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Shocking that a “Scholastic Aptitude Test” or “American College Test” would predict future scholastic achievement at the collegiate level.

bigbillheck 3y ago
You can't wish nominative determinism into being.
NegativeK 3y ago
Those are marketing terms, though. It's not trivial to go from performance on a single test to performance throughout the year, which will include long-form writing, lab work, and other forms of learning.
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  SAT/ACT for high achieving students means months of prep/studying and practice test taking. It ends up being a ~somewhat~ similar experience to a college class. Not really similar to humanities classes that depend on discussion section and papers, but if you squint enough it kind of looks like some STEM classes.
- grdgyredb 3y ago
  You are right it’s not trivial, but on the other hand if you simply try to make such a test you’d do better than completely uncorrelated pretty easily I’d suppose.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    SAT has has been around almost 100 years and ACT around 2/3 of that, so they've had pretty long to hone the tests as well. This is far from their first stab at it.
    - grdgyredb 3y ago
      And indeed they seem to have produced a test that is correlated with success.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        Absolutely! Some people seem to find that correlation to be inconvenient and/or threatening.
ryukoposting 3y ago
I know. Being good at taking tests in high school is a positive indicator for being good at taking tests in college? A staggering discovery.
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  I don't know if you're trying to make a point about test taking, but you're aware that college GPA is composed of more than just being a good test taker? Better way of putting it might be: someone that scores highly on an IQ proxy is good at everything.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryukoposting 3y ago
    Not in my experience in the Big Ten. For any math/science class, the plurality of the final grade was made up by exam scores - typically 45-60 percent, to my recollection. 60ish percent is a very particular number, because it's the highest weight that doesn't make it possible to pass the class by doing almost nothing except the exams. At 65 percent, you're giving students an easy way to game the system. Some classes had a substantial lab component, but it was relatively easy to score well on labs. Labs were graded by TAs, who were consistently more lax than the professor. I don't think there's some coordinated effort by TAs to lower the bar; they were simply too busy with their own studies to provide a thorough criticism of every lab report they received. In most classes, labs were effectively a curve. English courses were different, since those had essays instead of exams. However, I'd argue that it's feasible to write a paper "to the rubric" in the same sense that one can shape their studies "to the test." Given the audience HN caters to, I'd imagine that we're more interested in the science/math/engineering stuff anyway.
    - zeroCalories 3y ago
      Yes exams are heavily weighted, but labs/assignments are not usually easy in stem courses. You're delusional if you think that you're gonna get a 4.0 by half-assing course work, and even more delusional if you think someone like that will average over 90% on their exams. The SAT covers fairly basic topics that nearly every student should know, that's why it's like an IQ test. When I was in school freshmen would take it just to see what it was like, and many would score well on their first try.
magicalist 3y ago
Yes, as a USA patriot, this is why I've always supported the USA PATRIOT Act. I don't get why anyone would bother looking into it.
Scubabear68 3y ago
I know. Sarcasm aside though, there is a growing movement of HS and elementary school teachers looking to remove all KPIs from schools. It is very worrying that this protected class of workers are arguing they are special compared to every other problem in the world and their performance and those who they are teaching should never be measured.
asdff 3y ago
Except that the test is pretty clearly perverted. You take two kids, same education, give one an after school testing program their parents pay money for, and they score better. Is the wealthier kid more worthy of receiving a college education? What does that say about how we educate our society then, and what we are actually valuing and giving privilege?
- closeparen 3y ago
  They score very slightly better, not really meaningfully. https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-they-work-bias.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the...
- hirvi74 3y ago
  > Is the wealthier kid more worthy of receiving a college education? Not to mention, what about us test-disabled people? I didn't know I had ADHD and its "friends" when I took the ACT, and I could have potentially benefited greatly from the reasonable accommodations the test allows for. However, it's not like every child is required to have some kind of psychological evaluation while in school. I find all of this standardization in testing to be nothing more than Goodhart's Law in full swing. Just what we need, more "Teaching to the Test" and route memorization in our education system...

bigbillheck 3y ago

You can't wish nominative determinism into being.

NegativeK 3y ago

Those are marketing terms, though. It's not trivial to go from performance on a single test to performance throughout the year, which will include long-form writing, lab work, and other forms of learning.

tomtheelder 3y ago
SAT/ACT for high achieving students means months of prep/studying and practice test taking. It ends up being a ~somewhat~ similar experience to a college class. Not really similar to humanities classes that depend on discussion section and papers, but if you squint enough it kind of looks like some STEM classes.
grdgyredb 3y ago
You are right it’s not trivial, but on the other hand if you simply try to make such a test you’d do better than completely uncorrelated pretty easily I’d suppose.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  SAT has has been around almost 100 years and ACT around 2/3 of that, so they've had pretty long to hone the tests as well. This is far from their first stab at it.
  - grdgyredb 3y ago
    And indeed they seem to have produced a test that is correlated with success.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Absolutely! Some people seem to find that correlation to be inconvenient and/or threatening.

ryukoposting 3y ago

I know. Being good at taking tests in high school is a positive indicator for being good at taking tests in college? A staggering discovery.

zeroCalories 3y ago
I don't know if you're trying to make a point about test taking, but you're aware that college GPA is composed of more than just being a good test taker? Better way of putting it might be: someone that scores highly on an IQ proxy is good at everything.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ryukoposting 3y ago
  Not in my experience in the Big Ten. For any math/science class, the plurality of the final grade was made up by exam scores - typically 45-60 percent, to my recollection. 60ish percent is a very particular number, because it's the highest weight that doesn't make it possible to pass the class by doing almost nothing except the exams. At 65 percent, you're giving students an easy way to game the system. Some classes had a substantial lab component, but it was relatively easy to score well on labs. Labs were graded by TAs, who were consistently more lax than the professor. I don't think there's some coordinated effort by TAs to lower the bar; they were simply too busy with their own studies to provide a thorough criticism of every lab report they received. In most classes, labs were effectively a curve. English courses were different, since those had essays instead of exams. However, I'd argue that it's feasible to write a paper "to the rubric" in the same sense that one can shape their studies "to the test." Given the audience HN caters to, I'd imagine that we're more interested in the science/math/engineering stuff anyway.
  - zeroCalories 3y ago
    Yes exams are heavily weighted, but labs/assignments are not usually easy in stem courses. You're delusional if you think that you're gonna get a 4.0 by half-assing course work, and even more delusional if you think someone like that will average over 90% on their exams. The SAT covers fairly basic topics that nearly every student should know, that's why it's like an IQ test. When I was in school freshmen would take it just to see what it was like, and many would score well on their first try.

magicalist 3y ago

Yes, as a USA patriot, this is why I've always supported the USA PATRIOT Act. I don't get why anyone would bother looking into it.

Scubabear68 3y ago

I know. Sarcasm aside though, there is a growing movement of HS and elementary school teachers looking to remove all KPIs from schools. It is very worrying that this protected class of workers are arguing they are special compared to every other problem in the world and their performance and those who they are teaching should never be measured.

asdff 3y ago

Except that the test is pretty clearly perverted. You take two kids, same education, give one an after school testing program their parents pay money for, and they score better. Is the wealthier kid more worthy of receiving a college education? What does that say about how we educate our society then, and what we are actually valuing and giving privilege?

closeparen 3y ago
They score very slightly better, not really meaningfully. https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-they-work-bias.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the...
hirvi74 3y ago
> Is the wealthier kid more worthy of receiving a college education? Not to mention, what about us test-disabled people? I didn't know I had ADHD and its "friends" when I took the ACT, and I could have potentially benefited greatly from the reasonable accommodations the test allows for. However, it's not like every child is required to have some kind of psychological evaluation while in school. I find all of this standardization in testing to be nothing more than Goodhart's Law in full swing. Just what we need, more "Teaching to the Test" and route memorization in our education system...