Lowest Raw Score Ever on the SAT 747
An anonymous reader writes "Lowest Raw Score Ever on the SAT. Relax! You are practically guaranteed to have done better on the SAT than this guy! But the competition for most extreme negative raw score is just beginning..."
Top 2% (Score:5, Interesting)
(That's only about 2.5\sigma from the mean...)
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Informative)
That's my reasoning, anyway. I wonder if figuring all this stuff out is part of the test. (Is there a reason that what any sane person would call a "zero" is a 400 on the SATs?)
Re:The reason (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Top 2% (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea is that each section of the SAT is theoretically scored from 0 to 1000, with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100 points. After calculating the scores, they drop the low and high outliers and shift them to 200 or 800 respectively, keeping three standard deviations from the mean.
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Interesting)
Though I'll agree with you about the disturbing factor - I consider myself to be intelligent, but if I'm in the top 2% of all humanity, then God help us!
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, our society doesn't generally deal well with extreme intelligence. As soon as it is realized that you score well on standardized tests (which is what these measures actually measure, not "intelligence"), there is extraordinary pressure not to "waste" that intelligence. It is usually assuming that a rigorous program of schooling-- and usually in schools controlled by people who are decidedly average intelligence-wise-- is the best course. This is probably a mistake.
Most schools are not designed to nurture independent learning (or thought, really). The medium is a large part of the message and that message is, "obey arbitrary authority, move around at the sound of the bell, you are smart enough to learn the world's history, physics, and advanced match, but you are not smart enough to manage your own time or decide who should teach you what."
Is it any wonder, then, that some of the nation's brightest stars get bored or upset or choose fairly antisocial ways of expressing themselves? The worst case is when those "smart" kids come from otherwise average families. Those parents may act like they've hit the lottery, or simply continue to apply pressure (apparently even subtle sticks are more common than any kind of carrot in these situations) to urge the kid to "use their full potential" or whatever. It's a bit like a gardener who would try to grow his plants faster by sitting in the garden and pulling on the tops of the plants.
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Insightful)
I got mid 170s in an IQ test that the school/state put me in for - at the time I didn't even know I was doing an IQ test. I was just doing fun and fairly easy spatial and verbal puzzles for an afternoon - some part of which was talking to an entertaining and interesting person (an educational psychologist).
If I had realised the implications of what I was doing I would have flunked it. Twenty-two years later I can look back at a lot of bad-times and finger that test as a cause.
It is usually best that most people do not think of you as belonging to a privileged group.
Schools are awful - merely open prisons for children, ways of keeping them of the streets while their parents work society's treadmills, while preparing them for the same life of indentured servitude. :-)
Read some Ivan Illich [infed.org] . He frames his arguments better than I do.
"Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question." Ivan Illich Deschooling Society (1973)
Re:Top 2% (Score:5, Interesting)
The odd thing, from my perspective, is that most of my friends get along just fine. I tend to consort with people about as smart as I am (146 IQ, 36 ACT, 1490 SAT, if you think standardized tests have much to do with intelligence), and they don't have the problems I have. I think my failure, and my brother's before mine, has more to do with the type of habits we've learned from our parents than with our intelligence. My parents are both fairly anti-establishment, and have both made relatively successful careers despite (or in my dad's case, because of) that. They've taught my brother and me to hold similar views.
While I call them anti-establishment, I don't mean in a knee-jerk kind of way. There are elements in the System that my parents believe in, and there are elements that they don't believe in. They taught my brother and me to weigh the facts and decide for ourselves what we believe and how to behave because of it. Now, I can't vouch for my brother, but a big part of any explanation for my poor performance in high school isn't so much apathy for learning itself as for demonstrating that I've learned something. I love reading Shakespeare, but I'm not much for doing some silly homework assignment meant to prove to the teacher that I've done the reading. I read books about physics in my spare time, so why should I bother completing some little bit of physics homework? My biggest complaint is classes that grade based on attendance. Quote from my piano teacher this past semester: "I am sure this section was the only one you could fit into your schedule, but if you ever have a chance to take another class piano course, try to schedule for later time; so that your grade will reflect what you can on the keyboard [sic], not when you wake up." That was in an email informing me I had gotten a C in the course. Now, why should what time I wake up ever, ever affect my grade in a class? I obviously came to class enough that she knew I could play the instrument as well as...well, as well as a bassoon major can be expected to; why should I get a C because I didn't come any more often than that? And this is in college!
Too often, performance in school reflect not a person's ability, nor their commitment, nor anything else that's relevant, but instead their ability to get up in the morning, follow a set schedule, do what they're told, and not get into any trouble (since suspensions, at least at my former high school, count as unexcused absences which then affect a person's grade adversely).
Re:Top 2% (Score:3, Funny)
In any give class, The first exam(s) will have the most Fs, the middle will have the least, and the final will approach the first, leading to something resembling an inverted bell curve, biased to the low end. It is also a plot of frequency of the F word versus intelligence.
Extreme Intelligence is Overrated (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I had an IQ test (in the twightlight of my HS years), I believe I fell within the top .1% of the population. (I can really be an ass and say
that the score was probably a tad lower then what my real IQ was at the time -
since I went for speed in taking the test.)
So, I'm a smart person. Yah! A very super-duper intelligent person. Am I doing better in life because of it? Nope.
Intelligence does influence how successful you'll be in life, but it is not the only factor. Social skills (which I'm lacking), confidence (lacking again), and an extroverted nature also plays a huge factor in your success in life.
I'm currently sitting back at a crappy job, watching the world go by at the age of 24, while I try to figure what the hell I want. My former classmates, some with more drive then me, are probably pulling down 5x what I make in a year.
Intelligence is overrated...
Re:It's amazing, really (Score:5, Funny)
Judging from a quick mental run-through of the SAT scores and IQs of people I know, I'd say about 1/3 of everybody fits in the 98th percentile.
And about 2/3 of everybody has at least one shoebox full of blue ribbons.
We're one spart pack of motherfuckers, I tell ya.
Re:It's amazing, really (Score:4, Funny)
This reminds me of the time I was at some social gathering, and the topic of IQ came up. We all volunteered our IQs. Mine was 130 at the time based on a test I took in 7th grade. It later shot up to 150 based on a test with a psychologist, taken for the purpose of determining why I was having difficulty in college. If it makes any difference, my SAT was 1320 and I took it in 1985, before they dumbed it down.
Anyhow, the girl volunteered that her IQ was 105. That was the lowest that anybody fessed up to that evening. I thought since 100 was supposed to be average, either the IQ tests are bogus, or there are a lot of institutes for the retarded hidden away in the woods. I mean, this girl was dumb. The thought of more than 50% of the world being dumber than her was terrifying to me. Of course now I realize that intelligence isn't everything.
The girl was not bad looking. I wouldn't be surprised if she did just fine. I dropped out of college for two years shortly after that last test. I still consider myself to be "in recovery".
Hrm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hrm (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, but (Score:2)
Of course, these tests are not infinetly long, but with n=100, you have a 10^-13 chance of getting all questions wrong randomly, and a 10^-61 chance of getting everything right by randomly guessing. B
Re:Hrm (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hrm (Score:5, Insightful)
For some? Eliminating wrong answers is a crucial part of the SAT strategy. On top of that, you can pick the answer you're MOST sure is wrong, as for many problems (esp. reading comprehension) you may decide that it's probably A, but there's an outside chance that they might want C. Besides, you can save a tremendous amount of time by only having to find the first wrong answer, rather than figuring out which is the right answer. Remember, part of the difficulty of the SAT is that it is a timed test (or so they say, I never had any problems with time). Finally, guessing a right answer is only 1/3-1/5 (depending on the type of problem), but guessing a wrong answer is fairly likely, so you're likely to get a perfect 0 even if you have to guess on 3 or 4 problems.
I didn't get a perfect raw SAT score (probably only a handful of people in the country do each year, a 1600 scaled actually allows one to get several problems wrong, generally around 3 or 4 verbal and 1 or 2 math), but I feel quite confident that I would be able to get a perfect 0.
Re:Hrm (Score:3, Insightful)
1+1=
the answers should be something like:
a:1
b:2
c:0
d none of the above
e all of the above
And for sure every questio
Re:Hrm (Score:2)
Re:Old statistics puzzle (Score:3, Interesting)
A teacher gives a true false test to three students. One gets 100% correct so gets an 'A'. One gets 50% correct so gets an 'F'. The third gets none correct but the teacher still gives him an 'A'. Why?
Re:Old statistics puzzle (Score:3, Funny)
on the positive side... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:on the positive side... (Score:2)
no. not ever, to the best of my knowledge, though it's possible that a background check might include your high school transcript, SAT scores, etc.
Best line (Score:5, Funny)
Premise -- dude tries really hard to do really bad on the exam, ends up by accident getting 2 questions right, and scores a 400 on the exam.
"This experiment grew on me as time passed by, and now I am thinking of other
funny angles, like asking Princeton Review or Kaplan if they would be interested
in being able to make the claim that a person who participated in their SAT
preparation course improved his test score by 1200 points!"
--------
Re:Best line (Score:5, Interesting)
Lowest REAL SAT score? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lowest REAL SAT score? (Score:2)
Re:Lowest REAL SAT score? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I should have the lowest (Score:5, Funny)
I know someone that filled in the dots to form pacman-type characters, and he got the second highest score in his school class. His class was of 3 or 4 hundred, and not in the ghetto or anything - it was actually a pretty good high school in suburbia. Not sure what the actual score was, though.
I'd agree, the SAT is a farce. From what I've seen, the ACT is a fair degree better at being consistent, although it definately seems to favor logically minded folks over creative folks.
Re:I should have the lowest (Score:3, Informative)
> given the one-dot-per-line restriction,
> how do you make "pacman-type characters?"
This story actually was part of "Parker Lewis Can't Lose". Kubiac (always dump and always hungry) punches "EAT NOW" into the form and scores perfect. No details on the test are known. The pattern just shows when the paper is hold against back light.
Re:I should have the lowest (Score:5, Funny)
So... (Score:2)
...getting a low score on your SAT means you're stupid*, unless you want to score low, in which cause a low score is nerdy... it makes a weid kind of sense.
Disclaimer: We don't have SATs in Norway. However, we do run all our raw military recruits (and remeber we have a military system based on conscriptions) thru a simular sets of tests which includes mathskills, skills in norwegian, skills in english, logicskills and a light touch at the physical sciences. Never heard of anyone willingly aiming for a ba
Re:So... (Score:2)
No wonder the USA gave up on the conscript army concept after the Vietnam experience.
Re:So... (Score:2)
Could they willingly retake the test later? In this case the man is in his thirties and had already taken his GRE (after college graduation, where SATs are generally taken in high school). I don't think anybody even looks at SATs after you have a degree, especially a Masters, so it was no-risk folly for him while surrounded by people to whom it really mattered for college admission. You can retake the SAT as
more (Score:4, Insightful)
I 'll do better! (Score:2)
Makes me feel good. (Score:2)
Re:Makes me feel good. (Score:2, Interesting)
My friend goes to UC Santa Cruz and is always trying to convince me to quit my job and go to school. I'm reluctant, and a little discouraged. Do I even have a chance at getting accepted, considering my fairly crappy SAT score and mediocre
Re:Makes me feel good. (Score:2)
1250 is a 132 IQ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:1250 is a 132 IQ? (Score:2)
SAT's, are they something people study and prepare for? For me, an IQ measures a person's intelligence best when they don't prepare for it - and it tests generic things which are based as little as possible on culture (unless examining general knowledge).
I do this all the time: (Score:2, Insightful)
What does it measure though? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in college now, and did relatively well on my SAT, but I'm a slacker... especially when it comes to academics. Just a plain lazy bastard.
The thing is that I had alot of friends who didn't do so well on the SAT, but they got into their undergrad school and worked their butt off and are now on their way to Med school. Now granted, in order to get into a good one, you still have to go through a nasty little M-CAT, something I know nothing about.
It seems though that something like the SAT shows little more than how you prepare for a very specific test and how you perform on a very specific day. What it shows to a lesser degree is your level of persistence, self discipline and perhaps most notably, your common sense. I have alot of friends who are going to be sucessful at what they do someday, but just don't do well sitting in a room answering multiple choice questions for three hours.
Perhaps this is why its a blessing that your standardized test scores are not the only critieria for admitance into higher learning institutions.
My own minirant (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The tutors who get the money for test preps
2. Annoying egos (the same people who "failed" a test because they got a 96% and not a 99%)
3. Distinguishing people with high gpas without any other significant experience in h.s.
I think that was one of the things I hated most about high school.
Re:My own minirant (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I think taking the Kaplan course (in some/most cases, not all) reflects the obsession to do well on the SAT test, period. Not improve abilities or whatever. If anyone has taken the test and wants to say otherwise, then your opinion of it may very well be more credible than mine. This is just my perc
MCAT vs SAT vs ACT (Score:3, Interesting)
No, in order to get into any American or Caribbean medical school you need to take the MCAT. Hopkins used to take ACT scores but changed over a few years ago, and a few BS/MD programs will still do that, but most of those only admit high school students for a 6-year ride (Brown, Kansas City-Missouri, etc.; Miami-FL rolls theirs such that FL residents can apply
Re:MCAT vs SAT vs ACT (Score:4, Informative)
Whoa, there, cowboy. The ACT & MCAT are achievement tests, designed specifically to test knowledge. Knowledge is still, AFAIK, something you can acquire and retain almost regardless of your IQ.
The SAT and standard IQ tests, OTOH, are aptitude tests, designed to test a person's ability to solve problems and think critically. This is also something that can be learned, but only to an extent. It is not possible to memorize all of the possible questions on an SAT test, while on an ACT test it is. No matter how much preparation you go through, you cannot teach yourself to be a genius.
More info [uscollegeprep.com]
And they don't even score it correctly (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's been proven. (Score:5, Informative)
You can get an A with minimal work. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example when you have a 5 point essay question, don't write a book. Write a paragraph, with 5 points in it. If the teacher is a biggie for structure, add an intro and summary sentence. Make sure you spell it mostly right, and write neatly.
Also don't make run on sentences.
When you do projects, make them the appropriate size for the mark value and your position. Then make sure it is done well. Target the requirements.
If the teacher/prof/TA wants a 10 page report, doing a good 10 page report will get you a higher mark then an even better 20 page report.
This guy is awesome! (Score:4, Funny)
Damn this is funny. It makes me want to go and take the test just for the hell of it. I never actually took it because I changed high-schools and the timing was weird. I rocked that ACT test though and I was sweating it. Anyway, the point is now that I'm older, calmer and have more practical knowledge, I could probably rock that test hard and get into Yale. Oh yeah I forgot, Yale is a Bush party school.
Re:This guy is awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than have a spare half hour at the end, I usually take regular 5 minute breaks during the exam and let my mind wander (this also improves my score, since it reduces stress, which inhibits brain function). Dur
MCAS vs SAT (Score:5, Interesting)
MCAS is f*cked up (Score:3, Interesting)
The MCAS shouldnt even exist. They only create these things to keep poor people from going to college.
The MCAS is setup so that if you fail it, you can NEVER go to college, you can NEVER get a diploma, and all you get is some stupid certificate.
Alot of kids who went to shitty schools have to either become very mature at a young age and take matters into their own hands and teach themselves, or they are going to fail that test and never go to college.
Seems like class Warfare to me.
I'm from MA as well AC,
Well.. (Score:2)
To those who don't know much about the SAT, they take the highest score for the math and the highest score for the verbal section from all the tests you take (there's no limit I'm aware of), and they're added together for your total score. So if I score a 600/700 on my math and verbal respectively on my first test, and then a 700/600 on my math and verbal respectively on t
But why?? (Score:2)
Also I am supprised they let an adult out of highschool take it. I finished my senior year in Canada so I did not take the SAT. I decided back in the states on my junior year to take it a year later so I can have a higher score.
Since I am in community college now I might as well take it again since I can
Essay questions on the SAT (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, without a keyboard and a spellchecker I'm nothing! My handwriting is absolutely terrible. But none of that matters in collage, since papers will be turned in after being typed on a computer. And even if a grader isn't going to look at those things specifically, they'll still be affected by them, as well as whether or not they agree with the essay. Not to mention the fact that it's going to be insanely expensive to grade these things. They'll need about 1,500 graders each grading 1,500 papers. Can you imagine grading that many boring essays about random subjects? My brain would just go numb. The only fair way to do it would be to have each essay graded by a diverse group of graders, and then average the score. But that would cost even more per test. Or perhaps they could figure out some way to grade essays by a computer. Teach a neural net the properties of a good essay and see what it comes up with.
Or they could just not do it...
Re:Essay questions on the SAT (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the marking of essays is a problem that's been pretty comprehensively solved here in sunny Queensland Australia. The trick to it is to have a statistician on hand. Then you take a whole bunch of markers from all around the state and they come together to mark the essays. You give them a whole bunch of training on how to mark the essays, what they should be looking for etc. Each essay is then independently marked twice (ie: two markers read and grade it without knowing anything about what the other marker thought of the paper). Then the results are collated and handed to the statistician who looks for any grades that don't match up - one of the markers isn't marking properly. Which one is easy to pick because during the day each marker will have marked several essays and the pairs of markers always change, so you just look for any marker that shows up in more than one grade mismatch and you have your problem case.
Once you've found the problem cases for the day you prioritise them and take out the most significant problem markers for more training (there's not enough money to retrain them all). If a marker is picked up as a problem case twice they're sent home and won't participate in any further marking (usually for quite a few years, teachers around here have long memories...).
So now we have a system that keeps markers consistent, what do you do with the grades that were mismatched by markers? You have the essay graded by a third person who is very experienced in the marking process and see what they think. If they have trouble deciding they can refer it to a fourth person and so on.
So in short, the way to mark essays reliably and fairly, lots of training, lots of money, and a damn good statistician (yes only one statistician for the entire state of Queensland).
Also note that the test we use (the Queensland Core Skills test or QCS) is regarded as one of the best tests in the world, takes about 2 years to write (they're already working on the 2005 test) and is sold off to other countries like Japan. You should also note that your mark on the QCS test does not affect your tertiary entrace score, rather the results of the QCS test are groups in various ways and use to scale your marks for the rest of your senior year to accomodate for different difficulties of subjects (Physics vs Chemistry vs English vs Art vs Typing etc) as well as differences in marking between schools and a whole host of other things, but never an individual basis. In other words, it takes probability into account which suggests that some students will perform below their normal standard and others will perform above their normal standard since the test is held over only two days (a small sample of the students actual work thus leading to high variance).
The whole process is actually very carefully and very well designed so you're of the belief that tests don't judge personal ability, you should do some research on this process because it's as good an example of test usage you're likely to find. The biggest downside is that because of it's complexity (or particuarly because it's different to the normal way people think about tests) most students don't actually understand the process and really panic about their QCS test results.
Re:Essay questions on the SAT (Score:3, Interesting)
AP (Advanced Placement) exams have a free response section on all tests. For the math APs the free response is pretty objective - you get a point for this setup, a point for that answer, or a point for this explanation, but all of that is still graded by hand. Most other exams, at least those in English, have three essays that make up more than half of the total score.
For example, in both the US and European
it's easy, just double bubble! (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
The test proctor, a Geometry teacher, didn't like this very much and sent me to the principal's office. I gladly took my test answer sheet up to the principal's office and told them the story I wrote here. The principal took the answer sheet and showed it to a couple of people around the office, presumably to get second and third (reinforcing) opinions, and then returned the test sheet to me and told me to get back to class, finish the test, "and if she has any further problem with this, send her to me."
My first reaction was, whoa, "send her to you"?! I don't have that authority. She made me understand that I had done nothing wrong and should definitely not be punished for it. (To be honest, I do not remember if my main purpose was to be a smartass or to promote social colorblind-ness, but it shouldn't matter if anyone reads it properly.)
Anyway, the moral of this story is: if you let them get used to you simply falling into line and always doing the expected thing, you get locked into it. On the other hand, if you let them know you're just less than predictable, and perhaps even a bit crazy or eccentric, then you can get away with much more and even get them to think harder about things. I succeeded that day, and my ego swelled from that of a skinny, nerdy white boy into that of a taller, more confident, skinny, nerdy white boy. :-)
Yeah, I feel that ALL the time. Marching to the beat of a different drum is liberating, but self-liberation is viewed as insanity until it catches on...p.s.-- my favorite line from Colin Fahey's site:
Re:My experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
"I refuse to answer the essay portion of this test on the grounds that any answer I give will be judged subjectively and any grade not given by a machine is arbitrary. As proof I submit that if I were to grade my answer to this question, I would give myself full credit."
Re:My experience... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually that argument probably fails. I think there will probably be precise and detailed list of criteria for scoring the essay. Yes, it will be partially subjective, but not entirely arbitrary. Giving yourself full credit for that essay would probably be a violation of the rules.
-
Urban legends (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Justice
2) Truth
20) Happiness
Generally it was a great opportunity to blather on. Anyway, when I arrived there was this great fuss. Apparently, in the previous year one of the questions had been simply "Courage", to which one student had written "This is." The story - true or not - is that
I feel sorry ... (Score:5, Funny)
SAT verbal == word memorization (Score:3, Insightful)
The SAT verbal section is for the most part, a test of vocabulary word memorization. In India, we aspiring graduate students spent marathon sessions memorizing vocabulary words that we never used again after taking the test. It was quite a joke, really. It favors those with the wherewithal to engage in this mindless brain-stuffing, and disadvantages those who do have the skills to read critically and find meaning, but don't memorize all those esoteric (= a good example itself!) words.
While the math section seems relevant, the verbal section needs much overhaul to not rely so much on pure memorization.
SAT verbal != word memorization (Score:3, Interesting)
The next time you speak about Indians, do a favour, don't generalise, okay?
I'm an Indian, and five year
I liked this bit... (Score:5, Funny)
FIGURE: "Could my future get any brighter?!"
Colin is an interesting fellow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
He went on hiatus and never really came back. I heard about this particular stunt this morning from a coworker, best ten minutes of the day...
My thoughts were that this would be fun to gamble on... say put together pools or spread objectives for various test takers and bet money on how close they will come to their goals. Say you've got a guy who says he can get the absolute average... well you bet on him getting within 20 points or you say noway and take the smaller gain, whatever.. gambling on people's ability to read the test and perform how ever they want to sounds quite interesting to me...
Offtopic advice (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to a magnet high school that seemed to be little more than a college-entry factory and we prepped for the SAT from the first day of my freshman year. The more familiar you become with it, the better you'll be at it.
Also, from what I understand, your score is variable on how everyone else did as well (kind of like a curve in a class of many thousands). So depending on when you take it, your score could go up. My 4 PSAT/SAT scores were: 1240, 1260, 1340, 1420. Screw people who say you can't jump up like that - just keep taking the thing and you have a good chance of at least marginally increasing your score.
Oh, and get there on time too. Flying around town at 90mph to go back and get your ticket was^H^H^His not fun.
Which schools? (Score:5, Interesting)
Closed Universe (Score:5, Interesting)
My 13 year-old son spends an inordinate amount of time in school studying and practicing for a thing called a TAKS test here in Texas. You have to pass it or you don't graduate to the next grade (that's the intention, anyway). What skill, exactly, is he learning? As far as I can tell, the skill is "how to take the TAKS test" -- something very useful in the post-school world, I'm sure.
Very frustrating, at times.
Re:Closed Universe (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Office/Workplace Etiquette.
2. Customer Service Skills.
3. How Banking Works.
4. How to build Good Credit.
5. How to PAY A BILL.
6. Landlord/tenant rights.
7. How a car works (basic theory).
8. How to budget monthly.
9. How Insurance works/how to use insurance.
10.So much more.
Oh god (Score:5, Funny)
My Crazy SAT Story (Score:3, Funny)
I had to wake one friend up twice during the testing, and he still was staggering during breaks, his final score: 1580. Another friend landed into what I would consider the lowest score of all time with a 580 COMBINED! I managed to do OK with a 1260.
The moral of the story, do a number of odd substances, don't sleep, do not study, and get a few naps in DURING the testing and you too can score like a true Ivy Leaguer. =)
Re:My Crazy SAT Story (Score:4, Funny)
Measure of Wealth (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Measure of Wealth (Score:3, Informative)
Which is what most students studying for the test are doing. A lot of people that did well on the SAT achieved that goal by spending a long time studying SAT guides and getting SAT tutoring. For them, at least, the test proved mostly that they had learned how to take the SAT.
sure 400 seems low (Score:4, Funny)
back in middle school, I had a teacher who would give lots of extra credit questions on tests, but would subtract points if you got the extra credit wrong. I ended up with a -120 on a test. F for the semester too, but middle school doesnt matter.
Re:Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
I would prefer an honest President to either. No IQ score that is above the mean has much significance and if you go more than an SD above the mean there is NO significance. IQ tests were developed to measure the progress of mental patients under various therapies. They were never designed as general purpose tests.
Stephen Jay Gould gives the definitive debunking of IQ tests in The Mismeasure of Man. There is a big history of junk science, mostly in the service of racist theories of eugenics. Lots of untested facts being repeated for decades etc.
One of the many IQ myths is that you can't improve your score with practice. That is absolute rubbish. I had to practice IQ tests every week when I was 10 to take the exam for the senior school. I ended up with perfect scores on the multiple choice questions for several weeks in a row.
Getting back to his fraudulency, the guy has no character and no honesty. He lied to sell his tax cut and he lied to get his war. He promised not to bust the budget and then did exactly that, he even lied about the alleged 'trifecta' of exclusions to his promise. He never told the US people that there were exceptions, it never appeared in any press release of speech. Not only is he a liar, it is a character issue, he is in effect saying 'I had my fingers crossed behind my back'.
Before Bush's war the justification given was scary weapons of mass destruction. After the 'proof' that nuclear material had been bought from Niger was shown to be a fraud he invades anyway (or at least orders the army to). Then afterwards the story changes 'oh it was just regime change all along'. I wonder what the story is going to be once the funddies elect an ayatollah.
I suspect that after he looses the 2004 election the aircraft carrier antics are going to be seen in a different light. He is campaigning on his national guard stint - risky at best when daddy pulled strings to get the place and especially so when you then went AWOL for a year.
It is really difficult after being lied to to believe anything the man says.
Re:Bush (Score:3, Funny)
I would appreciate that also. Any idea when such a person could be convinced to run for office?
Re:Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, one of the defining characteristics of such a person would be that they would not be egotistical enough to enter a nation-wide popularity contest. I generally regard anyone who chooses to stand for election to be unelectable on those grounds. This makes voting difficult.
The only exception to this I have seen was an independent candidate who stood in the UK elections a few years back. The incumbent had been accused of corruption, and the independent stated that he would run against him, but would not run against another candidate that the Conservative party selected. They didn't back down, and the independent candidate won.
TV licensing (Score:3, Insightful)
Dave
Re:Bush (Score:5, Informative)
This is all besides the point though. All I care about is his job performance. I, for one, think he has performed very well, even if not perfectly. I voted for him in 2000 and I will vote for him again in 2004. Academic performance is not the same thing as intelligence and even (allegedly) high intelligence is not sufficient to succeed as a leader. There are many other factors to consider. Case in point: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, two smart people that failed in most important respects as President for different reasons.
Re:Standardized tests (Score:5, Insightful)
Standardized tests measure very well the ability to solve standardized tests. The question is - can they measure anything else?
Re:Standardized tests (Score:2)
Re:Standardized tests (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they can!
I always score near the top of these tests, 1480 sat, similar top scores in ASVAB, PSATs, MENSA test, etc.
This doesn't mean that i'm "smarter" than most others (my spelling is horrible and degrading rapidly), but I must point out that it is always people who test average or below (or, in general, are unsatisfied with the results of thier own tests) who make
Re:Standardized tests (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. But what is it, exactly? Is it your ability to achieve high social status? Definitely not, just look at some Fortune 500 executives or - as someone correctly pointed - George Dubya. Is it your ability to be a True Rocket Scientist Like The Eggheads From Old Sci-Fi Flicks? Neither, many famous inventors and scientific geniuses failed miserably in standardized tests.
Tests like SAT
Re:Standardized tests (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, not true. I scored a 1450. I think I'm in the top (some low number) percent of the population as far as intelligence and knowledge goes. I do not believe that the general SAT is valid test of anything other than SAT-taking ability.
I think I'm pretty qualified to say that too, given that I'm 2 weeks after from my degree.
I don't think the test is properly designed. I think I've taken much better tests that guaged general ablities, especially math.
The SAT only tests really basic math skills. I don't think this is a valid measure of someone's abilities.
Put simply, I don't think the spread between the easy and the hard questions is wide enough. I took the test as a junior, and I still hadn't been in any of the courses it is designed to test in two years. Yeah, I did fine, but how are those who are truly ahead of the curve supposed to show their abilities?
This isn't a problem limited to just the SATs either. In NYS we have state-wide Regents test for various subjects. I got a perfect score on all three tests. (I'm not saying this to brag, but I need to prove a point.) I used to think this was cool. Know what I realize now? That those tests were a waste. I should have been taking harder tests and harder courses.
Looking back now, I bet I could've taken my first two collesge math courses in high school and done allright. I'm not counting the AP Calc I did take in HS, either.
There is something wrong with putting everyone in the same class, or having them take the same test. People have different levels of abilities at different things. They should be taking a test which recognizes that. We should have been taking a different test. The number or questions that seperates a 1500 from a 1600 is just not statisically significant. When you start talking about this guy missing 2 questions out of several hundred and that guy missing 1, it's idiotic to separate those two people's scores by 1/14th of the total availible score range. Then admissions people go ahead and treat the 1600 as if it was a much better score than the 1500, even though scores that far off the norm aren't well enough determined for them to have that information. (And you can't call this bitterness either, I got into every school I applied to, and I'm about to graduate from a top school in my field.)
The questions I had to answer on the SAT just didn't really relate to anything I did in college. Yeah, they tested some basic skills that I needed in college, but they we not testing my potential. They weren't even testing if I had the skillset necessary to succeed.
If I had gone to college with only the math skills tested by the SAT I, I would have been fucked. No doubt about it. If it had really taken those extra years to learn those basic skills, and been that far behind, there's no way I could have kept up with the pace of my college courses.
(*)Sorry as in, sorry that nature and evolution are cruel. I, however, am not cruel, so don't get too upset by this post. =)
That's a pretty messed up thing to say. "Evolution" is not the reason most people do poorly on tests. There are plently of people out there with the same or greater potential than you, who never get a chance to fullfill it, through no fault of their own. Maybe their school was shitty. Maybe their homelife was shitty. Maybe they were just flat out homeless.
I friend of mine dropped out of school in 10th grade. He was living on his own, supporting himself completely at age 16. He scored a 1400 on his SAT. He's a smart guy, Imagine how well he would have done given a better
Oh, yeah? (Score:5, Funny)
It's just you idiots who scored less than 1500 who think otherwise ;)
Re:Standardized tests (Score:5, Insightful)
No I'm not bitter...
Re:Standardized tests (Score:5, Insightful)
Between grade inflation and the ever-shifting meaning of an SAT score I think te system is very self correcting. Both "scores" are absolutely meaningless.
I'll know I've done my job as a parent if my kid tells me: "Dad, I want to be a Carpenter", or a plumber, or an electrician. Every one of those guys has a house on the shore. No student loans. Steady work. They still use their brains. Most of them gross more a year than I do.
To me it would be a kick in the teeth to have a kid who wants to be a angst ridden kiss ass. I remember being one. I hated it. I deliberately wear sandels and wrinkled shirts to work to try to balance out my preppy past.
Re:The need for a well rounded education (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously, though - if this isn't a troll, this guy will make one hell of a sociologist - he already has Wittgenstinian relativism down pat.
And if he doesn't get tenure, at least he'll be able to assume that I'd like fries with that...
Re:The need for a well rounded education (Score:3, Interesting)
Learn Homeric and Attic Greek; and translate portions of Homer, Aristotle, the New Testament
Learn French and translate various writers -- Montaigne, for example
Read almost all of these books [mirror.org], in whole or in part -- a list which includes everything from Plato to Shakespeare to Heidegger to Smith to Austen to Marx
Study mathematics all four years, working from Euclid's Elements, through Newton and Leibniz's invention of the Calculus, and on through non-Euclidean geomet
DISPROVEN (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)