3 ms·

how many elected leaders are in STEM? would high SAT scores and grades exclude many US presidents and congressmen? (yes) winning elections seems kind of importa

how many elected leaders are in STEM? would high SAT scores and grades exclude many US presidents and congressmen? (yes) winning elections seems kind of important to me. so if you were just like, selecting for leadership - and many of our leaders are brilliant people, just not in the sense of being good at taking tests - would that be good or bad? or... what is your real opinion? what are you actually mad about? obviously the UC system should give spots to the kids who will use those spots the best. but it is very hard to define what "using spots the best" means.

jimbokun 4mo ago
In the US or China?
lern_too_spel 4mo ago
We certainly don't want them to fail out, which is what is happening. Berkeley reported 10% failure rate in the intro CS course and 35% in the pre-intro course. https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grades-soar-as-professors-see-greater-ai-usage-dwindling-math-skills-in-uc-berkeley/article_16fad0bf-02cb-4b8c-8d88-888ffd9f8608.html https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grade...
WalterBright 4mo ago
> not in the sense of being good at taking tests The trick to doing well on the SATs is to pay attention in class.
- Maxatar 4mo ago
  That's not how it plays out in practice. There is overwhelming evidence that students who otherwise excel academically score fairly mediocre SAT scores on their first attempt and then jump substantially after weeks of targeted practice and/or tutoring, even though they didn't learn anything new in the classroom. If attention in class were all it took then that improvement couldn't happen. What changed was familiarity with the test, not classroom focus.
  - fsckboy 4mo ago
    I'm not aware that there is any method to dramatically increase SAT scores (and neither IQ test scores). could you point me to your sources?
    - Maxatar 4mo ago
      Straight from the College Board themselves: https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/osp-technical-report.pdf https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/osp-technical-re... That report also references another study showing that each hour of tutoring was associated with an increase of 2.34 points on the SAT score which unfortunately is behind a paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282492223_Preparing_students_for_college_admissions_tests https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282492223_Preparing...
  - WalterBright 4mo ago
    I guess times have changed. When I took the SAT, I did zero prep work. Nobody else I knew did prep work, either. Paul Graham recently posted SAT advice along the form of "when you finish the test and have more time, go back over the test and check for mistakes." I was kinda astonished at this advice, isn't it obvious? A strategy I also employed was to do the easy problems first, so I don't miss a question that would have been easy. Apparently this has to be explained to people? I suppose prep work would be fine for the students who didn't pay attention in class.
    - Maxatar 4mo ago
      Yes, if you took your SAT among a cohort of people where none of you practiced for the SAT, then what you're saying holds true. That's not really the case anymore. Top tier students nowadays prepare for the SAT, they don't go into it blind and haven't done so for the better part of 20 years.
      - WalterBright 4mo ago
        I didn't get a perfect score, but it was good enough to get what I wanted.
- zerr 4mo ago
  The trick is to prepare specifically for SATs. One would say the tests (and job interviews) should have been designed with the original intent of testing candidates AS IS, i.e. preparing specifically for such tests should have been considered as cheating... But at some point it turned into prep gymnastics, and measuring how desperate the candidates are.
  - blitzar 4mo ago
    Once it is a forced ranking over all the candidates - it becomes a test of preparation and execution not of underlying skill.

jimbokun 4mo ago

In the US or China?

lern_too_spel 4mo ago

We certainly don't want them to fail out, which is what is happening. Berkeley reported 10% failure rate in the intro CS course and 35% in the pre-intro course. https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grades-soar-as-professors-see-greater-ai-usage-dwindling-math-skills-in-uc-berkeley/article_16fad0bf-02cb-4b8c-8d88-888ffd9f8608.html https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grade...

WalterBright 4mo ago

> not in the sense of being good at taking tests The trick to doing well on the SATs is to pay attention in class.

Maxatar 4mo ago
That's not how it plays out in practice. There is overwhelming evidence that students who otherwise excel academically score fairly mediocre SAT scores on their first attempt and then jump substantially after weeks of targeted practice and/or tutoring, even though they didn't learn anything new in the classroom. If attention in class were all it took then that improvement couldn't happen. What changed was familiarity with the test, not classroom focus.
- fsckboy 4mo ago
  I'm not aware that there is any method to dramatically increase SAT scores (and neither IQ test scores). could you point me to your sources?
  - Maxatar 4mo ago
    Straight from the College Board themselves: https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/osp-technical-report.pdf https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/osp-technical-re... That report also references another study showing that each hour of tutoring was associated with an increase of 2.34 points on the SAT score which unfortunately is behind a paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282492223_Preparing_students_for_college_admissions_tests https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282492223_Preparing...
- WalterBright 4mo ago
  I guess times have changed. When I took the SAT, I did zero prep work. Nobody else I knew did prep work, either. Paul Graham recently posted SAT advice along the form of "when you finish the test and have more time, go back over the test and check for mistakes." I was kinda astonished at this advice, isn't it obvious? A strategy I also employed was to do the easy problems first, so I don't miss a question that would have been easy. Apparently this has to be explained to people? I suppose prep work would be fine for the students who didn't pay attention in class.
  - Maxatar 4mo ago
    Yes, if you took your SAT among a cohort of people where none of you practiced for the SAT, then what you're saying holds true. That's not really the case anymore. Top tier students nowadays prepare for the SAT, they don't go into it blind and haven't done so for the better part of 20 years.
    - WalterBright 4mo ago
      I didn't get a perfect score, but it was good enough to get what I wanted.
zerr 4mo ago
The trick is to prepare specifically for SATs. One would say the tests (and job interviews) should have been designed with the original intent of testing candidates AS IS, i.e. preparing specifically for such tests should have been considered as cheating... But at some point it turned into prep gymnastics, and measuring how desperate the candidates are.
- blitzar 4mo ago
  Once it is a forced ranking over all the candidates - it becomes a test of preparation and execution not of underlying skill.