective schools, even at the entering 9th grade level. It would certainly make test prep easier!
@CaliMex My son took the SSAT twice: October and November. Change from first to second: verbal dropped a little, reading increased a little, quant went significantly up. The quant score is more a byproduct of working on the actual SSAT practice tests I think.
We are hearing the December test was much easier than either October or November… just wondering if that matters
I took the December 9 SSAT and with only studying the week before about an hour each day, and only the vocab. I never practiced reading or math which was a mistake. I was really intimidated when I took it because I’m not really a genius or anything, and everyone else at the testing center seemed confident. Not only that, but I had terrible time-management and kept checking my math answers, leaving me not enough time for the last two math questions. When I was halfway through the reading everyone else had their packets closed and just looking at me. We had no clock in the room and only got a 5-minute warning so it was hard to gauge the time. So I had to rush the questions. I was stressed and freaking out and they looked like they were bored by how easy it was. Basically, I was intimidated by the small room with no timer and the other kids finishing almost twice as fast as me. I was certain I pretty much failed it as I watched them drive away in Teslas and Range Rovers and I got in my mom’s 1997 Honda Civic. But I got the score back today and am in the 95 percentile! very happy with my score, but was a total surprise.
and, of course, verbal was my highest score
@SatchelSF @Golfgr8 I was reading another thread about the December 2017 SSAT. Student posted this:
“I just got my SSAT scores back. They are in the 85%ile. With my score, are my current schools all reach schools? The Emma Willard interviewer said their average is 2100 and I got a 2199.”
As a point of comparison, my son’s total scaled score was 2193 for the November 2017 test. But his percentile was 89%. To summarize:
- Nov 2017: 2193 89%
- Dec 2017: 2199 85%
That would be consistent with (i) December test being easier; (ii) SSAT not mapping raw scores to scaled scores to make them the same percentile from test to test.
All this talk about the December test being easier makes me regret not taking it (I paid for it, but I was satisfied with my Nov test so I didn’t bother to show up 
)
I was surprised to see the score turned around so quickly - because of snow on 12/9, my son took it on 12/16, and we had results today.
This is going to sound really dumb, but how is it that his total percentile is higher than the sub-scores? We’re very relieved, as we knew he would only have one shot (we were granted a fee waiver), and the scores were fairly consistent with what we were expecting (99T, 98V, 94Q, 97R), but as he said to me, “How do you get a 99 overall with a 98, 94 and 97…?” And is the 94 going to be a problem? I remember one post that stated something to the effect of, “Anything over 96 is the same” - does that mean that 94 will stick out?
Because most kids don’t do well across all three?
@CaliMex is right. It’s not unusual for a kid to knock if out of the park in one section (i.e., foreign student who kills the math but isn’t a native speaker in English ), but doing well in all parts is less common.
Not in the slightest. Excellent scores about which you should spend no time worrying!