4 ms·

Practice and study should count for naught, school entrance should be based only on genes?

scarface74 4y ago
You mean “practicing” by having parents who can afford to hire tutors for $100 an hour? As opposed to poorer students who might only be able to get tutoring before school with a class of 30 other people? Of course those courses are offered before the school bus arrives to school so even the one who were able to do that were the ones who had their own cars or parents who could bring them to school. And school entrance is very much based on genes in the most prestigious schools. It’s called “legacy admissions” https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-legacy/ https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-legacy/
- car_analogy 4y ago
  Practice with a tutor is still practice. I'm not sure what you're trying to say - tests where the score can be affected at all with means purchasable by money are less valid than lottery? It's telling that they're asking for quotas, instead of, as you pointed out, an earlier bus to catch college prep classes.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Given my own personal anecdote that I wrote about earlier in the thread, how much easier do you think it was for me “to practice” when I had a parent who not only was high school math teacher, but also volunteered to do SAT tutorials and administered the test than someone who had parents who didn’t even go to college? Yes, she made sure that I didn’t take the test in the room she was monitoring. Let’s also look at the other end and get rid of legacy admissions.
Dylan16807 4y ago
Studying subjects should be worth plenty. That's for your transcript and topic tests to show. But for the SAT specifically, the ideal is that practicing would do nothing.
- car_analogy 4y ago
  I don't think that's true. The SAT has, among others, math questions. And it tests reading comprehension. Reading and math both take practice to learn and improve. This is so well known and obvious, I find it hard to believe such questions would be included if the goal was that practice would not help. But let's suppose that, like for the IQ test, that was the goal. What do we do if we can't perfectly reach that goal? Weaken the test further?
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    > Reading and math both take practice to learn and improve. But that's the thing, the test wants to look at your baseline level. If it was flawless then you wouldn't be able to do any practice that's SAT-specific. > This is so well known and obvious, I find it hard to believe such questions would be included if the goal was that practice would not help. Do you have a better alternative? I don't find it hard to believe that they didn't say "Oh, being perfect on this axis would require magic? Better quit entirely." > What do we do if we can't perfectly reach that goal? Weaken the test further? No...? Nobody suggested weakening the test... Oh, maybe the misunderstanding is when you said "the goal" is that practice would not help. No, that's not "the goal". It's a secondary goal. They wouldn't ruin the test just to dunk on practice. Measuring ability in an exploitable way is the closest they can get to their goals right now.

You mean “practicing” by having parents who can afford to hire tutors for $100 an hour? As opposed to poorer students who might only be able to get tutoring before school with a class of 30 other people? Of course those courses are offered before the school bus arrives to school so even the one who were able to do that were the ones who had their own cars or parents who could bring them to school. And school entrance is very much based on genes in the most prestigious schools. It’s called “legacy admissions” https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-legacy/ https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-legacy/

car_analogy 4y ago
Practice with a tutor is still practice. I'm not sure what you're trying to say - tests where the score can be affected at all with means purchasable by money are less valid than lottery? It's telling that they're asking for quotas, instead of, as you pointed out, an earlier bus to catch college prep classes.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Given my own personal anecdote that I wrote about earlier in the thread, how much easier do you think it was for me “to practice” when I had a parent who not only was high school math teacher, but also volunteered to do SAT tutorials and administered the test than someone who had parents who didn’t even go to college? Yes, she made sure that I didn’t take the test in the room she was monitoring. Let’s also look at the other end and get rid of legacy admissions.

Dylan16807 4y ago

Studying subjects should be worth plenty. That's for your transcript and topic tests to show. But for the SAT specifically, the ideal is that practicing would do nothing.

car_analogy 4y ago
I don't think that's true. The SAT has, among others, math questions. And it tests reading comprehension. Reading and math both take practice to learn and improve. This is so well known and obvious, I find it hard to believe such questions would be included if the goal was that practice would not help. But let's suppose that, like for the IQ test, that was the goal. What do we do if we can't perfectly reach that goal? Weaken the test further?
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  > Reading and math both take practice to learn and improve. But that's the thing, the test wants to look at your baseline level. If it was flawless then you wouldn't be able to do any practice that's SAT-specific. > This is so well known and obvious, I find it hard to believe such questions would be included if the goal was that practice would not help. Do you have a better alternative? I don't find it hard to believe that they didn't say "Oh, being perfect on this axis would require magic? Better quit entirely." > What do we do if we can't perfectly reach that goal? Weaken the test further? No...? Nobody suggested weakening the test... Oh, maybe the misunderstanding is when you said "the goal" is that practice would not help. No, that's not "the goal". It's a secondary goal. They wouldn't ruin the test just to dunk on practice. Measuring ability in an exploitable way is the closest they can get to their goals right now.