Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/21/2002 09:18:00 PM (Archive Link)
An article I read on NationalReview.com discusses the current revamp of the SAT test and they’ve had a number of other pieces railing against the tests’ critics. Frankly, though, I think the SAT is a flop. Although not for the usual reasons given about how its design and questions are discriminatory. I simply don’t think it’s an accurate gauge of intelligence or future college performance. For a while, I taught SAT training classes for The Princeton Review and so I got to know the test rather well. I ultimately came to the conclusion that the SAT tests nothing except for how well you can take the SAT. With a little personal application, most students can easily raise their scores 200-400 points just by learning certain test-taking strategies. They don’t actually learn anything new or meaningful, they just learn how to more effectively take this particular test, the SAT… what types of math problems are used, how to solve them, what to do for the verbal problems, how to do better in the reading sections. You also teach them how the test is specifically designed to make them miss problems and not to test what they know.

I also find it interesting that the test has its roots in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, and the test’s founder, Carl Brigham, ardently resisted the efforts of those who wanted to turn the small scale Ivy League test into a nationwide test. As the Bathroom Reader puts it (it sounds like a dumb book... well, actually, it's a series of books... but it's stuffed full of fun trivia which is nice for useless trivia buffs like myself), “He worried that if a national testing agency were established, it would inevitably become more interested in promoting and defending the test than it would be in questioning whether the test really was as effective as advertised.” Brigham’s resistance was successful… for awhile... however, in 1943 he died. The SAT’s nationwide administrator, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) was up and running by 1948 and Brigham’s fears came true. For him, the SAT was an experimental thing to be constantly examined and looked at. For others, though, it was a meal ticket. Keep in mind that ETS is a commercial entity. As such, their main interests are in profits and they will preserve and expand their profits wherever and however possible. They care little for how effective the test actually is. If you want to learn more about the SAT's origin and history, check out Nicholas Lehman’s book, The Big Test.

So, no, I don’t like the SAT. And I’m not thrilled about the recent revamp they’ve come up with either. Instead of having objectivity on a large scale, they’ve added subjectivity on a large scale and just added some other new stuff and taken away some old stuff. Same crap, different smell. The problem I run into, though, is that I cannot yet think of a good alternative.