“Scores on the reading section were the worst in decades.” …
Cause and effect?
I’d also like to see what changes are statistically significant. For instance the axis on the Writing scores looks like a good slope for skiing but if you remove the first year of scoring, the scores have gone down <10 points over 9 years.
College Board is terrible take the ACT
Interesting given that the PSAT cut offs for National Merit for most states went up, some to all time highs.
^ I guess that means next year’s SAT scores will also go up.
@Watang Agreed. People should stop wasting time on CollegeBoard’s tricky, obscured tests. Especially when it becomes revised, make sure to just stick with ACT. ACT rules!
Do they separate scores of international / foreign students taking the test? Could SAT Reading scores be declining because more non English speakers are taking the test?
Personally I think the June test snafu royally messed things up. My own DD got a 560 on the reading section and then a 34 on the ACT reading section a week later. She had been testing around 700+ so we were floored by that.
do you think my son should take the SAT again if he got a good ACT score? (SAT was 1810 which was low for him and ACT was 33)
33 is pretty darn respectable…but if he feels he can do much better on the SAT there’s not a lot to lose.
What nonsense.
First off, if anyone shows a chart in which the Y axis does not start at zero, there is usually an agenda at play. You can always make things look far worse by exaggerating the y-axis by starting at a point of your choosing.
OMG!! SAT math is the same as it was in 1972 and 1999 - Wow, a total “bombing”!!
OMG!! SAT verbal is 5-6 points lower (out of 800) than it was in 1980, 1981, 1990, 1991, 2007 and the same as about 2012, 2013. Another total “bombing”.
Do people not understand anything about comparing apples to apples (at least some people here pointed out growth of the base, international students, etc) as well as statistical variations?
People “write” articles like this with the spin of “bombing”, sites like this repeat the spin and we wonder why kids are under pressure for college? LOL.
Not surprising considering the condition of most urban public school districts. I doubt there has been any loss in private, suburban and rural areas. These alarmist articles never show relevant granularity.
It might just be that more states switched to SAT from ACT, and scores declined when the SAT became mandatory instead of optional.
3scouts: Where did you find this year’s PSAT cut off scores? Thanks!
i’m convinced that it’s because a lot more kids take the SAT/ACT than they did in the past…even at my kids’ urban public high school, kids with no college plans are encouraged to take the tests. I think it’s a good thing because it encourages kids to think big.
@skyoverme not always - sometimes having a y-axis at zero might make very significant changes look negligible.
However I don’t really understand the article since the SAT scores are based on curves from past experimental sections (let me know if I’m wrong). Might as well put really harsh curves next year and then claim that SAT scores dropped…
The data on the graphs needs to start after 1995, because the SAT scores were recentered in 1995, so you cannot compare the average pre 1995 scores to post 1995 scores.
Nowadays, EVERYONE is encouraged/required to take the tests as preferred to when only the top percentage did. We will see a decrease in scores as more and more lower-income students have to take this test. Let’s focus on bringing everyone’s score up, instead of focusing on how terrible the scores of everyone are as compared to the scores of a select few.
It is funny to me how people like to talk about how the SAT test keeps getting easier (re-centered) but kids do worse than before etc. However, nobody talks about how today’s SAT Math is harder than before. For example, Math 700 today is the equivalent of 710 in the past or 750 SAT Math II is equivalent of 780 in the past or GRE Math 166 is the equivalent of 800 in the past or that average SAT scores at highly competitive colleges such as Harvard are much higher than before or that the average SAT score at schools such as University of Pennsylvania in the late 70s was 1240 (M+V) etc
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THAT SCREW UP BY THE COLLEGEBOARD? COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!#!@#!@$!@$%!@#$!@%!#
It’s a norm-referenced test. “Norm-referenced tests report whether test takers performed better or worse than a hypothetical average student.” Of course the average isn’t going up – they set the scoring curve so that the average stays about the same.
I think education journalists are getting dumber, however.
@SouthernHope is also correct that more students are taking the test who wouldn’t have taken the test in the past and are likely to do worse than the average test taker. I don’t know whether College Board is adjusting the low end of the curve as this happens.