The SAT
The SAT holds tremendous power in determining where you will go to college.
To go to virtually any college or university in the United States, you need to have taken
the Scholastic Aptitude Test, a standardized exam that assigns you a score that ranks your
verbal and math abilities. The SAT is not an intelligence test, rather, it is a predictor of
college success. College admissions committees use the SAT to get a general idea of
your scholastic aptitude. Each section of the SAT is graded on a scale of 200 - 800, with
500 being the average score. Though many colleges require the SAT for admission
because it is a standard way of measuring a student's ability to do college-level work,
there are many problems with it.
No test can accurately predict with 100 percent certainty what your grades will be
in college. This is because many factors, including personal motivation, influence your
college grades. Colleges use SAT scores to help estimate how well students are likely to
do at its school. Knowing your SAT helps the college make a decision about how likely it
is that you'll do well at the school, but for many their first year of college grades are
different from what their SAT scores had predicted for them.
The oldest and most familiar accusation against standardized tests is that they are
discriminatory. The prime evidence for this charge is the test results themselves. For
many years now, the median score for blacks on the SAT has fallen 200 points short of
that for whites. Also there has been the persistent 59-point gender gap in the combined
scores of the SAT. The men tend to do better than the women on the math section, while
the women perform better on the verbal section.
believe that lowering the standards and changing the SAT will not make a difference because it will never be considered as a test that measures a student’s success. College Board has tried to make some new adjustments but the revision they made is not good enough and should just stick with the old SAT. The revision of the SAT will cause students to think less and will not show the student’s natural ability in aptitude. Many oppose the newly revised SAT that will be published in 2016, and proclaim that
Problems with the SAT Nowadays, colleges and universities have been using the SAT to select their students who apply to them. According to College Board, the SAT is a test that measures students' abilities which they will use to be able to do well in universities or colleges. In addition, the SAT shows how well the students solve the problems and how well the education they have gotten. The SAT consists of ten sections which consist of one 25-minute essay section, two 25-minute and one 20-minute
application. Students usually try to excel on the SATs, maintain a high GPA, and involve themselves in extracurricular activities in order to become the well-rounded, “renaissance man” or woman that colleges can’t surpass. Students understand that it is important to try their best in everything that they do, but should a three-hour, multiple choice test be a deciding factor on whether or not a person gets accepted into a college? Critics of the SAT accuse it of being classist, racist, a poor reflection
none other than the SAT. There is no other word that evokes more stress, more agony in high school students than a simple three letter word that measures absolutely nothing at all. The SAT plays a pivotal role in college admissions throughout the nation, but should a test that lasts for less than four hours a sitting determine whether or not students are accepted into the college of their dreams? According to College Board, the organization that creates the test, the SAT is “designed to assess
The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was created to test college-bound students on their mathematical and verbal aptitudes and to thus predict their ability to succeed academically in college. In the United States, the SAT is the oldest and most widely used college entrance test. It was first administered in June 1926 to only 8,040 high school students and is now taken by over 2 million students. Over the years, the SAT has become one of the most important tests of a teenager's life for admission to
SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test. The definition of aptitude is the “natural ability to do something or to learn something.” (1) Based on the name, one can gather that the SAT is a test that does not test your knowledge but how you attain it. College Board is the company that publishes and owns the SAT. The SAT was design based on an IQ test which means is meant to test a student’s ability they were born with not abilities gained through schooling. The SAT is said to be a predictor of how
The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was created to test college-bound students on their mathematical and verbal aptitudes and to thus predict their ability to succeed academically in college. In the United States, the SAT is the oldest and most widely used college entrance test. It was first administered in June 1926 to only 8,040 high school students and is now taken by over 2 million students. Over the years, the SAT has become one of the most important tests of a teenager's life for admission to
The origins of the SAT were around the time of the First World War. Leading member Robert Yerkes was a part of the new IQ testing movement and used these tests to recruit members for the U.S. army. Eventually, this concept was adapted for college admissions. At Harvard, one of the presidents decided to start a scholarship program for gifted boys and this is where the SAT was used, since it measured pure intelligence, regardless of the quality of the test-taker’s high school education. The College
SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test, which is an examination is created by the College Board. ACT stands for American College Testing, a second test created by Testmasters. Both of these tests are designed to check students skill levels and use as applications for college admission. Following the Huffington Post, it said that “around 800 U.S. colleges and universities are no longer use SAT or ACT as their requirement for admission” (Huffington Post). However, the SAT and ACT bring lots of benefits
around for many years. During the 1920’s the SAT was known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (Syverson 56). According to Steven Syverson, in 1993 the test was renamed as Scholastic Assessment Tests in an effort to reflect the changing nature of the test (56). Jonathan Epstein notes that by 1994, the acronym was removed completely, keeping only the initials SAT (9). The United States Department of Education reports that the Scholastic Assessment Test [known as SAT] measures your ability rather than knowledge
students who are not successful at taking standardized tests because they have not developed the advanced skills required to take a test like the ACT or SAT. An academically motivated and responsible student should not be prevented from attending college because a "standard" test is not his or her standard. The current methods of testing for the ACT or SAT should be abolished and replaced with modified and less "standard" questions to better measure a student's learning potential. In addition to different
A new SAT test replaced the old SAT in 2016 for students in the US to prioritize content that students will see in their future lives. In March 2016, a new version of the SAT was put in place. This new SAT prioritizes the content and information that students will see in college and their future work lives. The new SAT shows some new improvements and changes from the older version. The old version of the SAT was administered for the last time in January of 2016. The new version was administered
writing skills necessary to predict college success, The SAT Reasoning Test is the most popular and widely accepted exam used for college entrance available today. A team of U.S. colleges developed its earliest form, known as the College Entrance Exam, in 1901. This essay-only test was designed for students applying to colleges to take one entrance exam instead of separate exams for each university. In 1926, the College Entrance Exam became the SAT (Student Aptitude Test). The test was formatted to multiple-choice
Why there should not be ACTs and SATs Some studies shown that the SAT has given negative results on college compared to colleges that are SAT optional. The colleges that are SAT optional have more diverse students. (Christopherson, 1) The SAT and ACT are both used for the college application process to help determine if the student is prepared for their campus. The SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test while ACT stands for American College Test. These two test are one of the most feared test a
Why The SAT Should Be Abolished The SAT, which is a national standardized test, designed to test skills, accuracy and knowledge of students has always been surrounded by controversies. It was originally created to eliminate the difference between students from different social backgrounds and provide equal level field. The test was developed by a psychologist from Princeton named Dr Carl Brigham in 1926, who also had controversial views on race, that suggested Anglo-Saxons were more intelligent