6 ms·

I don't know when all of this happened to you, but these days there's no excuse. I just googled for "how to increase my sat score" and the first result was this

by Meekro 4y ago

I don't know when all of this happened to you, but these days there's no excuse. I just googled for "how to increase my sat score" and the first result was this collegeboard.org page[1] called "How to Improve Your SAT Score." It referred me to the Khan Academy's free SAT practice course[2]. [1] https://blog.collegeboard.org/how-to-improve-your-sat-score https://blog.collegeboard.org/how-to-improve-your-sat-score [2] https://www.khanacademy.org/sat/confirmed https://www.khanacademy.org/sat/confirmed

crazygringo 4y ago
Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student that you even can increase your SAT score. That remains non-obvious. After all, IQ tests aren't supposed to be something you can prepare for. So why should the SAT be, if it's this kind of supposedly holistic aptitude test? Why isn't "school overall" all the possible preparation you could do? Again, the difficulty isn't primarily in getting the extra resources. It's in even knowing that it's something extra resources would help with at all. So the idea that there's "no exuse" is awfully judgmental. It's not just what kids don't know -- it's what they don't even know they don't know. You're not going to Google something if you'd never even suspect it existed, and you shouldn't be blamed for that.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  That’s right. And guess who does know that SAT prep is a thing and takes full advantage of it? If you said “rich kids and their parents,” you win the prize.
  - Meekro 4y ago
    Not just the rich. I was an immigrant kid, and knew plenty of other immigrant kids. None of our families had much money, but we all had a do-or-die attitude about education and the SAT. You can bet we all knew about prep options, scholarships, etc. and we milked every advantage for all it was worth.
    - abenga 4y ago
      I think immigrants as a group self-select for "determination to improve" to a certain extent, and probably teach that outlook to their children.
    - nomel 4y ago
      In my public school, the SAT was never discussed during school. Not once, until the test was announced, the week before. No other information, besides “The SAT is next week”. This was after a long stretch of standardized testing that happens in CA schools. It’s definitely something you had to know/find out about, outside of everything. This was in a well off community in California, US.
- Meekro 4y ago
  So what if they call themselves an aptitude test? Believing what it says on the label is naive. I prefer to think of it as Jordan Peterson would say: it's a dragon guarding the treasure you wish to obtain. Your goal is to find a way to slay it. Family money can help, but I can tell you from experience that it's not a requirement. Some kids fully devoted themselves to the slaying of this dragon; others had a more "whatever happens, happens" attitude.
  - dTal 4y ago
    And when schools bring you in to read this comment out to the entire school in the auditorium, perhaps then you may blame the "attitude" of the kids, instead of the (highly class-based) environment they were brought up in.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student that you even can increase your SAT score. If you are a high school student and the possibility of increasing your score doesn't even occur to you, I would suggest that college isn't for you.
  - dTal 4y ago
    Would you study for an IQ test? Perhaps, but then is that fair? If you do, what is actually being measured? Certainly not IQ anymore. Maybe it doesn't occur to students that they should attempt to increase their score because they have a certain innocent model of the world, perhaps one in which they put trust in educational institutions to (as they claim to do) tell them how they should best achieve personal success. If it were a valuable use of their time, surely someone would tell them? Reminder: you are responding to a commenter who is telling you that an offhand comment literally changed their life.
    - patrick451 4y ago
      If an IQ test were required for admission to university or anything else I wanted to do, you're damn right I would study. Why would I care if that is fair or if I corrupt the measurement by studying if increasing my score benefits me? The validity of the measurement is the school's problem, not mine.
      - appletrotter 4y ago
        It seems like you might have a history of applying adaptive behaviors, that is good. How have you avoided maladaptive behaviors, perhaps such as procrastinating or distracting oneself with substance? Do you believe that nature or nurture has played a larger role in your healthy response to environmental pressures?
    - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
      >Would you study for an IQ test? I'd study for any test that was consequential to my future. >Maybe it doesn't occur to students that they should attempt to increase their score In my opinion, if it doesn't occur to someone that they can better their score on any test by studying, then they aren't ready for college. Studying isn't some sort of arcane concept available only to the privileged few. >Reminder: you are responding to a commenter who is telling you that an offhand comment literally changed their life. This is Hacker News, not a struggle session. It isn't disrespectful to tell people they aren't equipped and/or ready for higher education. It is one thing to argue that some people don't have the resources to access study courses, materials or have the free time to do so (due to work requirements or living conditions), it is entirely another thing to suggest that it would never occur to a college candidate that studying for a test would improve their chances of doing well. >because they have a certain innocent model of the world, perhaps one in which they put trust in educational institutions to (as they claim to do) tell them how they should best achieve personal success. If it were a valuable use of their time, surely someone would tell them? Perhaps this comment will inform some potential college-bound student, who has otherwise had their life crippled by a childlike dependence on whatever information (or lack thereof) was spoon-fed to them by incompetent school authorities, that studying will help increase their test scores. That would be a win-win!
- lupire 4y ago
  The SAT stopped calling itself an Aptitude test 29 years ago. If you go to school and you don't presume that your can improve your score on a test by studying, it seems unlikely that you would score high on the SAT anyways.
  - psalminen 4y ago
    As a stubborn, idealistic teenager I refused to do any preparation for the SAT/ACT. I believed that I _should_ be an aptitude test so I treated it as one. Would preparation have been helpful? Most likely. But I was happy with my >2000 score, and felt.lkke.i earned it more by not preparing.
    - FactoryReboot 4y ago
      You earned something more by not working for it? That’s a hot take
      - psalminen 4y ago
        That's a snarky reading of my experience. As an aptitude test, my "working for it" was my seventeen years of learning and developing cognitive skills leading up to the test. Can you, or anyone else, say you learned something beneficial by studying for a standardized test? Was there anything worthwhile about it sans the score?
- presentation 4y ago
  Would that mean that pouring marketing dollars for test prep awareness to low income kids and parents could be an effective intervention?
- kaashif 4y ago
  > Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student that you even can increase your SAT score. Maybe, but this is so far from my experience, I'm having trouble accepting it. There's an important test coming up. Surely the default, baseline assumption must be that you should prepare for it? How could anything else be true? Everyone knows getting some practice in makes you better at something, right? I guess your answers to all of these questions are "no", and I accept that, I'm not arguing, but man, this is weird. I guess there some things the school do (unarguably) need to tell kids: the SAT is coming up and it's important. My impression is that schools don't always do that.
  - positr0n 4y ago
    I had a similar experience as OP. Maybe you can't imagine it because you went to a competitive high school where kids talked a lot about stuff like that? I barely tried and was in the top 1% of my class yet I didn't prepare for the PSAT or SAT that I can recall. Maybe I did do a few practice SAT tests, but it definitely was preached that the SAT was an aptitude test so you couldn't study for it. I ended up getting $60k in scholarships mostly from my PSAT results but at the time I took the test I had no idea what was riding on the results. I thought it was literally just "Practice" SAT.
    - kaashif 4y ago
      > I had a similar experience as OP. Maybe you can't imagine it because you went to a competitive high school where kids talked a lot about stuff like that? The reason I probably can't imagine this stuff is that I grew up in the UK, where exams are exams, and everyone knows you can study for them (even if they don't). The idea of a set of exams being pitched as an aptitude test you can't study for (when in fact you definitely can study for aptitude tests) is weird. I guess children in many public schools in America are being failed on such a basic level - not being told what the tests they're taking mean and whether you can study - that I had no idea. > it definitely was preached that the SAT was an aptitude test so you couldn't study for it. This seems like you were just straight up lied to, and is sad.
      - 4y ago
matai_kolila 4y ago
Cool so when exactly is a student supposed to spend this time to study? I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every aspect of a poor child’s life, because some of what’s being written here is embarrassingly naïve.
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  As someone who grew up super poor, time tends to be one of the only things poor kids have as much of as rich kids. Is that universal? Of course not, but name something better.
  - matai_kolila 4y ago
    My man, if you were poor and had a lot of free time, someone in your life was being a great person to keep you from that effect of poverty. Not all of us were so lucky.
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      Again, I'm not saying my experience is universal, just common among myself and my poor friends and cousins. Time seems to me to be the most equitably distributed resource, but I'd love a counter argument that was more than vague disagreement.
      - matai_kolila 4y ago
        Only on the Internet would someone demand a “counterargument” to support the super basic statement “your life experience wasn’t universal amongst poor people”… Fine [0][1][2][3]. Keep in mind this isn’t some “1+1=2” problem, and people have dedicated their lives to figuring this out, so if you’re looking for a “conclusion” then I don’t recommend human psychology. Let me know if you have any questions, but honestly I’m wary of an attempted trolling on your part so please come honestly and with curiosity. Also this is not my area of expertise, and you’ll likely get a better understanding of this very complex issue if you look into this on your own. At best I can be (and frankly am only interested in being) a starting point. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/the-most-powerful-thing-we-could-give-poor-kids-is-completely-free/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/the-m... [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/20734446 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20734446 [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/10/24/3-ways-to-close-the-play-gap-between-rich-and-poor-kids/?sh=734a645d1233 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/10/24/3-ways... [3] https://talkpoverty.org/2017/06/01/matters-poor-kids-dont-time-play/ https://talkpoverty.org/2017/06/01/matters-poor-kids-dont-ti...

by Meekro 4y ago

crazygringo 4y ago

Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student that you even can increase your SAT score. That remains non-obvious. After all, IQ tests aren't supposed to be something you can prepare for. So why should the SAT be, if it's this kind of supposedly holistic aptitude test? Why isn't "school overall" all the possible preparation you could do? Again, the difficulty isn't primarily in getting the extra resources. It's in even knowing that it's something extra resources would help with at all. So the idea that there's "no exuse" is awfully judgmental. It's not just what kids don't know -- it's what they don't even know they don't know. You're not going to Google something if you'd never even suspect it existed, and you shouldn't be blamed for that.

actually_a_dog 4y ago
That’s right. And guess who does know that SAT prep is a thing and takes full advantage of it? If you said “rich kids and their parents,” you win the prize.
- Meekro 4y ago
  Not just the rich. I was an immigrant kid, and knew plenty of other immigrant kids. None of our families had much money, but we all had a do-or-die attitude about education and the SAT. You can bet we all knew about prep options, scholarships, etc. and we milked every advantage for all it was worth.
  - abenga 4y ago
    I think immigrants as a group self-select for "determination to improve" to a certain extent, and probably teach that outlook to their children.
  - nomel 4y ago
    In my public school, the SAT was never discussed during school. Not once, until the test was announced, the week before. No other information, besides “The SAT is next week”. This was after a long stretch of standardized testing that happens in CA schools. It’s definitely something you had to know/find out about, outside of everything. This was in a well off community in California, US.
Meekro 4y ago
So what if they call themselves an aptitude test? Believing what it says on the label is naive. I prefer to think of it as Jordan Peterson would say: it's a dragon guarding the treasure you wish to obtain. Your goal is to find a way to slay it. Family money can help, but I can tell you from experience that it's not a requirement. Some kids fully devoted themselves to the slaying of this dragon; others had a more "whatever happens, happens" attitude.
- dTal 4y ago
  And when schools bring you in to read this comment out to the entire school in the auditorium, perhaps then you may blame the "attitude" of the kids, instead of the (highly class-based) environment they were brought up in.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student that you even can increase your SAT score. If you are a high school student and the possibility of increasing your score doesn't even occur to you, I would suggest that college isn't for you.
- dTal 4y ago
  Would you study for an IQ test? Perhaps, but then is that fair? If you do, what is actually being measured? Certainly not IQ anymore. Maybe it doesn't occur to students that they should attempt to increase their score because they have a certain innocent model of the world, perhaps one in which they put trust in educational institutions to (as they claim to do) tell them how they should best achieve personal success. If it were a valuable use of their time, surely someone would tell them? Reminder: you are responding to a commenter who is telling you that an offhand comment literally changed their life.
  - patrick451 4y ago
    If an IQ test were required for admission to university or anything else I wanted to do, you're damn right I would study. Why would I care if that is fair or if I corrupt the measurement by studying if increasing my score benefits me? The validity of the measurement is the school's problem, not mine.
    - appletrotter 4y ago
      It seems like you might have a history of applying adaptive behaviors, that is good. How have you avoided maladaptive behaviors, perhaps such as procrastinating or distracting oneself with substance? Do you believe that nature or nurture has played a larger role in your healthy response to environmental pressures?
  - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    >Would you study for an IQ test? I'd study for any test that was consequential to my future. >Maybe it doesn't occur to students that they should attempt to increase their score In my opinion, if it doesn't occur to someone that they can better their score on any test by studying, then they aren't ready for college. Studying isn't some sort of arcane concept available only to the privileged few. >Reminder: you are responding to a commenter who is telling you that an offhand comment literally changed their life. This is Hacker News, not a struggle session. It isn't disrespectful to tell people they aren't equipped and/or ready for higher education. It is one thing to argue that some people don't have the resources to access study courses, materials or have the free time to do so (due to work requirements or living conditions), it is entirely another thing to suggest that it would never occur to a college candidate that studying for a test would improve their chances of doing well. >because they have a certain innocent model of the world, perhaps one in which they put trust in educational institutions to (as they claim to do) tell them how they should best achieve personal success. If it were a valuable use of their time, surely someone would tell them? Perhaps this comment will inform some potential college-bound student, who has otherwise had their life crippled by a childlike dependence on whatever information (or lack thereof) was spoon-fed to them by incompetent school authorities, that studying will help increase their test scores. That would be a win-win!
lupire 4y ago
The SAT stopped calling itself an Aptitude test 29 years ago. If you go to school and you don't presume that your can improve your score on a test by studying, it seems unlikely that you would score high on the SAT anyways.
- psalminen 4y ago
  As a stubborn, idealistic teenager I refused to do any preparation for the SAT/ACT. I believed that I _should_ be an aptitude test so I treated it as one. Would preparation have been helpful? Most likely. But I was happy with my >2000 score, and felt.lkke.i earned it more by not preparing.
  - FactoryReboot 4y ago
    You earned something more by not working for it? That’s a hot take
    - psalminen 4y ago
      That's a snarky reading of my experience. As an aptitude test, my "working for it" was my seventeen years of learning and developing cognitive skills leading up to the test. Can you, or anyone else, say you learned something beneficial by studying for a standardized test? Was there anything worthwhile about it sans the score?
presentation 4y ago
Would that mean that pouring marketing dollars for test prep awareness to low income kids and parents could be an effective intervention?
kaashif 4y ago
> Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student that you even can increase your SAT score. Maybe, but this is so far from my experience, I'm having trouble accepting it. There's an important test coming up. Surely the default, baseline assumption must be that you should prepare for it? How could anything else be true? Everyone knows getting some practice in makes you better at something, right? I guess your answers to all of these questions are "no", and I accept that, I'm not arguing, but man, this is weird. I guess there some things the school do (unarguably) need to tell kids: the SAT is coming up and it's important. My impression is that schools don't always do that.
- positr0n 4y ago
  I had a similar experience as OP. Maybe you can't imagine it because you went to a competitive high school where kids talked a lot about stuff like that? I barely tried and was in the top 1% of my class yet I didn't prepare for the PSAT or SAT that I can recall. Maybe I did do a few practice SAT tests, but it definitely was preached that the SAT was an aptitude test so you couldn't study for it. I ended up getting $60k in scholarships mostly from my PSAT results but at the time I took the test I had no idea what was riding on the results. I thought it was literally just "Practice" SAT.
  - kaashif 4y ago
    > I had a similar experience as OP. Maybe you can't imagine it because you went to a competitive high school where kids talked a lot about stuff like that? The reason I probably can't imagine this stuff is that I grew up in the UK, where exams are exams, and everyone knows you can study for them (even if they don't). The idea of a set of exams being pitched as an aptitude test you can't study for (when in fact you definitely can study for aptitude tests) is weird. I guess children in many public schools in America are being failed on such a basic level - not being told what the tests they're taking mean and whether you can study - that I had no idea. > it definitely was preached that the SAT was an aptitude test so you couldn't study for it. This seems like you were just straight up lied to, and is sad.
    - 4y ago

matai_kolila 4y ago

Cool so when exactly is a student supposed to spend this time to study? I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every aspect of a poor child’s life, because some of what’s being written here is embarrassingly naïve.

BobbyJo 4y ago
As someone who grew up super poor, time tends to be one of the only things poor kids have as much of as rich kids. Is that universal? Of course not, but name something better.
- matai_kolila 4y ago
  My man, if you were poor and had a lot of free time, someone in your life was being a great person to keep you from that effect of poverty. Not all of us were so lucky.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    Again, I'm not saying my experience is universal, just common among myself and my poor friends and cousins. Time seems to me to be the most equitably distributed resource, but I'd love a counter argument that was more than vague disagreement.
    - matai_kolila 4y ago
      Only on the Internet would someone demand a “counterargument” to support the super basic statement “your life experience wasn’t universal amongst poor people”… Fine [0][1][2][3]. Keep in mind this isn’t some “1+1=2” problem, and people have dedicated their lives to figuring this out, so if you’re looking for a “conclusion” then I don’t recommend human psychology. Let me know if you have any questions, but honestly I’m wary of an attempted trolling on your part so please come honestly and with curiosity. Also this is not my area of expertise, and you’ll likely get a better understanding of this very complex issue if you look into this on your own. At best I can be (and frankly am only interested in being) a starting point. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/the-most-powerful-thing-we-could-give-poor-kids-is-completely-free/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/the-m... [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/20734446 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20734446 [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/10/24/3-ways-to-close-the-play-gap-between-rich-and-poor-kids/?sh=734a645d1233 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/10/24/3-ways... [3] https://talkpoverty.org/2017/06/01/matters-poor-kids-dont-time-play/ https://talkpoverty.org/2017/06/01/matters-poor-kids-dont-ti...