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SAT / ACT are basically IQ tests. Grades are far more fuzzy but generally show an ability to stick with something over the long term and execute on projects. I

SAT / ACT are basically IQ tests. Grades are far more fuzzy but generally show an ability to stick with something over the long term and execute on projects. I think both are important to being successful. Ignoring one for the other is probably bad. That said I prefer IQ over grades.

skizm 4y ago
Very much disagree. Lazy genius is useless. Hard working, low IQ gets stuff done. Obviously hard working genius is ideal. But without the ability to focus on longer term goals, which grades is an indicator of more so than test scores, your high IQ means nothing.
- candiodari 4y ago
  I would argue it very, very much matters what you're trying to do. If you're harvesting apples, then sure. Hard working beats IQ. Hell, IQ is a handicap, not a plus. If you're doing research, you have the other side of the spectrum, IQ beats everything, and hard work can actually prevent you from finding solutions.
  - prepend 4y ago
    Research is lots of hard work. There’s a minimum level of intelligence needed, but I’d rather have an acceptable intelligence+hard worker as a collaborator than a genius+slacker. There aren’t many Archimedes out there and most research is the result of lots of labor.
    - maximus-decimus 4y ago
      How do you define "acceptable intelligence"? By their ability to better a lazy genius? I don't really see a non-tautological way to define "acceptable intelligence"
      - prepend 4y ago
        What I meant is that intelligence is required to complete the required education, design studies, carry them out, etc. It’s some level but not genius.
        candiodari 4y ago
        This sort of idea ... I get it, but it runs stuck on what exactly "acceptable intelligence" is. That would be the sort of intelligence 99% or more of the population doesn't have. Also at some level "I'd rather have" becomes pointless. Choices are usually 1 individual, or waiting 6 months to a year. I don't know if we're in a bubble but I've seen the same in biochemistry research and computer research: academics take everyone they possibly can, because master or above and they will get an unbeatable offer from a huge company very soon.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Good thing SAT scores also measure hard work, planning, and follow up. You can improve your scores significantly with the hard work of a few hours and checking out a sample test or prep book at your local library or school
rogers18445 4y ago
SAT/ACT are basically poor IQ tests, because study for them results in heavily loading onto memory aspect of IQ but unloading on some others somewhat. Ideally, you would want an IQ test and the 'Big Five' personality traits. The latter though can be annoying to get. I have seen some firms get very good results by basically using a disguised IQ test, there are some firms that basically compose the tests, give them to 1000s of people and perform the factor analysis to extract IQ from the test, then contract the the test out for hiring departments. Some of those tests are pretty creative in that most people wouldn't know they were taking an IQ test.
- beaned 4y ago
  Before people state strong assumptions one way or the other, have there ever been any studies that measured the relationship between test scores and IQ? If so, what did they say?
  - rogers18445 4y ago
    Yes. If you look you will find published literature on the subject. The plots plotting SAT/ACT and IQ will have an obvious trend but be very noisy. Hence why they are poor IQ tests, you can have a decent guess at someone's IQ based on their test results but it's not ideal.
  - maximus-decimus 4y ago
    The whole point of IQ tests at the very beginning was to predict how well you can do academically. Technically every test is an IQ test.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    It’s an IQ test. Not a culture fair one, like Raven’s Progressive Matrices, but it’s as much an IQ test as coarse, quick and dirty one like Wonderlic is. > Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the scholastic assessment test and general cognitive ability > There is little evidence showing the relationship between the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and g (general intelligence). This research established the relationship between SAT and g, as well as the appropriateness of the SAT as a measure of g, and examined the SAT as a premorbid measure of intelligence. In Study 1, we used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Measures of g were extracted from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and correlated with SAT scores of 917 participants. The resulting correlation was .82 (.86 corrected for nonlinearity). Study 2 investigated the correlation between revised and recentered SAT scores and scores on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices among 104 undergraduates. The resulting correlation was .483 (.72 corrected for restricted range). These studies indicate that the SAT is mainly a test of g. We provide equations for converting SAT scores to estimated IQs; such conversion could be useful for estimating premorbid IQ or conducting individual difference research with college students. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00687.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.200...
ransom1538 4y ago
"That said I prefer IQ over grades." The evil in this is: Your IQ doesn't change. So, have the the children take an IQ test at age 10, then just setup their college admissions right there. Deny kids that don't have the right IQ. No need to bother with GPAs or "trying".
- maximus-decimus 4y ago
  I mean, it's the logic I used to decide not to pursue a career in professional basketball as someone of below average height. Do you think encouraging short people to pursue a career in basketball is productive in any way? If you're 10 years old and have a below average IQ, don't bother aiming for a PHD at MIT in atrophysics.
majormajor 4y ago
I lost points on the SAT for mixing up 2 pi r and pi r^2 - left out the 2 for the former. (That's the one that stands out as a duh, I knew better, one - I forget what else I missed.) There were also a LOT of analogies. I've read that those have been removed, I dunno how the math section is, but both of those were much more "knowing things" than innate intelligence. Grades tend to require both "knowing things" and longer-term discipline; I could see where that would be advantageous. Grades have a disadvantage of A's being way too common, though - no resolution at the top of the scale.
NERD_ALERT 4y ago
SAT/ACT measure how good you are at following rules and how much time/money you have to go to tutors and study 1000 page textbooks outlining specific strategies to maximize your score.
- majormajor 4y ago
  Anything you can prep for - grades included - is going to trend towards being largely influenced by "who has the most time and money." I don't have any good ideas to get away from that.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > who has the most time and money Or what matters most - who is willing to put in the effort. You already have 6 hours a day in high school. Don't need more time than that. As for money, that's not needed either. Your high school math books will do. There's also the public library, the Kahn Academy, youtube, etc.
  - lumost 4y ago
    Having a more centered economic distribution amongst children is a good one. It is non-sensical and anti-meritocratic to have a large enough skew amongst child starting positions as to render meritocratic testing irrelevant. It's possible our declining academic performance is simply another artifact of rising inequality.
    - solveit 4y ago
      Yes, let's solve the problem of skewed student assessment by solving inequality. Your solution is far less tractable than the problem!
      - lumost 4y ago
        Or is it? we generally know how to solve inequality - we don't know how to solve student assessment. Higher taxes and rising inflation/interest rates reduce inequality.
thrown_22 4y ago
IQ tests show the ability to sit down and do pointless tasks which an authority figure has told you are meaningful and you must guess what that authority figure wants you to do. Extremely valuable skills for white collar drones. Completely meaningless as a measure of actual intelligence though.
- rafaelero 4y ago
- tdba 4y ago
  IQ is the most reliable and most valid measure of general intelligence we have been able to come up with. It is good enough for many clinical purposes, eg assessing brain damage, and also just so happens to correlate very strongly with just about every "life outcome" you can think of. Does it measure everything imaginable about human intelligence? No. But it measures what we actually know about very well. To call it completely meaningless is absurd.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    You should reread what I said.
    - tdba 4y ago
      Be specific.
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        The ability to do boring arbitrary tasks is much more strongly correlated with the measures that IQ proponents cite as proof it's a meaningful measure than with whatever they mean by intelligence. We could get the same results by forcing people to complete white noise patterns and seeing how long it takes them to quit.
        4y ago
picture 4y ago
I think a major counter point is how these tests can be improved upon individually without much improvement over other subjects. The first time I took the SAT, I went in totally blind and got 1320, a few months later, with a bit more practice with pre existing precalc, I was able to get 1490. I also had many classmate report similar trends of their score increasing as the number of retakes increases.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are. As I recall the SAT many years ago, there were definitely question forms like X:Y as A:? which rely on vocabulary to some degree but may also be hard (or at least take some extra time) if the form is unfamiliar. Also even a surface-level understanding of some areas of math you realize you sort of didn't really get can be useful. So with that fairly modest knowledge and refresh, you got what's a possibly useful but also relatively modest uptick.
  - LanceH 4y ago
    Don't discount the bump from understanding the pacing and difficulty of the exam. You might have 25 questions in 30 minutes for a math section. Understanding that which sections are easy and which are hard allows a student who has seen the exam before to allocate their time more efficiently.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Sure. And even taking the test once under real live conditions is probably beneficial to complement a bit of study. Just as really giving a presentation to even a few people almost certainly beats just mentally walking through it in your head. Obviously you can try to create a real simulation but it's probably not the same thing.
  - picture 4y ago
    The increase from 1320 to 1490 is pretty significant when it comes to college rankings. Although 1490 isn't anything stellar, it's the top 10 or 5 percent at my school. My main point was just the fact that, by paying collegeboard more money for more retakes, your score will increase. The SAT doesn't seem like a great indicator of anything besides one's ability to perform on the SAT
Maursault 4y ago
> Grades are far more fuzzy but generally show an ability to stick with something over the long term and execute on projects. What grades show is how well the student presented what the teacher wanted returned. Generally, but not always, students that are more intelligent than their teachers and may even have a better grasp of the subject don't receive the highest grades. Grades are about obedience, not learning. The "best" students are children of teachers.
Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
> That said I prefer IQ over grades. Why would any rational individual take an IQ test? IQ cannot be changed and whatever outcome doesn't change your course of action, being the fact that you have to work hard. Low IQ: Gotta work hard High IQ: Gotta work hard
- majormajor 4y ago
  Have you taken one? It certainly felt like the kind of test that could be improved with practice. Not as easily as the SAT, sure, but certain patterns seemed to appear, in a way I bet I could prep for. I haven't tested that hypothesis, but if anyone wants to fund me to take a bunch over the next year... let me know ;) (Why did I take it in the first place? Curiosity. Maybe also a bit of vanity. "Rationality" seems like a false idol to focus purely on in general, for decisions.)
  - gizmo686 4y ago
    IQ has a map/territory problem as well. The theory is that you have some underlying IQ, and the test is a tool to determine what your IQ is. It is well established that practice can improve your score on an IQ test. However, that does not imply an improvement in your underlying IQ.
    - chongli 4y ago
      Close. Improving your score on an IQ test does improve your IQ. Your IQ is literally that score. What it does not improve is g, your underlying general intelligence.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    IQ scores do change over time, largely as a function of curiosity and conscientiousness. You could be a genius toddler but if you fail to learn, your IQ continually diminish relative to your peers
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    I've taken at least 5 over the course of my life. Possibly a 6th that I didn't know about (possibly age 5 or 6?), but I know of taking multiple between ages 9 through mid 30s. Regardless of the test, the percentile numbers didn't change. I've read people claim on and off for years that you can "study" for them and "improve" your scores, but that's not been my experience. Any variations you get might be slight, but you're extremely unlikely to get any statistical difference... unless.... I had a test at age 9 for a specific 'gifted' program starting in our school district. 2 months later, we moved districts, and I was given the exact same test again. I aced it, because I'd asked my parents some of the questions I didn't understand the first time. I 'confessed'(?) to the test giver in the second district that I'd already had these exact same questions 3 months earlier, which they noted. I'd already 'qualified' after the first test, so again, I don't think there was any significantly different outcome (I 'qualified' after the second test in the new district as well).

skizm 4y ago

Very much disagree. Lazy genius is useless. Hard working, low IQ gets stuff done. Obviously hard working genius is ideal. But without the ability to focus on longer term goals, which grades is an indicator of more so than test scores, your high IQ means nothing.

candiodari 4y ago
I would argue it very, very much matters what you're trying to do. If you're harvesting apples, then sure. Hard working beats IQ. Hell, IQ is a handicap, not a plus. If you're doing research, you have the other side of the spectrum, IQ beats everything, and hard work can actually prevent you from finding solutions.
- prepend 4y ago
  Research is lots of hard work. There’s a minimum level of intelligence needed, but I’d rather have an acceptable intelligence+hard worker as a collaborator than a genius+slacker. There aren’t many Archimedes out there and most research is the result of lots of labor.
  - maximus-decimus 4y ago
    How do you define "acceptable intelligence"? By their ability to better a lazy genius? I don't really see a non-tautological way to define "acceptable intelligence"
    - prepend 4y ago
      What I meant is that intelligence is required to complete the required education, design studies, carry them out, etc. It’s some level but not genius.
      - candiodari 4y ago
        This sort of idea ... I get it, but it runs stuck on what exactly "acceptable intelligence" is. That would be the sort of intelligence 99% or more of the population doesn't have. Also at some level "I'd rather have" becomes pointless. Choices are usually 1 individual, or waiting 6 months to a year. I don't know if we're in a bubble but I've seen the same in biochemistry research and computer research: academics take everyone they possibly can, because master or above and they will get an unbeatable offer from a huge company very soon.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
Good thing SAT scores also measure hard work, planning, and follow up. You can improve your scores significantly with the hard work of a few hours and checking out a sample test or prep book at your local library or school

rogers18445 4y ago

SAT/ACT are basically poor IQ tests, because study for them results in heavily loading onto memory aspect of IQ but unloading on some others somewhat. Ideally, you would want an IQ test and the 'Big Five' personality traits. The latter though can be annoying to get. I have seen some firms get very good results by basically using a disguised IQ test, there are some firms that basically compose the tests, give them to 1000s of people and perform the factor analysis to extract IQ from the test, then contract the the test out for hiring departments. Some of those tests are pretty creative in that most people wouldn't know they were taking an IQ test.

beaned 4y ago
Before people state strong assumptions one way or the other, have there ever been any studies that measured the relationship between test scores and IQ? If so, what did they say?
- rogers18445 4y ago
  Yes. If you look you will find published literature on the subject. The plots plotting SAT/ACT and IQ will have an obvious trend but be very noisy. Hence why they are poor IQ tests, you can have a decent guess at someone's IQ based on their test results but it's not ideal.
- maximus-decimus 4y ago
  The whole point of IQ tests at the very beginning was to predict how well you can do academically. Technically every test is an IQ test.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  It’s an IQ test. Not a culture fair one, like Raven’s Progressive Matrices, but it’s as much an IQ test as coarse, quick and dirty one like Wonderlic is. > Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the scholastic assessment test and general cognitive ability > There is little evidence showing the relationship between the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and g (general intelligence). This research established the relationship between SAT and g, as well as the appropriateness of the SAT as a measure of g, and examined the SAT as a premorbid measure of intelligence. In Study 1, we used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Measures of g were extracted from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and correlated with SAT scores of 917 participants. The resulting correlation was .82 (.86 corrected for nonlinearity). Study 2 investigated the correlation between revised and recentered SAT scores and scores on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices among 104 undergraduates. The resulting correlation was .483 (.72 corrected for restricted range). These studies indicate that the SAT is mainly a test of g. We provide equations for converting SAT scores to estimated IQs; such conversion could be useful for estimating premorbid IQ or conducting individual difference research with college students. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00687.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.200...

ransom1538 4y ago

"That said I prefer IQ over grades." The evil in this is: Your IQ doesn't change. So, have the the children take an IQ test at age 10, then just setup their college admissions right there. Deny kids that don't have the right IQ. No need to bother with GPAs or "trying".

maximus-decimus 4y ago
I mean, it's the logic I used to decide not to pursue a career in professional basketball as someone of below average height. Do you think encouraging short people to pursue a career in basketball is productive in any way? If you're 10 years old and have a below average IQ, don't bother aiming for a PHD at MIT in atrophysics.

majormajor 4y ago

I lost points on the SAT for mixing up 2 pi r and pi r^2 - left out the 2 for the former. (That's the one that stands out as a duh, I knew better, one - I forget what else I missed.) There were also a LOT of analogies. I've read that those have been removed, I dunno how the math section is, but both of those were much more "knowing things" than innate intelligence. Grades tend to require both "knowing things" and longer-term discipline; I could see where that would be advantageous. Grades have a disadvantage of A's being way too common, though - no resolution at the top of the scale.

NERD_ALERT 4y ago

SAT/ACT measure how good you are at following rules and how much time/money you have to go to tutors and study 1000 page textbooks outlining specific strategies to maximize your score.

majormajor 4y ago
Anything you can prep for - grades included - is going to trend towards being largely influenced by "who has the most time and money." I don't have any good ideas to get away from that.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > who has the most time and money Or what matters most - who is willing to put in the effort. You already have 6 hours a day in high school. Don't need more time than that. As for money, that's not needed either. Your high school math books will do. There's also the public library, the Kahn Academy, youtube, etc.
- lumost 4y ago
  Having a more centered economic distribution amongst children is a good one. It is non-sensical and anti-meritocratic to have a large enough skew amongst child starting positions as to render meritocratic testing irrelevant. It's possible our declining academic performance is simply another artifact of rising inequality.
  - solveit 4y ago
    Yes, let's solve the problem of skewed student assessment by solving inequality. Your solution is far less tractable than the problem!
    - lumost 4y ago
      Or is it? we generally know how to solve inequality - we don't know how to solve student assessment. Higher taxes and rising inflation/interest rates reduce inequality.

thrown_22 4y ago

IQ tests show the ability to sit down and do pointless tasks which an authority figure has told you are meaningful and you must guess what that authority figure wants you to do. Extremely valuable skills for white collar drones. Completely meaningless as a measure of actual intelligence though.

rafaelero 4y ago
tdba 4y ago
IQ is the most reliable and most valid measure of general intelligence we have been able to come up with. It is good enough for many clinical purposes, eg assessing brain damage, and also just so happens to correlate very strongly with just about every "life outcome" you can think of. Does it measure everything imaginable about human intelligence? No. But it measures what we actually know about very well. To call it completely meaningless is absurd.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  You should reread what I said.
  - tdba 4y ago
    Be specific.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      The ability to do boring arbitrary tasks is much more strongly correlated with the measures that IQ proponents cite as proof it's a meaningful measure than with whatever they mean by intelligence. We could get the same results by forcing people to complete white noise patterns and seeing how long it takes them to quit.
      - 4y ago

picture 4y ago

I think a major counter point is how these tests can be improved upon individually without much improvement over other subjects. The first time I took the SAT, I went in totally blind and got 1320, a few months later, with a bit more practice with pre existing precalc, I was able to get 1490. I also had many classmate report similar trends of their score increasing as the number of retakes increases.

ghaff 4y ago
I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are. As I recall the SAT many years ago, there were definitely question forms like X:Y as A:? which rely on vocabulary to some degree but may also be hard (or at least take some extra time) if the form is unfamiliar. Also even a surface-level understanding of some areas of math you realize you sort of didn't really get can be useful. So with that fairly modest knowledge and refresh, you got what's a possibly useful but also relatively modest uptick.
- LanceH 4y ago
  Don't discount the bump from understanding the pacing and difficulty of the exam. You might have 25 questions in 30 minutes for a math section. Understanding that which sections are easy and which are hard allows a student who has seen the exam before to allocate their time more efficiently.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Sure. And even taking the test once under real live conditions is probably beneficial to complement a bit of study. Just as really giving a presentation to even a few people almost certainly beats just mentally walking through it in your head. Obviously you can try to create a real simulation but it's probably not the same thing.
- picture 4y ago
  The increase from 1320 to 1490 is pretty significant when it comes to college rankings. Although 1490 isn't anything stellar, it's the top 10 or 5 percent at my school. My main point was just the fact that, by paying collegeboard more money for more retakes, your score will increase. The SAT doesn't seem like a great indicator of anything besides one's ability to perform on the SAT

Maursault 4y ago

> Grades are far more fuzzy but generally show an ability to stick with something over the long term and execute on projects. What grades show is how well the student presented what the teacher wanted returned. Generally, but not always, students that are more intelligent than their teachers and may even have a better grasp of the subject don't receive the highest grades. Grades are about obedience, not learning. The "best" students are children of teachers.

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago

> That said I prefer IQ over grades. Why would any rational individual take an IQ test? IQ cannot be changed and whatever outcome doesn't change your course of action, being the fact that you have to work hard. Low IQ: Gotta work hard High IQ: Gotta work hard

majormajor 4y ago
Have you taken one? It certainly felt like the kind of test that could be improved with practice. Not as easily as the SAT, sure, but certain patterns seemed to appear, in a way I bet I could prep for. I haven't tested that hypothesis, but if anyone wants to fund me to take a bunch over the next year... let me know ;) (Why did I take it in the first place? Curiosity. Maybe also a bit of vanity. "Rationality" seems like a false idol to focus purely on in general, for decisions.)
- gizmo686 4y ago
  IQ has a map/territory problem as well. The theory is that you have some underlying IQ, and the test is a tool to determine what your IQ is. It is well established that practice can improve your score on an IQ test. However, that does not imply an improvement in your underlying IQ.
  - chongli 4y ago
    Close. Improving your score on an IQ test does improve your IQ. Your IQ is literally that score. What it does not improve is g, your underlying general intelligence.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  IQ scores do change over time, largely as a function of curiosity and conscientiousness. You could be a genius toddler but if you fail to learn, your IQ continually diminish relative to your peers
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  I've taken at least 5 over the course of my life. Possibly a 6th that I didn't know about (possibly age 5 or 6?), but I know of taking multiple between ages 9 through mid 30s. Regardless of the test, the percentile numbers didn't change. I've read people claim on and off for years that you can "study" for them and "improve" your scores, but that's not been my experience. Any variations you get might be slight, but you're extremely unlikely to get any statistical difference... unless.... I had a test at age 9 for a specific 'gifted' program starting in our school district. 2 months later, we moved districts, and I was given the exact same test again. I aced it, because I'd asked my parents some of the questions I didn't understand the first time. I 'confessed'(?) to the test giver in the second district that I'd already had these exact same questions 3 months earlier, which they noted. I'd already 'qualified' after the first test, so again, I don't think there was any significantly different outcome (I 'qualified' after the second test in the new district as well).