SATs? What are they? What do they look like?

Factual Questions
21

Thanks guys. I have no interest whatsoever to pay for anything, as I’ve been out of HS for 23 years now. It’s just that whenever I consume American made media which deals with HS kids, SAT seems to be something very important. Doing well on your SATs shows that you’ve got a brain and might help when your applying for college, as do sports achievments for the jocks.
The whole concept is kinda strange for us, since all tuition at higher education is free here, as it is in many European countries. The only way you’re getting in (in Sweden) is based on your grades from HS. Since education is free, there’s a limited amount of places available. Only so many openings in law school or med school each year, distributed among universities. There is fierce competition for the more popular programs, so getting good grades is very important.

We do have a sort of national test, designed by the department for education. This is supposed to show the schools the level the students are on, making it easier gicing out the final grades in an unbiased way. These test were, when I took them, not supposed to really make a difference for the individual, but of course they did.

It seems that I can use the link in Blueapple’s post to sample the test. Thanks. It would give me a better feel for what the whole hullabaloo* is all about.

*Could that be a word on the test? :smiley:

22

Just a few more details…

1050 is the minimum score needed to get into your more well known colleges (trivia: Brenda and Brandon both got 1050 on their SAT in Beverly Hills 90210: high enough to get accepted as in-state students to UCLA, not so high as to make them uncool or smarter than the average high school age viewer).

Anything above 1200 is considered quite good, generally speaking.

And just in case this hadn’t been clarified already, one test is given nationwide, on each testing day. If you take the test again, the material covered will be the same, but the exact test will not be the same.

To get into graduate school, there is a similar test called the GRE (Graduate Record Examination, I think). The general test covers material similar to the SAT, with the addition of a “Analytical” section, where you have to answer logic puzzles of the sort: If Mary teaches on Tuesday, and Frank teaches after Sue, What day does Joe teach?"

To get into law school there’s a test called the LSAT, and for Medical school its called the MCAT.

23

What I personnally thing the weirdest is that’s it’s organized by a private company, which has esssentially a monopoly on a test which is apparently recognized nation-wide. How come the Unisersities or colleges don’t organize their own (tailored) test instead on relying on this one? One did the company manage to “sell” its product so well that ot’s now considered as a standart (close to mandatory???) test? How comes there are no competitors (I mean other companies organizing the same kind of tests, or possibly somewhat different tests).
Something else I find strange, but this time not about the US, is what the Gaspode says about Sweden. Here, anybody who successfully graduated from high school can enter the uni. There’s no limited number of places available, except in for some reason in medical schools (I don’t know why it was different originally, but I know pretty well why it’s still that way : Doctor’s unions lobbying).

Though thinking twice, the most prestigious schools here are the “grandes ecoles” and these have a limited number of places and organize their own competitive exams…and beside the impressive failure rate (mostly people just giving up) during the first year at the Uni takes care of most issues which could result from a too large number of students, which isn’t necessarily a better system, actually.
Anyway, I’m very surprised by the infos about the SAT. I wondered about them several times but assumed they were organized by the schools or the school districts/boards, following a frame drafted by some official government body or state body. I never imagined that a private company could have drafted them.

24

I downloaded and took the mini test. 68 questions. Sheesh. It’s been long since I used any math beyond simple arithmetic. About 23 years. I guess, had I studied a little on math, or at least refreshed some basic geometry and trig, I would have scored better.
I’ll blame the score on English being my second language, and that some of the terminology in math had me stumped, or at least having to spend too much time deciphering what the question was.

So. Ta-da…

Math: 510
Verbal: 690

Not to shabby, or…?

25

Because then you’d have to take eight tests if you wanted to apply to eight schools. Nobody wants that.

26

Gaspode, there is a Swedish test that I’ve always thought to be somewhat similar to the SAT, namely “högskoleprovet”. A good score will increase your chances of admission to a Swedish university, for a limited time (two or three years I believe). I’ve taken it a couple of times.

27

Gaspode… 1200 would be a pretty competitive score on the actual test (although the minitests are generally slightly easier), qualifying you for most scholarships and all but the top 10 or 20 universities.

28

To continue this mild hijack, neither SAT (or ACT) scores nor school grades, by themselves, are a terrific indicator of much of anything. I could sleep through classes and get A’s, while Bob nextdoor studies day and night for countless hours to achieve the same feat. Yet we both have the same GPA. Also, an A at one school (or even with one teacher) is not comparable to anything else, really, but that same teacher at that same school. Some teachers and schools are easier than others.

However, a good SAT score is similarly meaningless. I could be damned smart, and get a 1600 on the SAT, and also be a lazy turd who isn’t inclined to lift a finger. I’ll likely do poorly in college, even with my wonderful SAT score. Alternately, a low SAT score could mean I’m not that bright, but it could also mean that I just test poorly, or even that I had a bad day.

But an SAT score and high school record together can start to tell you something. That’s why most schools want the dirt on both your test scores and you school grades - without both bits of info, you really don’t know anything.
With regards to the SAT, here in California we just decided to completely screw up the entire premise of the SAT, which is a nationally-recognized, very objective, standardized test, by adding… bum bum BUUUUM… a writing component. People were complaining that the original was discriminitory and biased towards the middle- and upper-classes, so the UC system essentially launced a hissy-fit in order to force a revision of the SAT. There’s now an 800 point written essay test that gets scored by lots of different people with lots of different subjective personal biases, to completely throw off the (prior) fact that everyone in the nation was taking the exact same test, graded the exact same way.

And clairobscur - the SAT doesn’t have a monopoly at all - there’s the ACT to compete with it. It’s just that the SAT was here first, and is more widely recognized. I kinda like the fact that it’s done by a private company - the format of the tests is less driven by beaurocracy and politics, and more by just being a good test. Of course, as the addition of the written portion shows, the test isn’t completely immune to politics.
Jeff

29

I know one (and I assume there are more). Boston University lets students bypass a select number of courses based on SAT II scores. However, you can’t get credit for these classes–have to have AP tests for that.

Someone (I am far too lazy to scroll up and find out who, for which I apologize wholeheartedly) also asked about subject tests other than SAT II’s. AP (Advanced Placement) tests are used for this, although unfortunately schools may not see the result of the bulk of a student’s AP work until that student has already been accepted (AP tests are only offered in the spring, and while you can take AP classes earlier than senior year, most people don’t, or at least don’t take that many of them before then). This is used more for awarding class credit than anything else.

30

clairobscur.

Also, in spite all the gripes, the SAT I is quite high quality, as far as standardized tests go. It’s limited, but it’s a good test. There isn’t really any demand for similar tests because this one is good enough. The ACT is a competitor, but it doesn’t do nearly as well; in only a few locations is the ACT preferred over the SAT.

Moreover, the AP exams, similarly developed by the Educational Testing Service and run by the College Board, are in my opinion very high quality. In preparing for AP exams, I took quite a few practice exams, both real AP’s from previous years, and practice exams made by other companies. It was pretty easy to tell the difference. Nobody makes tests like these people. My feeling is that it would be quite challenging to develop tests competitive with these.

Both the College Board and Educational Testing Service are nonprofits. ETS actually produces these tests and many others, and the College Board runs the testing programs. I think. You can read about them here:

http://www.ets.org/
http://www.collegeboard.com/

31

Yeah, then it’d be like Japan. And there is no way in hell I’d want to do Japan’s enterance exams.

32

I tutored kids for the SAT I, and the SAT II Writing and Chemistry tests. I can probably still tell you some of the answers from the “Ten Real SATs” book from memory. I KNOW that book.

There are no longer straight synonym and antonym questions.

Also, I need to point out that while there is a state-mandated minimum score to attend a University of California campus, you have NO chance for UCLA with a score of 1050 unless you happen to be the second coming of Bill Walton (a very famous basketball player from UCLA).

UCLA consistently ranks in the top ten of American universities, and the competition is fierce. Kids are turned down with scores of over 1200, which is pretty good. Impacted majors are even harder to get accepted for.

What’s even funnier about getting into UCLA with a 1050 is that, being a public school, it’s not easy to buy your way in, as with USC, Yale, etc. They don’t care if your mom or dad went there. You’d probably have to pay for half a lab to get special consideration. They’re governed by the laws of the state on whom they admit.

The SATs have been revised recently, as the UC system complained very strongly about them, even threatening not to use them. I quit my tutoring just after this happened, so I don’t know if the changes have made it to the students yet.

As said above, the SATs are excellent tests. I found very few things to complain about, and the answers were NEVER wrong. There were some difficult problems and questions, but they have been proofread to death. Even if a question is found to be faulty (as I think one was in the past few years), it is removed from the scoring process.

Whether they measure things relevent to a student’s success or not is a whole different question, and belongs in GD. You can really whip up a storm with that question. I will say, though, that it does really demonstrate whether a kid even possibly has the ability to read college-level texts. If you’re getting a 500 on you verbal exam, there’s no way you’re going to make it through an Ivy League reading load.

Just as one example, I read a lot, but as an adult of 30, I walked in with no preparation and got 800 on the Verbal section. A well-read adult should get at least 650, I would say. So if you’re a 17-year old, getting a 500, you’re going to end up at a low-rated state school, or maybe just a junnior college for a while.

What I discovered by tutoring this is that the average teenager cannont read Newsweek and make real sense of it. I could pick out words from a random article with amazing accuracy that my average student would not know.

33

IIRC if you take an AP course and AP exam in the first semester of your senior year, the results come back in time to be considered for college admissions. And a lot of people take AP courses and exams before senior year. (“AP courses” are designed to cover AP exam material and offered in most US high schools.)

I agree that AP exams seemed to be very high quality. They are not multiple choice, and you get partial credit for showing your work. They stress analytical skills and true understanding of the subject matter, not memorization. They

34

Actually you can get in on either your grades or the Högskoleprov. The test score is valid for five years. I always thought of it as the equivalent of the SAT.

35

Just a small note re: the monopoloy factor. Someone said that the ACT is a competitor. Only sort of. Some universities accept only the ACT, some accept only the SAT, and some accept both. When I was in high school, the ACT was not offered in the state of New York. A friend who needed to take the ACT for a college that only accepted it, had to travel to Connecticut to find a test site. So I wouldn’t say they are always direct competitors.

At my university, if your SAT I Verbal score and your SAT II English test score totalled a certain amount, then the requirement of freshman english was waived. You did not receive credit, you could just skip it if preferred and move on to more advanced classes.

36

I’ve just taken the SAT and recently received my scores back. With the scores came statistics you may be interested inreference to “can you take the SAT as many times as you want utnil you get a good grade”:
Verbal:
54% score higher on a second testing.
37% score lower on a second testing.
9% receive the same score.
On average a person gains 9 points on a second testing (verbal).

Math:
57% score higher on a second testing.
34% score lower on a second testing.
9% receive the same score.
On average a person will gain 12 points on a second testing (math).

The categories we were tested on include: Critical Reading, Analogies, Sentence Completion, Arithmetic and Algebraic Reasoning, and Geometric Reasoning.

Personally I did fair on the test (1200ish) although in contrast to others in my class I did well. In my opinion SATs aren’t very hard, however answering 30 math questions in 25 minutes can be arduous. Especially when it is 8am in the morning and you have just answered 100 other questions, knowing that there are 5 minutes left and you have 10 questions to answer makes you stressed and then you begin to lose concentration. It’s a very entertaining experience to finish the SAT because as you walk out the building everyone looks as if they have just been punched in the stomach. Despite every highschoolers diatribe, the SAT does test rudimentary material.

What bothers me about the test is no matter how hard I’ve tried in 12 years of school or how hard I’m willing to try in college, if I do poor on this 4 hour SAT it can determine what college I go to and more importantly what college I don’t get to go to. My sister had a GPA of 3.8 and scored a very poor score on the SAT, she could not even make it in to the public state school and had to go to a very bad one. The college she’s currently going to she sees fellow classmates from highschool who had straight D’s. What’s the incentive or reward for working hard in highschool? For her there was none at all because she could be in the same place by slacking off and getting nothing but D’s. Anyhow, that’s how a lot of highschoolers see the SAT as a AST (Am I Screwed Test).

I’m more optimistic about getting my ACT scores back, most people seem to do better on them. ACT is very similar to the SAT although it has a Science/Reasoning section (which is almost the exact same thing as the math section but with graphs and other basic science affiliated things).

37

I understand your point, but the colleges have to have some way to try to normalize the students, seeing as how an A at your school might be much different than at your cousin’s.

This is a little cruel, but if I were on the admission board, and heard this complaint, I might respond with either, “Young lady, your exams here will be timed, and this is something of an indicator of your performance initially here”, or “If you didn’t care enough to practice and study and take the test multiple times, then I question your dedication to getting what you want in academics.”

38

According to Cecil, George W. Bush’s scores on the SAT would place him in the 88th percentile on the verbal and 86th in math were he entering college now.

39

But they let you take the SAT multiple times, and colleges look at other information (grades, activities, interviews and letters of recommendation) for admissions. Just be glad you’re not in Japan where the only thing they look at is the test score for the entrance exam. And they’re not the high-quality tests Americans are used to because each college makes and administers its own entrance exam. At least if you don’t get into the college of your choice, it’s socially acceptable to take a year off (and study like mad) and try again. :rolleyes: