The SAT I as an aptitude test: To study or not to study? Is it fair to prepare?

Test Preparation
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<p>This argument comes up all the time; I can't even count how many times I've debated it on here... or with friends... or even with myself. So here's a thread dedicated to it! </p>

<p>As someone who did not prepare for the SAT I, my knee-jerk reaction is, "Why would anyone study for an aptitude test?! That defeats the purpose." </p>

<p>However, it's not as simple as that. There are two different levels of the argument, IMO. The first question is, is the SAT an accurate measure, within a margin of error, of academic potential? (I doubt that anybody believes that it is infallible for that purpose, but is it accurate enough to legitimize its use?) And the second is, assuming that the answer to the first is "yes," is practicing/studying/otherwise preparing for it unfair? This broad issue can extend to further questions. Is work ethic, as applied to the SAT, as important as natural ability? Does studying just bring out natural ability by familiarizing you with the test and test-taking strategies, or does it purely teach you to memorize certain strategies for certain problems, thus defeating the SAT's purpose of measuring your analytical ability? </p>

<p>Discuss.</p>

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<p>SAT prep is really just getting familiar with the types of questions on the exam. Since the questions are always different, it really is a test of how well you can think under pressure. Prep only brings out the best in what someone can do -- it can't replace natural ability.</p>

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<p>I no smart, but I are get high score on SAT!
I think if the SAT were a true "aptitude test", there wouldn't be a "BB".</p>

<p>Look at the IQ tests, you don't see people paying thousands of dollars to raise their IQs by 30 points.</p>

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<p>

But I've seen posts on here by people who have taken so many practice tests that they have exposed themselves to every possible type of question and memorized strategies for each one. </p>

<p>Wouldn't taking it cold be a more accurate measure of how well you can think under pressure?</p>

<p>

There are books for that purpose; they're just less popular 'cause college admissions don't depend on IQ. Really, any supposed quantification of intelligence is manipulatable, IMO. (But the SAT doesn't claim to be a measure of intelligence, merely one of academic potential.)</p>

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<p>Meh. The test isn't that hard, so with enough practice you can artificially score very high. But most of us don't go overboard like that.</p>

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<p>I don't see how vocabulary questions can be part of an aptitude test. also, I took geometry in 8th grade and took the SAT in beginning of 12th grade. If i didnt review theres no way i would remember how to do many of the extremely simple questions.
so no, i dont think its an apititude test</p>

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<p>

There are formulas given in the beginning of the section. There is literally nothing to "remember" unless you have forgotten, since 8th grade, the definition of a triangle. </p>

<p>(I'm sort of playing Devil's Advocate here, as I don't really lean in one direction or the other. If someone posted an "SAT is an aptitude test" argument, I'd do my best to counter those points too.)</p>

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<p>To a certain point, test preparation courses can help a lot (what that point is is debatable but I'd say somewhere around 2100). After that point has been reached, I think brains kick in. In my opinion, a kid who isn't that bright can't score a really high score on the SAT even if he's put through hours of grueling preparation. When you get into the 2200s, those kids are actually smart. They probably prepared for it, but they're smart. (Not saying that kids who don't get 2200 aren't smart)</p>

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<p>It's just something you gotta do to get into a good college. That's it. If you don't care your future then don't study and vice versa. The test is a very "hackable".</p>

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<p>I think it's a better aptitude test when you take it in 7th grade (usually and hopefully a first exposure to that kind of test) like for Duke TIP or CTY. Then it's usually given to the top 5% of other test takers and nobody is meant to get a 2400 (some do or come very close to it, but you can count them in one hand). After that it is very hard to differentiate the single sitting, superscore, with prep, w/o prep, grade at which taken, etc, etc.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that it is up to the schools to decide how they want to use the scores and at the application level it becomes just one more parameter by which to judge the student.</p>

<p>Is it better to prepare? I think everybody has been preparing since kindergarten and some people are just cramming at the last minute (which is not something that unusual for students to be doing),</p>

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<p>But I know tons of people (including myself!) who took it cold and did well. </p>

<p>Would the test be more accurately representative of ability if everyone took it cold?</p>

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<p>

I agree with this, and this was my prepared argument against "the SAT is an aptitude test." The SAT is inherently knowledge-based because every student has been gaining knowledge -- and practicing reasoning skills -- throughout his entire academic career.</p>

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<p>Of course, you could also consider previous knowledge/retained information as an aspect of aptitude.</p>

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<p>I think it is an aptitude test, and it would clearly be most fair if nobody prepped for it. But I don't think you can blame the people that do. I only took it without any prep because I didn't think the money + hours of work would be worth it for me.</p>

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<p>yeah, i mean, but theres so many factors that go into an SAT score.</p>

<p>the first is invariably your own innate intelligence, and i think this is by far the biggest factor in one's score. and rightly so, since you rarely see people who start off at around 1500's prepare enough to the point where they can get top notch scores. </p>

<p>the second is how much coaching one has had. for the most part, hysterically high scores are usually the result of a mixture of innate intelligence as well as adequate preparation. this is where the usage of the SAT as an aptitude test inevitably comes into question. at my school of attendance (which i dont go to for IB), i have a friend who prepared insane amounts for the SAT. she took it i believe in october of her sopho year (after years of practice by then already) and got a 2280. for the next 17 months, as she says to me, her mother made her take a practice test every saturday and then afterwards they went over every question she missed. ultimately on her retake in march of her junior year she got a 2290 (i know, right?), which is the score she stuck with. from a more normal perspective, a large number of my friends took SAT classes over the past summer. on diagnostic tests, almost all of my friends scored in the 1400-1500 range. after the class however, some of them were able to improve by a couple hundred points whereas some of them stayed at where they began. at the same time, i have a friend who got a 1420 his first time taking it. after methodically studying for a couple of months, he got a 21 something upon retaking. based on my illustrations, i deduce that coaching can impact one's score, but that one's score is still largely based off of other external factors as well.</p>

<p>the third is simply test day conditions. maybe one isnt feeling so well, maybe they develop a migraine during the test, or maybe the CR passages just happens to be on something they cant focus so well on. this is easily the thing that can affect one's scores the most.</p>

<p>so i think that overall, in very broad terms, the SAT can be defined as an aptitude test regardless of how much one studies. based on the third factor that i just mentioned, i would venture as far as to say that one's score can easily fluctuate 50 points per section. at the same, even for those who study hysterical amounts for the test, (from the perspective of an actually average student) one must still be competent enough to use the knowledge that they gain about the test on the actual test, which for many is very difficult, which i think separates my friends in one of my above-mentioned illustrations. </p>

<p>what i do not agree with is arguments that scores that are relatively close to each other can distinguish students in terms of intelligence. for example, i got a 2310. from my perspective, it would be unfair to say that someone with a 2400 is smarter than me or that someone with a 2200 is dumber than me. id say that to say that someone is smarter than someone else theyd really have to outscore that person by a good 150, 200 points. but even so, studying and test day conditions seriously skew this potential idea even as such. so, as i stated to poseur in another thread, i believe that once someone has scores 700+, they really shouldnt be considered that much in terms of the admission process. its unfathomable that anyone would really try to judge people based on score nuances of sometimes 100 or even less points.</p>

<p>i think that in an ideal world, itd be best to have everyone prepare at least slightly for the SAT. id say that beyond getting to know the format of the exam (which i retrospectively seriously wish i had done), studying intensely will only negligibly affect one's score. </p>

<p>and if i said something stupid its cuz its 2 in the morning -_- haha.</p>

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<p>I thought officially SAT was no longer an abbreviation for "Scholastic Aptitude Test".So it's perfectly alright to prepare.</p>

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<p>This FAQ will point to some issues that colleges care about: </p>

<p>ONE-TIME TEST-TAKING </p>

<p>Colleges have given up trying to distinguish one-time test-takers from two-time or three-time or even four-time test-takers, because that wasn't useful information to the colleges. There are a number of reasons for that. </p>

<p>1) The colleges have utterly no way of knowing who spends all his free time practicing taking standardized tests and who takes them "cold." </p>

<p>2) The colleges are well aware that students who have actually taken the tests sometimes cancel scores, so they have little incentive to give students bonus consideration if the students submit only one test score. </p>

<p>3) The colleges are aware that students who take the admission tests at middle-school age, who are numerous, do not have their earlier test scores submitted by default. </p>

<p>SAT</a> Younger than 13 </p>

<p>Hoagies</a>' Gifted: Talent Search Programs </p>

<p>Duke</a> TIP - Interpreting SAT and ACT Scores for 7th Grade Students </p>

<p>4) Colleges are aware that the majority of students who take the SAT at all take it more than once. </p>

<p><a href="http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Avg_Scores_of_Repeat_Test_Takers.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Avg_Scores_of_Repeat_Test_Takers.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>5) Colleges are in the business of helping students learn, and they don't mind students taking efforts to improve their scores. They know that students prepare for tests. </p>

<p>From the New York Times: "Although coaching would no doubt continue if subject tests replaced the SAT, at least students would be focused on content as much as test-taking strategies, Mr. Murray said. There would also be pressure to improve local high school curriculums so that students were prepared, he wrote.</p>

<p>"These arguments make sense to Mr. Fitzsimmons [dean of admission at Harvard], who said, 'People are going to prepare anyway, so they might as well study chemistry or biology.' He added that 'the idea of putting more emphasis on the subject tests is of great interest' to his group." </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19sat.html?pagewanted=print%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19sat.html?pagewanted=print&lt;/a> </p>

<p>6) And now the College Board is back in the business of letting students choose which test scores to send into colleges, </p>

<p>Score</a> Choice </p>

<p>so now there is less reason than ever to suppose that colleges care how many times you take the test, because the colleges have no way to know how many times you took the test officially. </p>

<p>Colleges treat applicants uniformly now by considering their highest scores, period. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/349391-retake-how-many-times-take-sat-act.html#post4198038%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/349391-retake-how-many-times-take-sat-act.html#post4198038&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/electronic_resources/viewbook/Rollo0809_GuideApplying.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/electronic_resources/viewbook/Rollo0809_GuideApplying.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>From the Harvard admission office: "If you submit more than one set of scores for any of the required tests, the Admissions Committee considers only your best scores—even if your strongest SAT Subject Tests or portions of the SAT Reasoning Test were taken on different dates."</p>

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<p>ta:</p>

<p>don't forget the obvious: colleges use the highest scores because it is in THEIR best interest to do so.</p>

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<p>Lololololololololol poseur.
I can't believe I haven't posted here yet.
I can't get into everything i want to say right now because I"m about to leave, BUT I don't think you should study for the SAT. I realize that teeeechnically people have been "prepared" for it throughout their life because of things to which they've been exposed and stuff like that, BUUUUT it's stupid to work the test and cheat your way [which is what I think it is - cheating the system, cheating, whatever, etc] into understanding what the question itself is asking [like... the person who took a gazillion practice tests - THAT is ridiculous. lol]. Bleh. I took it cold and got a 2300, which I could definitely improve upon if I either "prepared" [whatever thattt is] or if I just actually finished the CR section instead of christmas tree'ing the last few questions and going to the bathroom, ololol.</p>

<p>Athough maybe you guys don't know what christmas tree'ing is? Eh.</p>

<p>Anyway, regardless of how well I had done, I wouldn't have taken it more than once - I feel like a one-time test is a better representation of how well I'd do that a test that I retake several times and study study study [however do you do that, anyway, for the SAT?!] for, etc etc. I just feel like everyone should only be able to take it once.</p>

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<p>darn it, i hate the new SAT score reporting policy. that really puts me in an annoying situation.</p>

<p>heck, my only bad score is a 720 CR and ive only taken it once, and i have to wonder if ima get shot because there are gonna be a lot more people with hysterically high scores next year when im applying.</p>

<p>do you guys think the date of your sats have anything to do with anything? i mean, i got my breakdown (72/80/79) in october of my junior year (last month). does that mean anything in relation to someone who gets lets say 30 or 40 points higher than me but takes in lets say march?</p>