Aren't the tests just a level bureaucratic BS?
Aren't they totally useless other than to provide jobs for educrats and other flotsam?
Aren't the tests just a level bureaucratic BS?
Aren't they totally useless other than to provide jobs for educrats and other flotsam?
You'll be OK. Just study harder next time and you'll be fine when you retake them.
Hey Longview, I'll take fries with that shake, too!
The ACT's and the SAT's are incredibly good measures both of what one has learned and one's intelligence. And college and university admissions officials look at them quite strenuously, unless of course you can throw a football, shoot a basketball. Even diversity students need a quality score on their tests, as the student populations become more and more diverse. If you took them and did poorly, go to the library and take out some study exams, and re-do them.
I tend to agree with you. In a way taking them successfully is just one of the many completely pointless flaming hoops that you're forced to jump through to succeed.
As opposed to just letting anybody with a GED enroll in college and continue with their lack of interest and dedication to learning and waste teachers time.
in college admissions, standardized tests are one of many criteria, but equal or second in importance to grades. they certainly do not correlate with college grades as well as high school grades alone or hs grades plus tests, but i'm thankful as hell that they're used, because without them I wasn't going to get into elite colleges. I'd like to see more emphasis on national examinations of the order of the british or french systems, where the exams are standardized but require knowledge of subject material. that program would accentuate differences between good and bad high schools, so you would still want to add in the non-content based standardized tests, like the sat.
Depends how much you concern yourself with school choice. If you're happy to go to a decent state school for undergrad and potentially graduate work, then SATs are pretty much worthless unless you do really poorly.
Actually the SAT's are a load of crap. You can't measure everyone on a single scale. People are good at different things. It would be like if you were trying to fill all the members of a symphony by having everyone give a violin recital. Good luck finding a good trumpet player.
The trouble is that too many people have bought into it, so unless you are applying to a college that doesn't require it (like the California State Schools), you are SOL. If you have money, you can pay for coaching on how to beat the test. If you don't have money, again you are SOL.
They are a good indicator of how well you take standardized tests.
They are not a good indicator of college grades, and certainly not success in life.
Studies have been done that show a high correlation between IQ and SAT scores. Although you can argue IQ is flawed, it at least bears consideration.
yet another legit site linking SAT scores to IQ...
and no, this is not an illusory correlation - the r-squared value of the two variables is very close to 1.
It annoys me that people are trying to justify their idiocy by claiming that the whole system is f***ed up.
The SAT predict how will you do in college, provided you give college the same effort you gave the SAT s.
Getting into a good college doesn't mean anything anyway. Its got nothing do with how you do post-college. Know lots of kids who graduated good colleges who are worthless.
Went to Columbia and it blew. worse decision ever
Care to guess the common factor between high IQ and high SAT scores?
http://encyclopedia.adoption.com/entry/intelligence/188/1.html
Actually the SAT and IQ are based on the same studies that date back to initial psychological tests developed by Charles Spearman in 1909. Of course they corellate to each other because they use the same scale to measure people. This doesn't mean that they are relevent. Whether or not they measure intelligence is highly debatable.
Stephen Jay Gould debunked Spearman's studies in his book 'The Mismeasure of Man'. I highly recommend it.
Yes there is a corellation between the SAT and college freshman grades for caucasian students, but poor corellation for other groups.
Long view wrote:
Aren't the tests just a level bureaucratic BS?
Aren't they totally useless other than to provide jobs for educrats and other flotsam?
I think this belongs on the DYESTAT pit pages.
Actually wrote:Actually the SAT's are a load of crap. You can't measure everyone on a single scale. People are good at different things.
Completely irrelevant.
The SATs (or any other standardized test) don't measure the person. They measure a skill set and knowledge possessed by that person. Being good at riding a unicycle is nice, but it has nothing to with your qualifications to be a pre-med major in college. How well you understand chemistry, biology and math and how well you can problem solve, on the other hand, has everything to do with it.
There are other places in the application/interview process to highlight your badass unicycle skills.
I have no qualms with the Achievement Tests which measure areas such as chemistry, biology, etc. Those are completely relevent and important to the process. I agree that tests to measure knowledge are relevent to success in a specific academic field, just as tests that measure skills are relevent to success on a job.
That's not the SAT. The SAT was the "Scholastic Aptitude Test". It was built to be a cognitive test that would measure the ability of an individual to do well in college across all fields. That's where the problem lies, because it is impossible to predict across all fields.
Actually wrote:That's not the SAT. The SAT was the "Scholastic Aptitude Test". It was built to be a cognitive test that would measure the ability of an individual to do well in college across all fields. That's where the problem lies, because it is impossible to predict across all fields.
Not true.
The correlation coefficient of SAT performance to college grades is about +.40 (I've seen numbers from +.38 to +.42). Not a huge correlation, to be sure, but enough to be a useful tool when included with other methods of evaluation (grades, letters of recommendation, achievement in other fields, etc.)
Extremists always want to claim that the SAT is either completely worthless or the be all, end all of evaluations. It's neither. It's one of several useful tools of evaluation, nothing more, nothing less.
Long view wrote:
Aren't the tests just a level bureaucratic BS?
Aren't they totally useless other than to provide jobs for educrats and other flotsam?
Not saying you're in this boat brother, but it's been my experience that the people who complain about standardized tests are the ones who did poorly on them, so whatever you do, don't for a second think you're being witty or profound by questioning them (not saying this to rip you but rather to spare you embarrassment in the future). If you're at a party and you bring this up about SAT scores, the ONLY thing people will think is that you did poorly on the SAT. They WON'T be thinking, "wow, what a forward-thinking, creative, and brilliant person that guy is." If you've never ever believed anything Flagpole Willy has ever said, believe this, because it is the truth Ruth.
Sometimes you've got hoops to jump through in life (job interviews, 30-day job performance review after a hire, etc.). Get used to it.
Zat0pek wrote:
Completely irrelevant.
The SATs (or any other standardized test) don't measure the person. They measure a skill set and knowledge possessed by that person. Being good at riding a unicycle is nice, but it has nothing to with your qualifications to be a pre-med major in college. How well you understand chemistry, biology and math and how well you can problem solve, on the other hand, has everything to do with it.
There are other places in the application/interview process to highlight your badass unicycle skills.
Actually, I disagree. The SATs are a great preparation for college. They are an assignment that you have to do that will have little relevance to your final profession...just like most university course assignments.