“The College Board announced Monday evening that two sections of the SAT given on Saturday will not be scored. There are enough other sections, the College Board said, to provide valid overall SAT scores for those who took the test that day.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/09/college-board-wont-score-two-sections-sat
In theory, there should be no problem right? Each section has the same number of easy/medium/hard questions, and so they just take the unaffected sections.
In practice, I’m guessing the new curve will stink because there are less questions (so it’s a PSAT style curve).
My daughter took SAT for first time in May 2015 and took June test on Saturday to see if she could improve score. When she came out of the test she said it was harder because they were rushing you on one section and last time she had more time and did not think she had done as well as in May.I thought it was just test anxiety, but now, I feel the College Board should give anyone that would like the option to take a version of the test over… if you are in charge of a test that should have no errors, you should make amends and discounting a section is not the answer.
The College Board announcement said the following: “After a comprehensive review and statistical analysis, the College Board and [the Educational Testing Service] have determined that the affected sections will not be scored and we will still be able to provide reliable scores for all students who took the SAT on June 6…”
Hmmm, so riddle me this College Board and ETS: if you can get meaningful results from the SAT based on fewer sections, then why is the test so long to begin with?
Oh wait, maybe this is the answer…
“To accommodate the wide range of incidents that can impact a testing experience, the SAT is designed to collect enough information to provide valid and reliable scores even with an additional unscored section. From fire drills and power outages to mistiming and disruptive behavior, school-based test administrations can be fragile, so our assessments are not.”
Ah, so apparently they throw in extra sections just in case there is an unplanned incident. Then again, if the test were shorter, there would be less chance of an incident occurring during the test.
According to their twitter, they will only be omitting one section, depending on the edition.
The curve is going to be brutal on this. Yikes.
@Verminsoupreme (love the name by the way) they’ve updated it to both sections now I believe (one math and one reading)
Heard about this from some friends that took the test on Saturday. That’s crazy! Thankful I only took Subjects that day!
I guess whoever made the mistake in the test booklet is going to be fired.
Good thing I didn’t take the SAT last Saturday. Hopefully this won’t happen when I take the ACT this Saturday. I would hate to have a section not counted, aside from the experimental section of course.
I spent two hours on the phone today suggesting remedies to the College Board’s mistake. One hour was spent talking with CB and the other with ETS because CB maintains they have no communication with ETS (!).
Here is what I proposed: 1. Refund the fee to everyone who took the test on June 6. There needs to be some accountability and a hit like this will force CB to make sure this never happens again. 2. Score the sections in question and make those scores available to the students. They can do what they wish with them but at least they would have a sense of how they did. I paid extra for my daughter’s registration so that we could have a breakdown of how she did on each section and I believe I am entitled to it. They indicated they could do this. 3. Provided the evidence in writing of their contention that the scores will be valid. Spare us nothing. Give us the algorithms! 4. Allow students to cancel their scores from the June 6 test once they have seen their scores.
I hope the media covers this extensively. It is outrageous.
Just another reason for individuals and colleges to minimize their reliance on CB. Take the ACT. And stop spending hundreds of dollars and hours of your time studying for a test…
@BathsuaMakin Excellent suggestions!
@WhataProcess I don’t think colleges should put so much weight on any standardized tests, SAT or ACT. My daughter has taken both and have done well in both (33 ACT and 2210 SAT). She took the June 6th SAT to increase her score and received the 20 minutes time for sections 8 and 9, but I still feel that these tests are used too much by colleges. She felt that ACT is a test of speed, taken in less than 4 hours which it really does not show your true ability/knowledge. She felt that SAT is less stressful as far as time management, but now we know that even though you might do well in the test (which she did and was hoping to get 2300+), she might do worse because of CB screw up. So, a kid who is an excellent student (all A’s for 3 years), National Merit semifinalist (hopefully a finalist), great ECs and leaderships, and more, has to worry about a stupid test, because 1-2 questions in it can eliminate her from the pool in highly selective schools.
The College Board is acting like this does not matter, probably because they are a monopoly, and they need to pretend that the test is always fair. They owe a full retake and refund to all of the June 6 students, and they need to do it way before the October test.
I took the June 6th SAT…I’m kinda freaking out with all these, “I’m guessing the new curve will stink because there are less questions…” and, “The curve is going to be brutal on this. Yikes.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid College Board imbeciles!! Every time I turn around, they’re trying to make my life more stressful…I was hoping I could get a 2100+ on this SAT after getting a ~1900 on the March SAT. I had to study around the AP testing too, so I only got to study for ~1 month…well now it looks like I’ll have to take the SAT during my senior year, which is what I was trying to avoid having to do…ugh.
Would it not be logical to make the curve MORE generous considering how we have less questions to represent our capabilities? If not, then dang, the College Board is just a bunch of [insert the most insulting word or phrase you can imagine].
William Shakespeare said it best in 1602: With the twist for 2015, here it is:
“Chicken Little doth protest too much, methinks”
Seriously, this is not a big deal. No alarms needed for egregious curves as test after test, everyone always seems to complain about the hard curve when it works the same way … every time. It was last this a decade ago, and nothing will ever change,
Simply stated, just forget this incident that the stuff that makes the media vulture foam at the mouth, and morons to repeat and report it as a scandal.
Well prepared people should not have to rely on one particular administration!
Had a follow-up conversation with the College Board today. They are refunding the cost of the test and the additional fee for the student scoring report although we will get both the scores and the additional report. I urge you all to contact CB and at least get a refund. I told them they are facing a Tylenol moment (parents will recognize the allusion to the 1982 crisis for Johnson and Johnson which has become the model for effective crisis management).
A Tylenol moment? Seriously?
Wow. Your memory of that time must be much rosier than mine.
CB should give the option to cancel and give money back, but should not give a report and money back, that is ridiculous.
I should clarify that the extra and obviously unintended 5 minutes marked on Sections 8 and 9 didn’t freak me out, and I knew, based on how many practice tests I took while studying for this SAT, that it was merely a printing error, and that we only had 20 minutes on these sections (as my proctor correctly guessed).
However, I don’t think they should completely remove these sections just because of a printing error, especially if removing these sections would result in a TOUGHER curve and an overall lower score.
Would it be smart for them to allow us to choose which score we’d like to accept as our “true” score, comparing the score with Sections 8 and 9 and the score without Sections 8 and 9, or would that give us an unfair advantage over those who didn’t take an SAT with this weird predicament?
It’s my understanding that they are not removing them because of a printing error. They are removing them because some students received extra time to complete them. My son’s proctor wasn’t smart enough to figure out what he also knew (thanks to the number of practice tests he has taken) and gave them 25 minutes on BOTH section 8 & 9!
Personally, I would like to see proof that eliminating two sections from the scoring data will still result in reliable (I’d prefer accurate) scores. I would like to see side by side data of old tests taken under acceptable conditions scored normally and then scored again with two sections removed. That would go along way to helping us trust that this decision is not going to unfairly disadvantage our children’s scores.