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I teach SATs to foreigners. The SATs are criticised for this within the US as well, but in truth I think they form better preparation for college. No internati

I teach SATs to foreigners. The SATs are criticised for this within the US as well, but in truth I think they form better preparation for college. No international exam predicts university performance, but (as I recall) the SAT does no worse than any other. In fact the US does a pretty good job of undergraduate studies. If 15 of the top 20 universities are in the US then something is working. I will list a few reasons why I prefer the SAT system - Foreign exams: "you have an chance of scoring a few points even if the final answer is incorrect". In this respect, the foreign exams are giving you credit for being wrong but well-intentioned. Is that a desirable quality? That you know what to do, but you can't do it in practice? IMO giving credit for partial answers to basic knowledge questions is a highly dubious practice. Whereas, strategies for answering the multiple choice questions effectively require extremely quick and subtle logic. A lot of foreign students don't really understand why these multiple choice exams are difficult - until they realise they are failing. You have to be knowledgeable, and also logical about your knowledge, under significant time pressure. The statistics of what happens to guessers in multiple-choice questions is very easy to examine (and they won't pass). The statistics of what happens to bullshitters in essays is not very easy to examine (they might pass with minimal knowledge, if they can fool the examiner successfully or hit upon a lucky essay). The fact that the test is standardised and asks questions from a basic and fixed set of knowledge means that universities know exactly what set of things the arriving undergraduates will know, and can target the first year courses appropriately to first year students. This is something that other systems fail by a huge margin. I mean, it just doesn't happen correctly elsewhere - a majority of first year students are left struggling for a significantly wasteful period of time, because the universities have not understood what the core intersection of knowledge the intake have. The SAT is simple enough (in knowledge terms) that US schools are free to teach any extension courses in any direction that they like, allowing much more creativity in teaching and learning. Most schools internationally have become exam factories focussed only on the final exams, and the retaking of those final exams. Having taught both systems, I prefer the SAT system and I think it does a far better educational job.

exDM69 12y ago
> Foreign exams: "you have an chance of scoring a few points even if the final answer is incorrect". In this respect, the foreign exams are giving you credit for being wrong but well-intentioned. Is that a desirable quality? This is definitely a desirable quality in math/physics/chemistry exams. If you make a very long calculation (some of the exam questions require a full sheet of paper to calculate) almost perfectly but make a mistake on the second-to-last row, you should get your 4 out of 6 points or so. Good point about language barriers, though. There are lots of smart people who have to participate in a test that is not their native language, in the US and elsewhere. History exams should be about knowledge and understanding of history - if your language skills aren't that great, you'll inevitably lose a few points because of the poor quality essay you can produce. > The fact that the test is standardised and asks questions from a basic and fixed set of knowledge means that universities know exactly what set of things the arriving undergraduates will know, Our tests are standardized too (and same questions nationwide, changing every year). They're just not multiple choice questions. You make a good point about flexibility too. Our education in the few years preceding the exam were a bit too focused on the finals. I guess in that respect the SAT has a small advantage if they allow a more flexible curriculum in the preceeding years.
- learnstats2 12y ago
  > This is definitely a desirable quality in math/physics/chemistry exams. If you make a very long calculation (some of the exam questions require a full sheet of paper to calculate) almost perfectly but make a mistake on the second-to-last row, you should get your 4 out of 6 points or so. I question this. (I have worked as a teacher and as a practitioner) First of all, should we ask such long calculations in an exam situation without access to a computer? That's not real anyway. Second of all, if we are asking the long calculation with the expectation that students won't be able to complete it, why are we asking that question? Why don't we ask shorter questions that match the expectations we have? If we are asking the long calculation because we expect students should complete it, why should they get partial credit for failing to meet that expectation? That's what you're testing them on - and they haven't truthfully shown they were better than someone who wrote nothing. They've failed at completing the task, and/or at checking their work. It really shows they were better (or better trained) at gaming the exam - knowing exactly what to write to satisfy the examiner and gain partial credit. This training is very well paid, by the way. >Our tests are standardized too (and same questions nationwide, changing every year). They're just not multiple choice questions. Even if the questions are consistent nationwide, if the pass mark is low enough (or with partial credits), students can arrive at university with wildly different knowledge, having passed via different sections of the course, if not via luck. The university will naturally assume that the student knows all of those sections well, which many students will not. This creates an obvious problem of services being inadequate for first year undergraduates. Where I live this is readily apparent, but few people have noticed and nobody is dealing with it.
scrollaway 12y ago
> Foreign exams: "you have an chance of scoring a few points even if the final answer is incorrect". In this respect, the foreign exams are giving you credit for being wrong but well-intentioned. Is that a desirable quality? That you know what to do, but you can't do it in practice? IMO giving credit for partial answers to basic knowledge questions is a highly dubious practice. None would give points for something that is wrong. They would, however, give points for using the correct technique in getting to the answer (but maybe something was missed, or miscalculated, etc). This is not being given "partial credit for being wrong", it's being given credit for having the technique to get to the answers you seek. In an age where data retention is a much less desirable skill than adaptation and the ability to find answers (what with Google existing), I think it's an extremely important point. I think you are seeing the SATs in a good light because they succeed at doing what they are set to do: have students retain a bunch of information for a while. What they most definitely don't do is teach students how to think outside the box, think for themselves, approach problems they haven't encountered before and approach problems nobody has encountered before.
- learnstats2 12y ago
  > What they most definitely don't do is teach students how to think outside the box, think for themselves, approach problems they haven't encountered before and approach problems nobody has encountered before. OK, but how can this be achieved by examination? This is really not what exams are about and it's a mistake to try and fit those goals into an exam space. Exams are considered unfair if they have an unlimited scope. When I said the SAT gives more flexibility to teach off-syllabus topics compared to other international equivalents, this offers you a space where you can target those blue sky goals. I don't criticise your goals, but exams are never where those goals are reached. So, I suggest we should minimise the concentration on exams. This is something the SAT system does (relatively) successfully - also because it is completed long before the end of high school.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    I don't work in the field so I won't argue it but this sounds like the root of our disagreement. A lot of people believe exams should in fact prioritize these more abstract skills over raw stuffage-of-data-into-brain. You say exams are not about that and it may be so, but I'm not convinced it's not possible to make them about that. A giant list of multiple choice questions won't achieve it though, not any better than the briggs-myers anyway.

exDM69 12y ago

> Foreign exams: "you have an chance of scoring a few points even if the final answer is incorrect". In this respect, the foreign exams are giving you credit for being wrong but well-intentioned. Is that a desirable quality? This is definitely a desirable quality in math/physics/chemistry exams. If you make a very long calculation (some of the exam questions require a full sheet of paper to calculate) almost perfectly but make a mistake on the second-to-last row, you should get your 4 out of 6 points or so. Good point about language barriers, though. There are lots of smart people who have to participate in a test that is not their native language, in the US and elsewhere. History exams should be about knowledge and understanding of history - if your language skills aren't that great, you'll inevitably lose a few points because of the poor quality essay you can produce. > The fact that the test is standardised and asks questions from a basic and fixed set of knowledge means that universities know exactly what set of things the arriving undergraduates will know, Our tests are standardized too (and same questions nationwide, changing every year). They're just not multiple choice questions. You make a good point about flexibility too. Our education in the few years preceding the exam were a bit too focused on the finals. I guess in that respect the SAT has a small advantage if they allow a more flexible curriculum in the preceeding years.

learnstats2 12y ago
> This is definitely a desirable quality in math/physics/chemistry exams. If you make a very long calculation (some of the exam questions require a full sheet of paper to calculate) almost perfectly but make a mistake on the second-to-last row, you should get your 4 out of 6 points or so. I question this. (I have worked as a teacher and as a practitioner) First of all, should we ask such long calculations in an exam situation without access to a computer? That's not real anyway. Second of all, if we are asking the long calculation with the expectation that students won't be able to complete it, why are we asking that question? Why don't we ask shorter questions that match the expectations we have? If we are asking the long calculation because we expect students should complete it, why should they get partial credit for failing to meet that expectation? That's what you're testing them on - and they haven't truthfully shown they were better than someone who wrote nothing. They've failed at completing the task, and/or at checking their work. It really shows they were better (or better trained) at gaming the exam - knowing exactly what to write to satisfy the examiner and gain partial credit. This training is very well paid, by the way. >Our tests are standardized too (and same questions nationwide, changing every year). They're just not multiple choice questions. Even if the questions are consistent nationwide, if the pass mark is low enough (or with partial credits), students can arrive at university with wildly different knowledge, having passed via different sections of the course, if not via luck. The university will naturally assume that the student knows all of those sections well, which many students will not. This creates an obvious problem of services being inadequate for first year undergraduates. Where I live this is readily apparent, but few people have noticed and nobody is dealing with it.

scrollaway 12y ago

> Foreign exams: "you have an chance of scoring a few points even if the final answer is incorrect". In this respect, the foreign exams are giving you credit for being wrong but well-intentioned. Is that a desirable quality? That you know what to do, but you can't do it in practice? IMO giving credit for partial answers to basic knowledge questions is a highly dubious practice. None would give points for something that is wrong. They would, however, give points for using the correct technique in getting to the answer (but maybe something was missed, or miscalculated, etc). This is not being given "partial credit for being wrong", it's being given credit for having the technique to get to the answers you seek. In an age where data retention is a much less desirable skill than adaptation and the ability to find answers (what with Google existing), I think it's an extremely important point. I think you are seeing the SATs in a good light because they succeed at doing what they are set to do: have students retain a bunch of information for a while. What they most definitely don't do is teach students how to think outside the box, think for themselves, approach problems they haven't encountered before and approach problems nobody has encountered before.

learnstats2 12y ago
> What they most definitely don't do is teach students how to think outside the box, think for themselves, approach problems they haven't encountered before and approach problems nobody has encountered before. OK, but how can this be achieved by examination? This is really not what exams are about and it's a mistake to try and fit those goals into an exam space. Exams are considered unfair if they have an unlimited scope. When I said the SAT gives more flexibility to teach off-syllabus topics compared to other international equivalents, this offers you a space where you can target those blue sky goals. I don't criticise your goals, but exams are never where those goals are reached. So, I suggest we should minimise the concentration on exams. This is something the SAT system does (relatively) successfully - also because it is completed long before the end of high school.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  I don't work in the field so I won't argue it but this sounds like the root of our disagreement. A lot of people believe exams should in fact prioritize these more abstract skills over raw stuffage-of-data-into-brain. You say exams are not about that and it may be so, but I'm not convinced it's not possible to make them about that. A giant list of multiple choice questions won't achieve it though, not any better than the briggs-myers anyway.