2008 Woodie Awards
Taming the beast?
Kelsey Shannon
Issue date: 9/11/02 Section: Commentary
The revised SAT, scheduled to debut in 2005, will be radically different from the current one. The analogies and quantitative comparisons (those annoying, fill-in-your-own-answer math problems) will be gone, replaced by more advanced math and reading problems and an essay. Supposedly, the exam will feature questions designed to test what is learned, rather than vague intelligence.
The intent of the changes is well-meaning. The villagers meant well, too. But change is not intrinsically good, anymore than the SAT is intrinsically evil. People have been complaining about the test more or less from time immemorial. Opponents have called it cruel, unfair and callous. Rightfully so, it is seen as biased towards affluent students. For all that, the SAT is just a test. It takes three hours and is as much a right of passage for most teenagers as a first kiss or a driver's license.
Most illogically, it is a strictly objective exam that is often portrayed as horribly subjective. Like the town's demon, the "merit" measured by the SAT is said to be useless and incomprehensible. Except that it isn't. In fact, studies have repeatedly found the SAT to be a better predictor of collegiate success than anything else — even high school GPA. Whatever the merit inherent in the SAT, it is clearly a relevant one.
But that is not the only problem. Like fearful villagers dousing a fire with gasoline, the anti-SAT crowd argues that well-situated students can "buy" their score, essentially in two ways.
The first way is through academic foundation. Affluent youngsters are more likely to be exposed to books at a young age — and nothing does more to inflate SAT scores than a lifetime of reading. Middle and upper class folks are assumed to be more likely to value learning than their lower-class brethren, and therefore provide more educational opportunities to their children.
Of course, this is generally true. But the underlying problem here is not with the test; it is with the nation's education system as a whole. The test might measure a corrupt system, but that does not make it the agent of corruption.
The intent of the changes is well-meaning. The villagers meant well, too. But change is not intrinsically good, anymore than the SAT is intrinsically evil. People have been complaining about the test more or less from time immemorial. Opponents have called it cruel, unfair and callous. Rightfully so, it is seen as biased towards affluent students. For all that, the SAT is just a test. It takes three hours and is as much a right of passage for most teenagers as a first kiss or a driver's license.
Most illogically, it is a strictly objective exam that is often portrayed as horribly subjective. Like the town's demon, the "merit" measured by the SAT is said to be useless and incomprehensible. Except that it isn't. In fact, studies have repeatedly found the SAT to be a better predictor of collegiate success than anything else — even high school GPA. Whatever the merit inherent in the SAT, it is clearly a relevant one.
But that is not the only problem. Like fearful villagers dousing a fire with gasoline, the anti-SAT crowd argues that well-situated students can "buy" their score, essentially in two ways.
The first way is through academic foundation. Affluent youngsters are more likely to be exposed to books at a young age — and nothing does more to inflate SAT scores than a lifetime of reading. Middle and upper class folks are assumed to be more likely to value learning than their lower-class brethren, and therefore provide more educational opportunities to their children.
Of course, this is generally true. But the underlying problem here is not with the test; it is with the nation's education system as a whole. The test might measure a corrupt system, but that does not make it the agent of corruption.