<p>often we hear of the kids at close to the top of their class rank who don't have the scores to validate their intelligence. it is said of these kids that maybe they just weren't all that smart all along. their academic success is attributed more to hard work.</p>
<p>but where are the stories from kids who did well on those tests but aren't all that smart. there's got to be some of those too, right? i'm not talking about underachievers, they may be underachieving, or they may not be. what they are for certain, however, is <em>not</em> smart, just for one reason or another they did really well on their standardized tests (not cc really well, but general population really well).</p>
<p>is this making sense? that's who i'm meaning this thread to be for. kids like me. so hi guys.</p>
<p>i agree that many kids may not be that smart but can do well on standardized tests. this is only from personal experience that i am currently gaining, actually. i do well in school, but i am also getting tutored for the SAT, and in my opinion, you just have to know the test. i did well on the PSAT because i answered the SAT question of the day and was extremely familiar with the format of the test. therefore, i didn’t waste time reading directions, and i whizzed through most of the questions and ended up with a 204. i’m hoping to get a good score on the SAT as well. as for the essay, i’ve realized that it’s just a formula. if you have a decent intro and conclusion, a few good pieces of evidence including personal experience (which adds ethos, or credibility), good vocabulary, varied sentence structures and lengths, and you analyze the significance of your evidence, you should be good to go. basically all i’m saying is that the tests don’t really measure your degree of intelligence; instead, they measure how well you prepared for the test.</p>
<p>yeah a lot of what is being measured when it comes to the kids who score higher is that, how well they prepared for it. i think that as well. i’m not sure what the statistics are but it’s got to be true that a large fraction of the kids who score really highly do so with the help of studying. sections like writing its often attested are really easy to improve by studying, and i would know, i improved mine loads by reading cc. you just have to be above average and motivated, but by no means noticeably smart to get those questions right once you’ve practiced enough. and math as well can be improved a lot. maybe not as much as the writing part, but if you’re good at arithmetic then there’s basically no limit to how much you can improve your score. some people are just slower with numbers, but what does that really say about their intelligence, there’s plenty of smart kids i envy that suck at adding and multiplying, so i think the SAT is a bit unfair to hold their deficiency in that against them so much when clearly they’ve got academic potential. the only section that might be pretty impervious to gains by practice, and a worthwhile measure of intelligence is the critical reading part i think. true, some people do study all the word lists but that’s a pretty small subset of studiers. and if you can manage a 700 on that and get close to perfect in the other sections by studying, you can end up with a pretty outstanding score while not being smart. that’s essentially what i did. </p>