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> People who need a paid tutor to help them with the SAT are not learning the lessons they should. No, but I'm sure it helps boost scores among people who don'
by Bartweiss 10y ago
> People who need a paid tutor to help them with the SAT are not learning the lessons they should.
No, but I'm sure it helps boost scores among people who don't want to study.
I think this is undervalued as a way wealth/class perpetuate themselves. A $30 SAT study book is enough to boost your score if you're self-motivated and good at studying, but being forced to sit down with a $3,000 tutor can drag your score up even if you don't have any study skills or motivation at all.
- BeetleB 10y ago>No, but I'm sure it helps boost scores among people who don't want to study. And this is not to be encouraged, which is my point. There is nothing to envy about someone who does not want to study and is compensating by throwing money at the problem. Most of these people will do poorly at some point in college (well, at least the non-highly-ranked one I went to).
- Bartweiss 10y agoOk, fair point. It's not that being unmotivated should be encouraged, it's that you can get away with it much better if you're wealthy. I guess the question here is whether we want the SAT to be resource-blind. If you come from a rich enough family (and damn have I seen this happen), you can throw money at low motivation all the way through college. Take 8 years, pay summer tuition, hire tutors, whatever. So the SAT is an accurate reflection of future prospects in that sense, but people arguing it should reflect personal attributes instead of whole-culture odds of success aren't going to be pleased about it.