That's the average, which tells us nothing about the distribution. If you're looking at the top n% of scores, the distribution is important. Furthermore, those

That's the average, which tells us nothing about the distribution. If you're looking at the top n% of scores, the distribution is important. Furthermore, those studies weren't looking at kids who were prepping for 2 hours a day like many kids with perfect and near perfect scores are doing. Also here's a study from 2017 that shows an average gain of 115 points with only 20 hours of practice (plus 16,000 students who gained more than 200 points). https://www.collegeboard.org/releases/2017/average-score-gains-on-redesigned-sat https://www.collegeboard.org/releases/2017/average-score-gai... Another issue is that scores have gone up dramatically over the last 20 years, so given that and the fact that Asian American kids are so overwhelmingly dominant, I think preparation being a major factor is the most likely explanation.