<p>SAT and ACT scores are unreliable ways to test intelligence. Not everyone is a good test taker and some kids get private tutors just for these tests! When a test has scores based on a bell curve, almost 60% of test takers get between a 400 and 600 on each section. Additionally only the top 2% score in the 700-800 range. You really can’t go by your personal standards on this one, it’s statistics.</p>
<p>“SAT and ACT scores are unreliable ways to test intelligence. Not everyone is a good test taker and some kids get private tutors just for these tests! When a test has scores based on a bell curve, almost 60% of test takers get between a 400 and 600 on each section. Additionally only the top 2% score in the 700-800 range. You really can’t go by your personal standards on this one, it’s statistics.”</p>
<p>Exactly! My daughter scored a 28 on the ACT and is an excellent student. My BF’s daughter will be a senior in HS and has never had less than an A on her report card, however, she freaks out when she takes standardized tests, hence her mid 20’s ACT score. </p>
<p>Overall intelligence isn’t defined by an ACT or SAT score, and it certainlyl can’t be defined by a person’s GPA. I know many people who scored high on the ACT and were solid A students who have zero common sense and/or social skills, they seem destined to work in a back office somewhere.</p>
<p>You really don’t understand standard scores, do you? It’s not a straight “# of questions correct”=700 (or whatever)–the formula for deriving scores is normed so 700 will represent the top X% of test takers, 500 will represent the 50th percentile, etc That allows for better cross-student/location/time comparisons. I’m certain the SAT/ACT are re-normed periodically to keep the standard scores as representative of their percentiles as possible, just as intelligence tests are. That could mean it is now comparatively “harder” or “easier” to get X score than it was before–as far as I know, Collegeboard/ACT doesn’t release their norming data, so who knows? Of course, you can sometimes get a ceiling effect, even on standard scores (see: Quantative GRE scores), but there’s a lot of selection issues coming into play there that aren’t nearly as pronounced with the ACT/SAT, I’d guess. </p>
<p>As for the comparison with other countries, as others have mentioned, selection bias is very likely–non-equivalent groups.</p>
<p>I’m not saying the SAT/ACT are “perfect” tests by any degree of imagination, but they are normed.</p>
<p>Mom2 there are several states where all juniors take the ACT. Not sure if there are any states that require the SAT of all juniors. Regardless the OP doesn’t totally understand how these tests are scored and agree neither test is perfect nor reflects intelligence in the purest sense of the word nor reflects who will achieve in college.</p>
<p>The argument by the OP can be likened to someone declaring that on any given test scoring at the 50th percent is the same as scoring at the 50th percentile.</p>
<p>I have a friend who used to work for ETS and she once told us over several glasses of wine that the test is getting easier but the average scores are not really getting higher. In other words, the population is getting dumber, or at least less educated.</p>
<p>So much concern over teacher quality, I wish someone would make a Waiting for Superman over curriculum quality.</p>
<p>This site is highly skewed toward the top 25% of kids. I know none of my daughters friends come on here and their composite scores? 22-21-24 - average. They are not stupid, they will go to college and have pretty good lives. </p>
<p>It is ok.</p>
<p>These tests are not intended to determine a student’s absolute level of intelligence, they are designed to differentiate cognitive ability between students so that colleges can get an idea of the relative abilities of different applicants. While it probably is not possible to make a test so easy that everyone would get a 2400, I am pretty sure ETS could make up a test that is difficult enough to result in everyone getting a 600. However tests of this nature would be of little value since they would not differentiate students into ability levels which is what college admissions departments need.</p>
<p>And most people don’t study. Also many people don’t care. I moved up 10 points from the first practice test I took. Most people don’t take a practice test and are thrown off by time limits, etc.</p>
<p>There are many smart kids that don’t score near 2000 on the SAT. Many don’t study, some just a little. </p>
<p>Anything below 2000 bad? A 660 on any section is “bad”…really?</p>
<p>By definition if a test is curved you are competing with other test takers. This is true for the SAT, ACT, and AP tests. These are the only national comparisons we have in the USA, as grades from different schools are harder to compare.</p>
<p>The population is not getting dumber, as someone suggested. More are taking standardized tests and many more are taking the APs. Some who would not have contemplated college in days of yore are doing it now. This sends the curve slightly southwards. Being at the top X% of a tighter self-selective curve meant something different in the 1940s than it does in the 20tens.</p>
<p>By definition the middle will be the middle. It’s the middle of who else was in the pool with you.</p>
<p>SAT scores are not adjusted so that score X is always the Yth percentile. The scores are adjusted so that a 500 on a 2009 SAT and a 500 on a 2011 SAT correspond to the same skill level. Otherwise, the test has no claim to being standardized at all. If a particularly strong group of students happened to take the test, the average and median scores would be higher and percentiles would not be preserved. If a group of bonobos were to take the test, the average/median scores would be lower and again the score for a given percentile would change.</p>
<p>In the early 1940s, the SATs were in fact scaled to have an average of 500 among all test takers (with a standard deviation of 100). Over the course of the next 50 years, until the test was recentered in 1994, average scores (and 50th percentiles) drifted down quite significantly.</p>
<p>Now, I understand everyone’s arguments, however, I can argue that a higher test score also usually should have a correlation between grades and the scores. The tests force the test takes to be more meticulous with their answer choices. Considering the fact that a -6 on math is 30 while the test has 60 questions; now, that would be considered a 90% on a test. It is understandable that 20 is a norm if that means that is around 70% right. I realize that students that make straight A’s tend to be very diligent and on their toes. Where as a C student would be more nonchalant. The actual math is actually basic algebra and geometry with some principles of trigonometry put in, but that is taught in geometry. The tests measure how careful you are; the more wrong, the lower the score. It does not measure intelligence; I agree. They are flawed tests; I agree.</p>
<p>I should have said more clearly that scores are standardized via a reference point. It can–and does–inflate or deflate somewhat with time, but a score of X should always equate roughly to X percentile. A score of 700 should never be 60th percentile, for example, nor a score of 500 98th or 25th.</p>
<p>fignewton, do you know the percentage of high-schoolers who even took the SAT in the 1940s?
I mean, as compared to this decade?
The world and our country is changing. But statistics can be what Mark Twain is said to have called them.</p>
<p>This report is strange, males historically score better than females in math, while females beat out males in writing … our education system needs to encourage females to take more sciences.</p>
<p>Another clear trend I saw was that higher income = higher scores, and foreign students destroy SAT math</p>
<p>Yes, OP, the US is a nation of dummies, and that’s no doubt why the CC forums are full of posts from enlightened international students who want to come here to go to college - and expect full rides in the process. </p>
<p>Sheesh… </p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
<p>I agree that the OP seems to be confusing “being at the 50th percentile” as the same as scoring a 50% on an exam (which is an F).</p>
<p>I think that the SAT IIs are a better example of what percentile means. Someone who scores a 700 on the SAT II for Math level 2 has a score that is in the 65th percentile…but that only means that of all the very smart kids that take the SAT II math lvl 2, 35% scored better. But, that doesn’t mean that he’s dumb at all.</p>
<p>Look at the percentiles for SAT II Chinese!!! If you score an 800, you’re only in the 57 percentile because 43% of your fellow test-takers did super well on the test - just like you did.</p>
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<p>So true, LOL!!!</p>
<p>Yea, the scores are pretty sad.</p>