<p>I second the first couple of posts...this place naturally has the best and the brightest. It wouldn't surprise me in the least bit if we had at least one future President of the US on here, couple of Nobel laurates, heads of lesser states, and maybe even a pope.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't think you have to be a genius at all to make a perfect score. Personally, if I were to ever make a really good score, I would probably NOT tell everyone that I studied for it. But some people aren't lying when they say they didn't really study; some things are common sense or easily learned by others. Doesn't mean they're particularly intelligent in anything else. What's more important is what you do with what you have...</p>
<p>its just how you take the sat. i remember struggling with my verbal score and then all of a sudden i looked at the cr questions differently and boosted up my score tremendously. some say that was due to studying, i say it was just a new approach that helped me improve dramatically.</p>
<p>some people have the insight without needing to achieve the insight. comprende?</p>
<p>800s is NOT IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT STUDYING.</p>
<p>so many people have it.
it's nature to them, because they truly ARE smart</p>
<p>they can listen 1 time and understand and 'know it all'
while others have to study</p>
<p>take me for example
i self studied ap euro the day before the AP exam last year.
and i got a five.
yes, a five.</p>
<p>haha actually i'm joking. that's pretty impossible</p>
<p>^ yes, because AP Euro does not measure intelligence alone. If you don't know anything about European History, all the intelligence in the world won't be very useful.</p>
<p>SAT, on the other hand, does measure mathematical and verbal intelligence to a degree.</p>
<p>I date back to the days when the test prep industry hadn't reached my part of the country, at all. My region (the upper Midwest) has always had a fairly high number of "natural" high SAT scorers. People here read a lot, discuss important issues with their friends, admire people who THINK well, and have school systems that are at least mediocre by world standards. Some of us got peak SAT scores just by doing what came naturally to us as recreation--which included lots of reading books and magazines and doing math puzzles from library books. That's all. </p>
<p>The number</a> of high scorers on the SAT is large enough to include a lot of CC participants. Some CC participants say they take lots of SAT prep classes, and still do poorly on the SAT. I believe them. Some CC participants say they don't particularly study for the SAT, but they do well on it. I believe them too.</p>
<p>that chart is so interesting. males score higher on the higher end but gradually lose to females as you go down the chart. o_o</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don't really understand how you came to that conclusion. It just looks like two t-distributions in which the males are centered approximately 50 composite points higher than the females, meaning that males in general are always scoring better.</p>
<p>Obviously if one group has a greater amount at higher scores, it must also have a lesser amount for lower scores.</p>
<p>
[quote]
800 CR's just come naturally in many cases where people have read extensively (magazines like scientific american, articles from conservative intellectual politics and philosophy).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree. I know two people at my school who scored perfect 36's on the ACT reading section. and I KNOW that they didn't study for it (unless they read a lot, which they do). So it is possible to get a 800 or 36 on reading comprehension without "studying" for it.</p>
<p>Yes. That is why reading is absolutely essential. Reading an article a day will do wonders for you!</p>
<p>hahaha, I love the bickering. Honestly, SATs are way over rated. I happened to land around the 94th percentile (1370). Who cares? ppl who whine about 1400s in a desperate attempt to gain appeal from others should die. If one cares that much about getting into Harvard, go to MIT and committ suicide through laughing-gas inhalation instead.</p>
<p>Well hello Mr. Charming!</p>
<p>Sorry that some people are ambitious and have dreams. Would your resentment towards the Cambridge area be becuase of your reject from both universities?</p>
<p>The SAT does not measure intelligence at all. It measures what you have learned in the past few years. That is a big difference. My IQ is very high (160+), but my SAT score was only 2090. Obviously there is a general correlation because people with higher IQs tend to do better on the SAT, but the SAT is not always a measuring of intelligence, it really is just what you have learned and how well you can take the SAT. If it really was intelligence then how can people improve their scores so drastically? By improving their natural intelligence?.. um no...</p>
<p>If IQ tests were standardized and test prep were available for them, you would find people improving their scores as they do on the SAT. The SAT (old SAT definitely more so) and most IQ tests are remarkably similar. </p>
<p>Both are very rough measures of intelligence. You can't be dumb as a box of rocks and get a 2400, but you can be highly intelligent and terrible at multiple choice tests. Intelligence does not fit into a three or four digit number.</p>
<p>There are definitely some liars on here. We CCers have even caught a few. But, you should expect high scorers; it's a college discussion board after all.</p>
<p>I'm one of those people who has scored really well on the SAT, but I have to agree that the SAT is not a measure of intelligence. I think the point that lola-cho made is quite valid - if you can study and prepare for it, it's not really testing your intelligence. If anything, the SAT tests your ability to think logically (especially with things like the analogies and QC's on the old SAT etc) and to take standardized tests. There are some people who are good at test taking, while others who, not matter how "intelligent" they may be, can never do as well as the hope.</p>
<p>As for the OP's argument, the people who read and post on CC are a super-selective group of people. While you don't see many posts with people talking about their 1200 on the SAT, there's probably more people with 1200's than there are with 1600's who lurk on the board but choose not to post.</p>
<p>That's not to say that some people do lie about their scores. People have caught by other posters when they've posted conflicting scores in multiple threads. Then again, there have also been incidents when truthful posters have been repeatedly accused of lying about their scores.</p>
<p>i have an 800 math 730 verbal and am far from a genius....don't be ridiculous that you need to be a genius to get an 800, the math part really is extremely basic, you just need to learn how to time yourself and take it one question at a time. getting a bunch of algebra and geometry questions right doesn't make them a genius</p>
<p>Yes there one other part of the tests that makes them harder for some us (I got a 1450) because in some ways the SATs are like endurance tests, I usually check out around 10 to 10:30 when taking the test so more and more careless mistakes slip into the mix which is diffinately a problem (of the 5 math questions I missed, I missed 4 because I was careless/day-dreaming).</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that there's really no such thing as "intelligence" - there is, but it's not tangible. There is no definition of what intelligence is, everyone interprets that differently. </p>
<p>I, for example, think that people's ability to solve math problems is a good standard for intelligence, because it measures the ability (as said before) to analyze, think logically, etc. </p>
<p>I think that the verbal section is different... obviously people can "study" for the vocab and memorize 20587 words, etc, and improve their scores, usually (I think?) more than they can improve their math scores. Although I <em>suppose</em> if someone grew up doing math problems they could better develop that ability, people's ability to increase reading comprehension is high -- people who read a lot GENERALLY score better on reading. </p>
<p>So clearly I believe that the SAT <em>does</em> measure intelligence, but as people have said before, it's general, not specific.</p>
<p>People who say "the SAT measures how good you are at the SAT" are also correct, I feel, but only to an extent. Because of the way its designed (with trick questions, tricky wording, wrong answers which are meant to look right, etc), the factor of "being good at the SAT" takes a role, skewing its ability to measure intelligence.</p>
<p>Some people can take the SAT for the first time, with no preparation, and score in the 99th percentile, and others can prepare a lot and score lower. I do not think it's possible for an average scorer to prepare and prepare and prepare enough to achieve, say, a perfect score. It <em>does</em> require some innate ability, and not just "how well you take the SAT".</p>
<p>I <em>do</em> believe that the majority of people here are telling the truth when they post their scores, and I'd also agree that some people here are, as the original poster said, "super geniouses" -- whatever.</p>
<p>whatever that's just my incoherent ramble and 2 cents</p>
<p>I happen to be lucky to be surrounded by very talented and successful people in my family and friends. Getting high sat scores does not necessarily lead straight to success. In fact, most of the time it's the other way around. Many of my friends and relatives have become very wealthy and successful just by putting their talents to their expertise. I have noticed a trend where the people that actually do well on standardized tests are very lazy in most other parts of their life that require work, such as school grades and getting jobs. the people that getting good scores think that they will be successful just by scoring, but that is not true. The actually true successful people, who probably never took the sat in their lives, end up employing those from harvard and other supposedly studious and high-scoring people. That is exactly the case with many of my wealthy acquaintances. As for me, i got a 2050 on my sat, and i am not mad with that. I will retake it, but i have exceptional grades(4.0 uw). However, i am positive that one score is not going to downsize my future success. On the contrary, it's actually going to make me work harder. So, for all of you that think high scoring is going to inevitably lead to your success think again. You will probably be hired by some employer who barely knew what the sat was, but used his business talents to rise in the fast-paced business world. I conclude my arguments.</p>