Go to the link below and read the article carefully. You may want to have a word file open as you read to keep running notes on the author's argument. When you are finished, post a one-paragraph summary of the argument to the blog (no more than 200 words) and write a paragraph explaining why you agree or disagree with the contentions made in the article.
If you do not finish during class, do so for homework.
http://american.com/archive/2007/july-august-magazine-contents/abolish-the-sat
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The article studies the SAT, it's history, and the correlation between socioeconomic backgrounds and performance on the SAT as opposed to ethnic or social backgrounds. It argues that students who truely apply themselves are reflected in either their grades or their extracurricular transcripts, and that variation of Freshman course grades and Highschool grades in relation to the SAT suggest a uselessness of the SAT. The only minority who actually benefits from the SAT (and argueably only minorly) are those completely shut off or in from the outside world by their own choice or the choice of others, and who are intelligent, but not willing to apply themselves.
ReplyDeleteI for one find the assessment of the SAT and its role in the enrollment process to be apt and well studied. The author presents an actual want for the retention of the SAT, but concedes the point in light of large ammounts of statistical data and corrolary data suggesting that the SAT is not of any great use. In summary, I agree.
Students are taking SATs, and therefore colleges are asking for SAT scores. If the students didn't take them, then colleges couldn't ask for them, and it would cause admissions offices to look at other elements of the students' academic achievements. This would be so much better because the effort you put into your daily grades and your achievements outside of the classroom will have a heavier say than that of your reasoning. When taking a several-hour-long test and seeing how students reasoned the answers on that one day, it isn't fully capturing the students abilities or potential, thus not truly assessing the students college capabilities.
ReplyDeleteAll of the points listed and explained in this article make perfect sense. The author supports every detail in a strongly convincing and factual way. I completely agree with the article and the idea to get rid of the SATs. Speaking from personal experience, I did horribly on the PSATs. I mean HORRIBLY. And I make mostly A’s. The SATs never take into consideration the fact that you may take electives, do extracurricular activities, stay up too late nightly doing work, take part in community service activities, help organize functions, win competitions, or even the fact that you have never made below a B on a report card. The SATs don’t know that and they will never reflect any of these in their silly reasoning tests. Down with the sats.
The author argues that the SAT is not only unnessecary in the face of the more accurate achievement tests, it is also detrimental to the educational system and biased towards the wealthy and privileged. While the SAT was originally conceived for the noble purpose of identifying the intellectual abilities of disadvantaged students, it has become a "wealth test". Privileged students are at an advantage because their aggressive parents can buy them SAT coaching and special courses, which is essentially a sort of cheating. Meanwhile, those who are unable to pay their way to a good grade become disillusioned with their own intellectual prowess. Abolishing the SAT would have no negative effect, as it has become obsolete in its original purpose.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the points the author makes, and I would like to add one of my own. The SAT and other, similar tests have pervaded high school courses to such an extent that acheiving a high score often appears to be the ultimate goal of taking any class. In other words, a Physics class (just an example)is no longer a Physics class, it is an SAT class. An understanding of the subject no longer seems pertinent, so long as you understand the "tricks" for doing well on these tests, which have been overemphasized to the point of ridiculousness. An talent or passion for a subject has become irrelevent and useless. So I agree with the article--who your parents are or how much your school costs should not factor into such an important aptitude test.
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ReplyDeleteThis article rapidly attacks the SAT with claims backed by actual data. This data points out achievement tests and high school scores being a better way to determine how a student would do in college, compared to the SAT, especially once you bring in the factors of wealth and social class, because then the SAT completely drops out as being a factor in what the kids will get in their freshman year. He also lists different types of intellectuals who would benefit from the removal of the SAT, such as kids who read a lot, study a lot, and do everything they can in class and get A’s, but don’t want to take the time for the SAT, or kids who get B’s and C’s, but spend their time on sports and extracurricular activities most of their time. With only a small fraction of students ever having the slightest chance of being hurt (And Murray doesn’t even believe this could happen). Another thing he points out is how the SAT is such a big thing and how it is one of the determinants of your life after high school, and that it will make your path concrete.
ReplyDeleteThis article is well laid out and explanative. Although the SAT actually helped him, he makes a great statement against the SAT and how it's scoring is inefective, with support from facts and hard data, his argument is valid and undebatable. He points out all the flaws of keeping the SAT and how removing it would relinquish it's grip on all the kids that it holds in it's grip of an ability to lay out your life in 3 hours. I too agree with this article.
The SAT has to go! Basically, this article attacks the SAT, its efficiency, its role and importance, what it is truly assessing and so on. This article says the correlation between achievement tests and the SAT are so strong, admissions offices of colleges only need the results of one. Research has also shown that these achievement test scores and high school grade point averages are way better at foretelling what that student’s (as a college freshman) scores may look like. Although the SAT’s initial purpose was to give those with intellectual ability from whatever background an opportunity to go to elite colleges, SAT scores and studies show that those who do well on the SAT have parents that have degrees from and also make over $100,000 a year. This author concludes that if one is rich, one can buy their kids an SAT score, with the lifestyle and environment of intelligent people, the coaching, and other things that money can buy to further a person’s score on the SAT. The socioeconomic elite and the cognitive elite are increasingly one. People forget achievement test scores; they don’t forget their SAT scores. One number, that one score on that SAT is seen as a label for a person as being smart or dumb or worse. People feel as if they are judged by these scores. The innercity blacks and hispanics who have been told that the SAT is for “rich white kids” are discouraged about taking the SAT and do not know that colleges, even the most elite, are willing to pay their way.
ReplyDeleteI TOTALLY AGREE WITH THIS GUY! I have hated the SAT from the moment I learned that I had to take it. Just because the thing has been done for so many years does not mean that it has to continue to be taken. If we have so much research about it, so many studies done about it, proving its inefficiency, why don’t we get rid of the thing? It’s like that AR article we read. Just because AR has been done for so many years does not mean it has be continued if we know about it inefficiency is testing true knowledge or the things that really matter about a book. Now that I know what the original SAT stood for, I agree that it should have changed the meaning for its initials. No test shows one’s ability to learn or aptitude unless it is constantly given with new material on it that has been taught since the last time a test was taken. That is definitely not the SAT. I don’t really think that the SAT is for “rich white kids” or that one can buy their kids’ SAT score in the way explained in the article. I do agree that no one should go in to take the SAT without some studying, but that’s the thing. All of those SAT study books out there are LIARS. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. There is no way to study for the SAT. You can’t memorize what is going to be on the SAT. In fact, the SAT is making you think on a college level. If it wasn’t, why would it compare your essays to those of college student? Indeed, high school is supposed to prepare you for college but unless a person is an AP class, they’re probably not thinking like a college student. It’s simple: colleges produce college students and college thinkers. Collegeboard won’t tell you all of this though. SAT is a load of crayons. Collegeboard knows it.
The author of this article argues the point that the SAT examination for college is redundent and not only would he like it degraded, but actually removed from its existence. He writes about how the test mostly favors the "upper to middle class white kids" in a society and how the test is not really as fair to some students as is others. he makes the points of about three different types of high ability students, first there are the fully devoted students who do nothing but study they have straight a's , then there is the student who does well in school and devotes half his time to extra curricular activities, and lastly the student who does nothing in school has bad grades and still scores high on the SAT. The author argues how this is not fair to students who actually try hard but cannot score as well. he also makes the point, and a point that he will end on, that if you are rich enough, you can buy a high SAT score.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author in his argues against the SAT. he is absolutely correct on the statement that you can buy your self a high test score. from personal experiences my mother has paid money to try and help me get a better score, and the process is quite expensive and many people do not have the money to pay for that kind of help. i also am not a high abillity student, i cannot just go through school easily and pass the SAT with flying colors, it takes me a while to get these things down even with all the effort i put in,and for these reasons i do agree with the author of the article. the SAT should be removed.
The SAT, started in the 1940s, was created to give the lower class citizens a chance to show their natural academic ability. Since then, the name, the people that succeed in becoming noticed, and its benefits to colleges have changed drastically. It no longer helps students with low-income parents but rather the lucrative families who have the ability to give their children the studying and tutoring they need to "buy" their way to a good grade. The article suggests by removing the necessity of taking the SAT, that it would allow kids, from low income situations, to feel confident to study on their own and not think that by doing so without an educated "scholar" on the SATs will affect his/her grades negatively. Also, "we would be getting rid of a totem for members of the cognitive elite". It would change the whole basis of SAT education, instead of focusing on the cheating your way through with tricks and clues to actually be learning suplementary knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThe SAT can be both beneficial and a drawback from the college admission process. The author makes a good point in stating that the SAT has drifted from its original purpose to bring attention to the lower class individuals who may be on the fence in the admittors' mind and that the students' futures greatly rely on their score, increasing anxiety. It puts large amounts of pressure on students which in turn takes away from the scholastic education in schools, because of the focus on the SAT test rather than their core studies. Although slightly beneficial, the SAT has lost its purpose and beside its contemporary tests turns out to be highly unuseful in the grand scale of the admission process.
His argument is that the SAT test should not be used by colleges to judge applicants. I thas been proven that more affluent families are able to provide better environments for their children to be educated in and buy them what are believed to be numerous services and advantages when preparing to take the test. For this reason, minorities are complaining because the richer, more affluent people in the US are predominantly white. As a response to their criticism, many colleges have desperately been trying to buff up their minority population, and do not care whether or not the minorities have a lower caliber of education. In this regard, they pretty much don’t care about the SAT scores of those people, but the minorities are being unfairly given free passes into colleges that some people worked hard for. When it is put into perspective, the Equal Opportunities Act is not very equal or even fair, but severely favors the minorities instead of the majorities. Such as if 2 students have identical scholastic backgrounds, but one is white and the other is from a minority, the minority will get the spot instead of the white student, but just to try and give the appearance of being fair.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the contentions made in this article because I, too, believe that the SAT tests are not as reliable as the achievement tests. The SAT has also been proven to be favoring to those of the higher social and economic classes. The test favors them because they can afford to send their children to higher-caliber schools and can afford to send their children tutors and get classes for them to get an edge on the test and perform better. Students from families with lower incomes cannot afford these advantages and will usually score lower. Because of this, the SAT cannot be used to accurately predict how a student will do in college, but there is still more reasons that it is not well-suited for predicting collegiate success. Some students may be hard workers and still not perform well on the SAT, while a slacker may come in and get lucky on the test without having any really good qualities to him/her. The SAT is unable to measure such variability in applicant's work ethics, and therefore should not be used to measure how well a student will do when placed in a college atmosphere.
Although the SAT proved to be a factor in his acceptance to Harvard from a small town in Iowa, Charles Murray decides to attack the SAT based on arguments that prove it's redundant and that it incorrectly assesses how students will do in their freshman year of college, the soul purpose of the test in the first place. Achievement tests and a student's GPA from their high school account for about 90% of what a college wants or needs to see in acceptance of a student. While SAT's only account for ten percent. This proves the redundancy of the test in general by shooting down its one and only objective:to identify intellectual talent regardless of race,wealth, or geography. Other arguments suggest that the test is "rigged" to favor the upper middle class that are able to pay for coaching thus earning higher grades, and those less financially stable cannot acquire these coaches and do worse on the test than their "white middle class" counter parts. Although this makes sense, he says again that it just so happens that the upper middle class kids make higher grades because they are smarter all around. This is because their parents are smarter, thus more affluent and passed their intellect on to their kids. Because of this the SAT has been called politically incorrect and biased for reasons such as students not being able to understand words that they would never encounter in an inner city environment. Sorry, but that's just the way it is sometimes. Murray goes on to explain the need recognize bright kids in poor environments and the results of removal of the SAT which would destroy the coaching industry (a form of cheating), would eliminate a totem for the cognitive elite, and would remove the factor of a false sense of entitlement to those who do well or a sense of utter failure of merit in those who do not fare as well.
ReplyDeleteI firmly agree with Murray and his beliefs on the SAT in that it is redundant and does not provide colleges with adequate information on the student. In my own thoughts the SAT is not a measurement of how hard a student works or how diligent they are, only that they have some inert intellect and know how to take a test, something we all need to be familiar with.
Despite the overall success achieved as a result of the SAT, the author of this article is strongly opposed to the continuing use of the assessment. Research and statistics show that the test lacks the foundation of an accurate deciding factor in college admissions. The purpose of the test has been "to identify intellectual talent regardless of race, color, creed, money, or geography, and give that talent a chance to blossom." However this author adequately proves that modern times have called for a lapse in the bridging of academic performance and the results shown from the test. He describes the socioeconomic situation that can allow a greater advantage to those who are willing to invest. As evidence in supporting the sole use of previous academic performance and achievement tests, the author provides the data that the SAT does not add any significant variation in percentage of performance when compared.
ReplyDeleteI believe the author has made a very valid point. The SATs have become a point of high focus when undergoing college admissions. Classes and teachers have been brought upon for the sole purpose of achieving a solid score. The test has seemed to be a cheatable and attainable score to those who have previously not put forth effort in school. The use of overall academic performance and achievements should be the method of choice when applying to a secondary education. The SATs no longer provide the necessary information in demonstrating the fate of the applicant.