They may attempt to design it that way, but they’ve demonstrably failed. The SAT is extremely coachable, and highly correlated to whether a person has learned specific topics in school. As an SAT tutor years ago, I could spend a month tutoring someone and increase their score by 100-200 points. Was I increasing their IQ over that period?
The two most-accepted allopatric human groups seem to be the Africans and the descendants of the Out of Africa group. In the evolutionary tree of two allopatric groups, what is important is the point at which a given group acquired a gene which improves IQ. If a group acquires an advantageous gene post-split (or at the split itself), only the descendants of that group will exhibit that particular gene.
The extent to which groups more archaic to a particular boundary line are genetically diverse, or the extent to which all current groups share a given percent of genes is quite irrelevant to the question of whether a particular group has a particular advantageous gene.
What is required to explain, on a genetic basis, the difference in performance of Africans versus non-Africans is the acquisition of beneficial genes at the boundary line of exodus from Africa (or some more recent boundary line where the parent allopatric group for Eurasians split).
Whether the genetic advantage for IQ was a spontaneous mutation the adaptation of which was driven by a reproductive advantage, or whether it was acquired by some other source (interbreeding with populations already present, such as Neandertals) is, as far as I know, unknown. And while evolutionary pressures can help drive in a particular direction (height; strength; intelligence…), for the most part the underlying genetic drift is a crapshoot where nature tries, accidentally, every possible variation in every possible population. High intelligence might just as easily evolved in a different population, and to some extent which populations end up with it is blind luck, since Mother Nature has no particular altruistic bias toward a particular group.
Says who? Why do you think people migrate? Here’s a hint: it’s not because they’re looking for a more difficult lifestyle. It’s more likely that they’d say, “Hey, there’s a nice river over in the next valley. I bet crops would grow better there. Let’s go!”
IQ is bunk, anyway. All it measures is the ability to score well on IQ tests.
The average Neanderthal brain size was only about 10% larger than the brain size of H. sapiens. Perhaps more interesting is the different shape of the Neanderthal brain.
As for the OP, others have already pointed out the factually incorrect premise concerning the migration of early H. sapiens out of Africa.
You’re using the word “coachable” differently from how the ETS uses it as it relates to the SAT test.
Yes, each student has an inherent “range” that they can score on the SAT. What SAT “coaching” does (test taking strategies, eliminating obvious wrong answers, when the probabilities are favorable to guessing an answer, etc) is help you get the best possible score at the ceiling of your inherent range. For example, let’s say John Doe can potentially score between 900 to 1100 (using old SAT measures of a perfect 1600). If John had zero coaching, he’d score 900. With SAT prep work, he could score 1100. Heck, part of the coaching would even emphasize “get a good night’s sleep before the test” and that one difference could change the test result by +50 points.
However, the “uncoachable” part is changing a person’s max score from 1100 to 1600. There is no education curriculum or learning technique or prep class available today that can accomplish this. Likewise, there is no teaching methodology that can train someone to increase their IQ score from 100 to 150 or from 150 to 200. I’m not saying that it’s impossible for such a teaching methodology to be eventually be invented but the fact remains that we don’t have it today. In this aspect, both the SAT and IQ tests are “uncoachable.”
When designing tests, there is a difference between measuring proficiency vs cognitive capacity. An example of testing proficiency is the USA citizenship test. It’s just memorizing a bunch of facts about George Washington and the # of senators in Congress. The average foreigner could go from scoring 0 to 100% assisted by coaching and prep work.
If I’m offered, pre-birth, an IQ of 150 or an IQ of 50, I’m still gonna request 150.
By the way, I also don’t see why you think that migration would increase the selective pressure specifically on intelligence as a trait. I can think of lots of things that would be useful to a migrant population - stamina, strength, resistance to disease, ability to thrive on a wide range of foods, etc. I don’t think it’s immediately obvious by a long shot to assume that intelligence would be the most valuable trait to have.
Indeed, if you were to collect a group to go out into an unsettled wilderness and start a new civilization out of nothing, how many PhDs would you include?
Well done. 
But it seems logical that a group that travels into new environments will be faced with new problems. When you stay in one place, you benefit more from the collective learning of generations. Say I live in what is now Morocco. I wander about and find myself in Switzerland one May. I say, “Wow, this is much nicer, not as hot, lots of lakes. I think I’ll stay here.” Than in the fall the white stuff starts falling from the sky and covering everything and the lakes all freeze. “Uh-oh, now what do I do.” It seems logical to me that a groups who keeps moving will be forced with problem solving more often than a group that stays put. And that that group, over time, would get better at problem solving. In other words, become smarter.
Possibly I am paranoid, but the fact that the OP’s thinly-veiled insult appeared on Juneteenthis suspicious to me.
No, I’m not using it differently. Part of prep classes involves the kind of coaching you’re referring to, but most of it is just teaching content.
Of course, no content test will be completely independent from intelligence. But the question is whether the SAT is closer to a mostly-content test or closer to a mostly-intelligence test, and it is clearly the former. ETS preaches otherwise, but they do so because it is in their interest to do so, not because it is true.
People can and do learn the math content that is tested, increase their vocabulary, and see consequent increases in their SAT scores by hundreds of points. Maybe no one has ever gone from 900-1500 on the old scale, but that doesn’t mean the test can fairly be called not coachable.
I can understand the desire for IQ tests to not test for specific knowledge, but aren’t the SAT’s supposed to test for knowledge? You need a certain amount of knowledge (not just smarts) to be accepted into a college. If the amount of education doesn’t matter, why not give SATs to 1st graders and call it a day.
I doubt he has the subtlety; he probably couldn’t tell Juneteenth from Nathan Bedford Forrest’s birthday. And that veil is just about transparent.
But this is a great opportunity to give this useless thread some purpose. Juneteenth was once the date of amazing free concerts in Houston’s Hermann Park–as remembered in this 2008 Houston Press article:
Times changed & many of those artists are no longer with us–like Lightnin’ Hopkins, one of those “locals of note.” But there’s a Gulf Coast Juneteenth show tonight at Miller Theater. Still free! Featuring the Meters Experience, the Soul Rebels Brass Band and “stellar” zydeco stompers Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas. (And a Gospel show tomorrow.)
For both historical and contemporary reasons, the College Board has tried to market the SAT as tracking intelligence and critical thinking rather than memory of content. Since its inception, nearly, the test has been criticized as doing the opposite of what it claimed to do, which was provide a marker of student ability independent from socioeconomic factors such as where that child went to secondary school. Among the sharpest contemporary criticisms of the test is that rich kids do better because they can afford test prep. Consequently, ETS claims that test prep is useless except at the margins, a proposition largely disproven by the evidence that a few months of test prep regularly increases scores by 10-20%.
But that is what they mean by “uncoachable.” Your experience of boosting scores by +200 is not what ETS is talking about. Perhaps they are misusing the term “uncoachable” in your eyes but it doesn’t matter.
I’ve seen more criticism that the SAT is the opposite what you claim: too much of a disguised IQ test instead of being an achievement (proficiency) test. This ends up being an uncomfortable topic that ETS dances around. Examples:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/07/04/the_sat_tests/
If the SAT were truly more about content instead of intelligence, it would be much easier to get 1500-1600 scores. Just pop a few pills of caffeine and memorize memorize memorize* the content*. Clearly, there is something designed about the tests that prevent 99% of the students from getting 1500+ scores. Is this aspect “coachable?” If so, I’d like to know the methodology and so would millions of anxiety stricken parents.
IQ tests and SATs belong to a class of tests designed to predict the future scores of people taking those tests. The tests supporters will claim that the tests are predictors of future performance in higher education, but of course the scores determine who will participate in higher education, so that prediction is self fulfilling. I’m not contending these tests are worthless, but there is an attempt to narrow concepts like intelligence and knowledge to conform to an efficient model for factory style education.
Well we all are. Not a surprising attitude for people forced to live amongst you humans;)
And work in show business for GEICO