SAT: 1450 (720 V 730M)
GRE: 2320 (750 V 770 M 800 A)
GRE: 730
…says the unemployed guy.
Actually, the hardest standardized exam I took was the Music Subject GRE, on which I managed a 650 (which percentile-wise was somewhere in the high 90’s at the time). The regular GRE, which I took the morning of the same day, was a walk in the park comparatively.
I dunno if I even took the ACTs… Hmm. Probably not.
I took the LAST (Liberal Arts & Sciences Test) this past fall - it’s one of the exams you have to pass in order to become certified to teach in NY state. There are several subcategories, which I’m not listing, that go into making the final score.
Total: 274/300 & the only score I really care about, thus far.
So there you have it.
In 1984 I scored 1410 (660 verbal, 750 math) on the SAT and 36 on the ACT. At my high school (and, it turned out, my college) these scores were considered high. Reading this thread, I guess they weren’t so high after all. Luckily, they become more and more meaningless with every passing day.
I hate these threads because they make me feel stupid.
I got 1250 or something like that on my SAT and 29ish on ACT in 1999-2000. Nearly perfect on Reading Comp. (missed 2 questions mostly because I was tired and bored), missed maybe 4 on English. Did average on Sci. and BOMBED Math.
1500 on the SAT - 800 v, 700 m.
5 on the AP Biology exam.
I wasn’t nearly as excited about these scores as others, cause I was already planning to go to a state school with a scholarship lined up, and I never really saw the big deal about standardized testing. It’s largely worthless, IMO.
Well now I feel stupid that I got a mere 1270 on the SAT. I forget what I got on the ACT. Oh, and a 30 with an “R” in the writing score (strangest scoring system in the history of test taking, in my opinion) on the MCAT, which was good enough to get into med school. Looking back, I think it all means very little.
There wasn’t a test yet for Computer Science back then so I took the GRE advanced test for Math.
Got a 990. That’s a perfect score in case you were wondering. (The test also had two flawed questions, which apparently didn’t hurt me, unlike the flawed question on the SAT math test.)
790 Math, 720 Verbal. Never quite understood why I did better on the math section both times. I’m a writer and I always did way better in English classes. Got an 800 on the SAT II Writing thing, too.
This movie looks like crap, and I also don’t see the appeal. We’re supposed to root for kids who cheat to get an advantage over the suckers who do it the hard way and actually WORK for good scores?
I got 695 Math/730 Verbal on the SAT and 32 or 33 on the ACT. Got a 4 on the AP Chemistry Exam and 3 on the AP English Exam. I’m of the opinion that I would have gotten a higher score on the AP English Exam if I’d actually taken AP English
Let’s see, I took the SAT in sixth or seventh grade and got something like a 1200, which is pretty darn good for a 12 year old, if you ask me, especially considering the math portion.
I took the ACT in high school and was terrifyingly proud of my 30, as only two people scored higher than me in my graduating class. And my 4 on my AP English Composition test, which was THE highest. Now that I see everybody else’s scores, I feel humbled.
I’ll still be proud of testing into the 95th percentile or higher during my entire school career, though, dammit.
I think this sums up standardized tests in general. I suppose they have some value as a decision making tool, but I’m of the opinion that some people just test better than others. I’ll take a written exam over an oral exam any day. My husband could kick butt just talking about a subject, but he chokes on written tests. One of the best engineers I know barely graduated college, but give him a problem to solve, and you know he’s going to do it right.
I used to think my score was pretty good. I see now it was pretty sad. But I’m a senior aerospace structural engineer and I make pretty good money for someone with a measly 1340 on the SAT. And I certainly don’t expect it to be engraved on my headstone…
Damn you all for making my 1300 (660V, 640M) seem crappy! That was, however, in the 90-something-th percentile in PA for the year I took 'em (2003) and I was in the 99th percentile for my PSSA (pronounced piss-uh) tests. For those not from PA, the PSSA is this ridiculous test administered by the state to make sure that teachers are doing their job.
I forget what I scored on the PSATs, but it correctly predicted the range of SAT score into which I would fall.
But my crowning achievement is probably the 4 I scored on my German AP test…AFAIK that was the highest score out of my class…and I only know of one guy who actually got a perfect 5…and he spent a year in Germany as our school’s exchange student…
The SATs are scaled between 400-1600, and periodically recalibrated so that 1000 is as close as possible to the median score of the testing pool.
As for what the scores are supposed to mean, they’re designed to indicate success in the first semester of college (and first semester of law school for the LSAT.) They don’t really indicate anything much past that with 100% reliability, and of course we all know that how much effort is put into academics has alot to do with how it turns out too (although, unless you’re in an engineering or science-related field, undergrad school is painfully easy…still, plenty of smart people end up dropping out due to absenteeism and other popular collegiate diversions.)
I think standardized tests certainly mean more than high school GPA, since for one thing GPA isn’t standardized across the country (some use a 5 point scale, some use a 4 point scale, with weighted classes and such gumming up the works), and because at most schools it’s too easy to get straight A’s and there’d be no way of distinguishing between those students who do, except for the “how many extracurricular activities can you sign up for” race (where students at rich suburban schools have a built-in advantage) and the “was I popular enough to get voted anything special” game.