<p>Okay, no one really answered my question. I noted that I had not studied at all for my SATII tests. What do near perfect SATII scores and lower SAT scores say about intelligence?</p>
<p>They say that you comprehensively learned the subjects that you took when they were taught in school, but have more trouble with reasoning/basic knowledge, if you follow the SAT = Intelligence theory.</p>
<p>I have to agree that SATIIs do not measure intelligence nearly as much as SATIs; however, neither are perfect representations of intelligence.</p>
<p>Andphilmont - If you have extremely high SAT II scores, it means you put in alot of effort in that particular subject. The SAT II rule for scoring higher is quite simple, in my opinion: study the subject more, your score will continue to rise. So if your scores were very high, you must have studied very hard in that class in high school. No other explanation. (Once again, though, the Literature Test is the one that doesn’t apply to that rule).</p>
<p>Low SAT I scores will nearly eliminate you from admissions to top colleges. I hate to say it- it sounds harsh, but it’s absolutely true. Good luck getting into a top 40 college if your SAT I composite is under a 1900 because, unless you’re a hooked applicant or have overcome extreme disadvantage, it’s very unlikely to happen.</p>
<p>But like I said, it’s possible to study for the SAT I Math & Writing to a certain extent and certainly raise your score if you really set your mind to the book and work. Critical Reading, as I see it, is the one of the three that, no matter the preparation, you’re not going to score high unless you’re a good reader and a bright thinker who can infer from passages.</p>
<p>I hope this answered your question…?</p>
<p>All I’m going to say here is that I know some very, very, almost painfully smart people who have absolutely no common sense or social skills. </p>
<p>I also know some “dumb” people who are extremely people smart, hard workers, and have high paying managerial jobs.</p>
<p>I know some “dumb” people in highschool who did almost ridiculous on the SAT’s, yet these people had horrible high school grades and have failed out of Ivy Leagues. My cousin, for example.</p>
<p>Let’s all agree this will never be solved. ::sigh::</p>
<p>^true 
i dunno tho because my SAT scores flunctuated quite a bit from my first to second test. what does that say about my intelligence?</p>
<p>LaurenW- No. In the case of your cousin, the obvious answer is that college is something that you need more than smarts to be successful in. You need to work hard and study hard. If someone takes the SAT and gets a perfect score, it’s perfectly possible that they fail at college and Ivy Leagues, because they don’t have the work ethic necessary to do good.</p>
<p>Of course, less intelligent people can work hard to make up for their lack of fluid intelligence. Of course some intellectually intelligent people don’t have the same emotional intelligence as others, and thus have weak social skills.</p>
<p>This is also directed at you Andphilmont. Going and being successful in a “competitive” private school does not necessarily indicate intelligence. It may indicate something else as equally important, that you put in effort and are a hard worker.(seriously, this is just as important as intelligence)
That is why you did good on your SAT IIs.(As people have already said) They are independent subjects, like the ones you probably studied in school. So, if you’re a hard worker in school, you should be able to do good on those tests using that knowledge.</p>
<p>However, SAT I is just reasoning. Sure it has specific subjects, but mostly its your Fluid Intelligence(speed and ability to reason logically and abstractly). That’s why none of the math goes too far into Trigonometry or into Calculus. The whole Critical Reading section is based on your ability to reason. Writing. Meh. Not really. But, some colleges don’t even count it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response, just trying to make sense of it all. I understand the supposed differences between the tests, but just because you study something, doesn’t mean you will be able to grasp the material. This is the problem that I have with these tests. The reality is that my strength has always been in science. I am a solid A science student, honestly I have always put very little effort into studying bio\chem\physics. I have always struggled more in english comp\lit, does not come naturally to me. Still don’t get, lower scores on SAT1 means less intelligence, but if I study more I can get high scores on SATII’s. Does not make sense to me. I don’t care how much you study, you have to have some level of intelligence to get some of the more advanced concepts. In order to do well in you have to understand the cumulative nature of some of these concepts. Grasping the material is not stricly an issue of memorization. You cannot do well in an honors\ap chem\physics without having good math\reasoning skills. I have never had this problem, yet I cannot seem to crack the the SATI math test, above 610, yet I am nearly perfect on SATIIs in Chem and BIO. Go figure. I need to stop driving myself crazy</p>
<p>Okay, let me put it this way.</p>
<p>The two main types of intelligence that psychologists identify are Fluid and Crystalline.
I already explained FLuid. Crystalline is pretty much the summation of your knowledge and experiences.</p>
<p>Now, I took an AP Chem class. And it was hard for me. Why? Because I didn’t have a strong base of prior knowledge to understand the advanced concepts. So, there was an deficiency in my Crystalline Intelligence, and the concepts were significantly based on my prior knowledge and experiences so I couldn’t simply reason myself to the answer.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I took an AP English class and an AP Lit class. I did well enough in both of them. My SAT Critical Reading is 740. I managed a 4 on my AP English Comp test.
The reason I do so well with critical reading is because I can analyze passages well enough. I can reason out the meanings and whatnot.</p>
<p>See, Chemistry has a strict, definite answer. And, a pretty rigid path that you can use to find the answer, with the formulas. If there’s an error in that path, like I had in some problems (lol EQUILLIBRIUM) - then you won’t be able to get the answer.</p>
<p>In English, you have to be able to use logic and reason yourself to the answer. You have to be able to say “She used this word, so we can infer the tone is this. And thus, that is the answer.” There is no definitive path, you can mostly only rely on reasoning.</p>
<p>Of course, you definitely need some degree of reasoning to be able to build your Chemistry concepts on top of one another, to understand it to a better degree.
But mostly, it relies on your Crystalline knowledge.</p>
<p>My point is that you’re using different types of skills in the SAT I. Except for maybe the writing, you can pretty much reason yourself to the answers. Those “test taking strategies” that people promote are simply lines of logic, ways of possibly reasoning the validity of an answer.</p>
<p>For example,
You do a math question, and the answers are
A. 3
B. 5
C. 7
D. 10
E. 11
Because of the nature of this math question, the answers are either higher or lower than the right answer. So, you try C, and if it’s too high, you know it’s either A or B.</p>
<p>This is reasoning yourself closer to the correct answer.</p>
<p>In Conclusion: SAT 1 is based mostly on analyzing and reasoning the question. (Fluid Intelligence)
SAT IIs, from what I’ve heard, are specific subjects that are mostly based on your prior knowledge. (Crystalline Intelligence)</p>
<p>SAT 1’s you can pretty much only study test taking strategies a.k.a. ways to reason yourself to the answer. Its not high level math or anything, the questions are simply tricky.
SAT II’s you can study all the specific stuff that you generally need to know about a certain subject. ( I might be wrong, I’ve never taken an SAT II)</p>
<ol>
<li>“OMG, you can study for it…that means it proves nothing!”</li>
</ol>
<p>Guess what. You can study for anything. You can study for an IQ test (people don’t because it would defeat the purpose). Regardless, the amazing tales you hear about 500 point score increases are just that–amazing tales. They are outliers. The College Board has run its own studies on the matter…and concluded that an SAT prep class only bumps a person’s score by an insignificant 10-30 points or so, on average. Yeah, lots of prep and multiple retakes can certainly boost a person’s score, but for the vast majority of people, changes in score are insignificant. These statistics are published. </p>
<p>----- does this mean that if you’re “genetically stupid,” the chances of you getting higher SAT scores than those who are “genetically intelligent” are really slim - since prep courses and retakes don’t help much? Hmm. Anyway, I think what standardized tests do is turning people into test taking machines. It may prove intelligence of some sort (def. not things like individuality…) but not one’s potential, which I believe is more important when it comes to many things.</p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>“I saw a graph that shows SAT score correlates really well with income! This is ridiculous…the SAT measures nothing more than income!”</li>
</ol>
<p>Are you people serious? Hell yes the SAT correlates with income. If it didn’t, I would be concerned about its validity. </p>
<p>Intelligence is largely hereditary. It has a huge genetic component. Much as we like to demonize the wealthy here in America, most of them are wealthy for a reason–they were hardworking, and clever to at least some degree. Smart parents have smart children (on average). And even for those of you who will deny the genetics argument here–you must admit that wealthy households can provide so many advantages compared to poorer households (breastfeeding, better nutrition, more emphasis on education, parents speak more/bigger words around their young children). Yes, it’s unfair. The poor have the deck stacked against them. But that doesn’t change the facts. </p>
<p>----- lovely nature vs. nurture debate 
Oh well, just gotta suck it up when you’re at a disadvantage, right?</p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>“But I have a 4.3 GPA and I scored low. I KNOW I’m smart, this test has to be flawed! Meanwhile, the stoner slacker sitting in back of my history class got a 2200!”</li>
</ol>
<p>GPA doesn’t mean a whole lot. At the vast majority of schools in America, getting a high GPA requires nothing more than effort. Believe it or not, high school grades are not exactly a priority to most American teenagers.
I hate to say it, but I am starting to believe that most of the people railing on the SAT are simply unable to face the reality–just because you have a high GPA/work really hard in school/your parents think you are smart/you are convinced you are special, you are not necessarily intelligent. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with being average (or even below). Not everyone can be exceptional.
Look around you and use common sense. In general, the smart kids get high SATs. The dumb ones don’t. There are exceptions to this, and the SAT is a (relatively) blunt metric, but it DOES measure intelligence.
Bonus Note: I cannot help but laugh everytime I see the bad test taker excuse. Seriously? Just because you work really hard on papers and do your homework diligently (=high GPA), this doesn’t make you smart. Tests tell a truer story. The only people who can claim they are “bad test takers” are those who literally have really serious anxiety/focus problems.</p>
<p>----- har har har… I have anxiety problems and I’m quite claustrophobic, so when I have to sit in a room for almost 4 hours to take a test, I’m going “JUST KILL ME…” but I don’t die. I’m not a “bad” test taker, IMO, because, well, with some practice, even anxiety issues and phobias can be conquered to some extent… I dare to say that there’s no such thing as “bad test taker” since everything can change with practice and some self-control. I mean, I have anxiety problems with my school exams as well, but more I study, more confident I get, and things turn out to be all right. “Hating” the SATs is fine (… come on. You can’t say, no matter what, that you like the SATs - hours of confinement with boring passages and repetitive math questions), but calling it “unreasonable” and “pointless” isn’t quite right.</p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>“The SAT is just 3 hours of your life. How you do on one Saturday morning doesn’t say anything.”</li>
</ol>
<p>Yeah. So? That’s the point of a test–it measures aptitude as efficiently and quickly as possible. Take two sprinters and measure their 100-yard times. Repeat this with a couple more trials. This might take a grand total of 2 minutes, but I bet you can get a pretty definitive answer on who is faster. Anyways, if you feel the SAT did not accurately show your abilities, that’s why retakes exist. There are fee waivers if you are low income.
“We don’t know what intelligence really is! Gardner says there are 264 forms of it! I’m really good at painting!! My mom says IQ tests are PROVEN to show nothing anyway!”
Do some of your own research…with an open mind. Look up something called “g”. Read the work of REAL psychometric psychologists, not politically correct press releases and feel-good books. The military gives versions of IQ tests to determine what types of jobs an enlistee is suitable for. IQ scores predict future income and education level. The SAT correlates HIGHLY with IQ scores.
Yeah, I agree the SAT does not tell the whole story. But in terms of measuring linguistic/analytical intelligence (essentially, academic aptitude) it functions perfectly well. That’s why basically every selective college in the country still places plenty of value on it.</p>
<p>----- Well, hell with IQ tests - they’re just really weird. You need to be weird to get high scores And okay, kind of (just a little bit) irrelevant, but things are changing. IQ-based jobs can easily be done by machines and whatever else. EQ-based jobs, however, cannot be. Turning slightly into the direction of philosophy, humans differ from machines that humans can think whereas machines can’t. But again, like you said, “SAT does not tell the whole story.” And that’s why colleges don’t only look at SAT scores (thankfully). I get this feeling that essays are being more emphasized because of the whole IQ vs. EQ thing, and because essays are the things that truly shows what kind of people applicants are AS PEOPLE, not as test takers.</p>
<p>I glanced and saw “Anyways,” stopped reading, and was reminded of Okies from the 1930s.</p>
<p>I dunno… many of my friends complain alot about how their scores never improve and so on, and how the test is unfair and geared toward only “one type of student.” That’s never made any sense to me. There’s never going to be a “perfect” examination that accurately tests your skills across the board with a 100% failproof rate - the SAT is the closest thing we have to it, and I think it’s a pretty good indicator.</p>
<p>Among my friends (I’m a high schooler) who took the test, beforehand I guessed which ones would score highest, not based on GPA, but on their talent and perceived intelligence. My predicitons were correct - all my shallow, diligent-yet-dim classmates scored far lower than me and a a few others among my friends. I really don’t mean to sound arrogant, because my SAT score by no means makes me a better person than anyone, it’s just a test…</p>
<p>…But the most important thing to realize here is that top colleges want to separate the brilliant from the diligent. They’d rather have a half-hardworking student who’s extremely bright than a very hardworking student who isn’t really intelligent. Although certainly not perfect, the SAT I is a typically truthful indicator of that.</p>
<p>^ hmm id agree. You just have to make sure that the “half hardworking student who’s extremely bright” doesn’t do poorly simply because he/she didnt do a practice test. Im not saying Im extremely bright, but I got a 690 writing not doing a practice essay, then did a few, and got an 800… the first score was certainly not indicative of my writing intelligence if I’ve proved I am capable of an 800…</p>
<p>arwenevenstar - Haha, I actually got a 560 in writing in the 9th grade, retook at the end of 10th grade, and got an 800. The time I took it in ninth grade, I had never taken a practice test, didn’t know anything about college or the SAT, so I was very unprepared. However, you’d have to be somewhat of a talented writer to get that writing score. Even those who follow all the imposed guidelines can’t score a 12 on the essay and get all the grammar multiple choice right if they’re poor or even average writers.</p>
<p>What I believe is that for those that have the talent and ability within them, test prep brings it out, helps them tremendously, and boosts their score dramatically. For people who don’t have that talent in math, writing, and reading, test prep is unlikely to significantly raise their score.</p>
<p>I don’t think it EXACTLY measures intellgience. Intelligence is necessary for the SAT, but it isn’t the be all and end all. If you believe in modern psychometrics and want to tmeasure your intelligence, just take one of the new styled IQ tets. Yes, they have problems, but they have a much greater handle on what goes into intelligence than the SAT does. you can break down processing speed, visual spatioal arrangements, and a whole lot of other things in a regular IQ test and still end up with the same g as the SAT, but with a real IQ test you’ll know exactly what makes up your g. My highest score on an IQ test was 170 is visual planning, and my lowest was 90 in auditory processing. I averaged out at 143, but at least I know HOW i got to be there.Intelligence, even the simplistic kind measured by standardized tests, is too complicatedto be roken down into one score.</p>
<p>And how the hell does a 15 minutes essay hae anything to do with intelligence? You use some logic for multiplce choice, but that essay just measures how fast you can write in a formulaic fashion. None of the intellecutal creativity that real writing should involve.</p>
<p>So yeah, I kind of agree, really smart people should smoke the SAT, but i wouldn’t simplify it as much as you did.</p>
<p>descrescendo- agreedddd. the SAT just needs a way to differentiate between the people who COULD raise their score if they had more test prep. and I thought i was a talented writer until i got that 690 because ive been a columnist for a newspaper haha. I just dont feel like people shouldnt make a correlation to intelligence when they dont do as well as they expected on the SAT.<br>
also why i was a little disappointed with 740 math because I had already gotten an 800 the first time, and I took AB frosh year, BC soph, and junior/senior undergrad courses junior year…I mean, i thought i had talent in math… :)</p>
<p>Can somebody kill the OP please? Intelligence is hereditary…hah, so I guess when I got back my first F on a geometry test I should’ve just given up? Lol.</p>
<p>Hahah so true. I’m naturally intelligent but have a fairly low average due to no effort. Took my sat with zero preparation whatsoever and got a 2330. I have friends who took prep courses for two years, have higher goad than me, yet recieved mere 1800s</p>
<p>^Same.</p>
<p>I go to a poor public high school, so when I got a 2180 and a friend of mine got a 2150, everyone was kinda jealous. The nearest scores to ours were in the 1700s. But, although heartbreaking, that really proves that you can’t be unintelligent and score very high. It’s very, very unlikely to get a 2100 or higher on the SAT I if you’re not intelligent. Now as to how we’d measure that kind of intelligence… that’s an entirely different debate haha</p>
<p>“you’d have to be somewhat of a talented writer to get that score”</p>
<p>Not true at all. The SAT writing measures grammar and the ability to churn out a formulaic essay, nothing more. Really good writing takes creativity and the willingness to break a few rules…things the SAT writing test shuns.</p>
<p>You’d have to be good at grammar and some logic, but that’s only a small part of good writing</p>
<p>junhugie - You don’t have to be a very talented writer. But you can’t write an extremely basic essay and get a 12. It has to fill up both pages entirely, it has to have strong example(s), it has to have proper grammar and structure, and it has to be written (somewhat) eloquently and logically to receive a 12. It’s hard for most students to accomplish all that effectively while under a 25-minute time constraint.</p>