4 ms·

Barring fraud, standardized tests are not gameable, unlike GPA, references, etc. You can study and improve your score, of course (just like you can study and im

Barring fraud, standardized tests are not gameable, unlike GPA, references, etc. You can study and improve your score, of course (just like you can study and improve GPA) but that's not "gameing" in the subversive way you mean it. Their ungameability is inconvenient for people that are looking to obfuscate the real admission criteria, which is why there is enormous effort to downplay their predictive performance.

britch 4y ago
You can absolutely "game" tests. They're taught as "test techniques." And there's plenty of tutors who teach it. Process of elimination, read the questions then passage, common question structure, are all examples. These are "skills" but they don't really apply outside of testing. Hell I went into standardized tests with common question solvers programmed in my calculator. If that's not gaming I don't know what is.
- club_tropical 4y ago
  Most of these techniques are picked up with a few mock tests and they only matter on the margins - people that obsess about these things tend to care a lot about rankings rather than absolute scores. They make a 1550 SAT into a perfect 1600. They do not take a 1000 into 1600.
  - britch 4y ago
    Absolutely there are limits. But there are limits to GPA gaming and references gaming too I'm not trying to say tests are useless or anything, but they're definitely gameable. Test-taking is a skill that many students learn that's not applicable outside of school really
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > there's plenty of tutors who teach it There are also $30 books that teach it and youtube videos that give it away for free.
  - britch 4y ago
    Sure, but you have to know to do it. The game isn't hard but you have to know to play. I don't think it makes tests useless -- almost everything is gameable. But claiming that tests are ungamable objective measures of knowledge/ability is not true
TrackerFF 4y ago
I've only gone to school in Europe (Norway, specifically) - so I'm not sure how one can game their GPA. I'd say that a solid 80% of my degree was graded/scored on written or oral exam. Rest were home exams, or a mix of both - with 10% being the Masters thesis alone. But then again, we don't have any standardized tests here. Not for college admission, or afterwards. The grades you get, are what you have - and everything is judged by those grades.

britch 4y ago

You can absolutely "game" tests. They're taught as "test techniques." And there's plenty of tutors who teach it. Process of elimination, read the questions then passage, common question structure, are all examples. These are "skills" but they don't really apply outside of testing. Hell I went into standardized tests with common question solvers programmed in my calculator. If that's not gaming I don't know what is.

club_tropical 4y ago
Most of these techniques are picked up with a few mock tests and they only matter on the margins - people that obsess about these things tend to care a lot about rankings rather than absolute scores. They make a 1550 SAT into a perfect 1600. They do not take a 1000 into 1600.
- britch 4y ago
  Absolutely there are limits. But there are limits to GPA gaming and references gaming too I'm not trying to say tests are useless or anything, but they're definitely gameable. Test-taking is a skill that many students learn that's not applicable outside of school really
commandlinefan 4y ago
> there's plenty of tutors who teach it There are also $30 books that teach it and youtube videos that give it away for free.
- britch 4y ago
  Sure, but you have to know to do it. The game isn't hard but you have to know to play. I don't think it makes tests useless -- almost everything is gameable. But claiming that tests are ungamable objective measures of knowledge/ability is not true

TrackerFF 4y ago

I've only gone to school in Europe (Norway, specifically) - so I'm not sure how one can game their GPA. I'd say that a solid 80% of my degree was graded/scored on written or oral exam. Rest were home exams, or a mix of both - with 10% being the Masters thesis alone. But then again, we don't have any standardized tests here. Not for college admission, or afterwards. The grades you get, are what you have - and everything is judged by those grades.