[1] https://blog.collegeboard.org/how-to-improve-your-sat-score [2] https://www.khanacademy.org/sat/confirmed
That remains non-obvious. After all, IQ tests aren't supposed to be something you can prepare for. So why should the SAT be, if it's this kind of supposedly holistic aptitude test? Why isn't "school overall" all the possible preparation you could do?
Again, the difficulty isn't primarily in getting the extra resources. It's in even knowing that it's something extra resources would help with at all.
So the idea that there's "no exuse" is awfully judgmental. It's not just what kids don't know -- it's what they don't even know they don't know. You're not going to Google something if you'd never even suspect it existed, and you shouldn't be blamed for that.
If you are a high school student and the possibility of increasing your score doesn't even occur to you, I would suggest that college isn't for you.
Maybe it doesn't occur to students that they should attempt to increase their score because they have a certain innocent model of the world, perhaps one in which they put trust in educational institutions to (as they claim to do) tell them how they should best achieve personal success. If it were a valuable use of their time, surely someone would tell them?
Reminder: you are responding to a commenter who is telling you that an offhand comment literally changed their life.
How have you avoided maladaptive behaviors, perhaps such as procrastinating or distracting oneself with substance?
Do you believe that nature or nurture has played a larger role in your healthy response to environmental pressures?
I'd study for any test that was consequential to my future.
>Maybe it doesn't occur to students that they should attempt to increase their score
In my opinion, if it doesn't occur to someone that they can better their score on any test by studying, then they aren't ready for college. Studying isn't some sort of arcane concept available only to the privileged few.
>Reminder: you are responding to a commenter who is telling you that an offhand comment literally changed their life.
This is Hacker News, not a struggle session. It isn't disrespectful to tell people they aren't equipped and/or ready for higher education. It is one thing to argue that some people don't have the resources to access study courses, materials or have the free time to do so (due to work requirements or living conditions), it is entirely another thing to suggest that it would never occur to a college candidate that studying for a test would improve their chances of doing well.
>because they have a certain innocent model of the world, perhaps one in which they put trust in educational institutions to (as they claim to do) tell them how they should best achieve personal success. If it were a valuable use of their time, surely someone would tell them?
Perhaps this comment will inform some potential college-bound student, who has otherwise had their life crippled by a childlike dependence on whatever information (or lack thereof) was spoon-fed to them by incompetent school authorities, that studying will help increase their test scores. That would be a win-win!
This makes the very large assumption that you’re aware the SAT has anything to do with your future, and that’s it’s not another one of the half dozen standardized tests that you take every year, neither of which was communicated in my public school. I’ve heard from many that my school was not unique.
When I was really little a teacher referred me for a Stanford-Binet test, which was administered one on one by a psychiatrist. I did not know at the time what this test was, what a psychiatrist was, or that it would be consequential to my future since I tested above the range of the test and was put into a gifted program and thus got to avoid classes with students screaming and throwing chairs.
How should I have studied for the Stanford-Binet and what would have happened to my score if I did? What resources or guides do you use when studying for an IQ test and which would you recommend as suitable for someone 5 years old?
If you go to school and you don't presume that your can improve your score on a test by studying, it seems unlikely that you would score high on the SAT anyways.
Would preparation have been helpful? Most likely. But I was happy with my >2000 score, and felt.lkke.i earned it more by not preparing.
Can you, or anyone else, say you learned something beneficial by studying for a standardized test? Was there anything worthwhile about it sans the score?
Maybe, but this is so far from my experience, I'm having trouble accepting it.
There's an important test coming up. Surely the default, baseline assumption must be that you should prepare for it? How could anything else be true? Everyone knows getting some practice in makes you better at something, right?
I guess your answers to all of these questions are "no", and I accept that, I'm not arguing, but man, this is weird.
I guess there some things the school do (unarguably) need to tell kids: the SAT is coming up and it's important. My impression is that schools don't always do that.
I barely tried and was in the top 1% of my class yet I didn't prepare for the PSAT or SAT that I can recall. Maybe I did do a few practice SAT tests, but it definitely was preached that the SAT was an aptitude test so you couldn't study for it.
I ended up getting $60k in scholarships mostly from my PSAT results but at the time I took the test I had no idea what was riding on the results. I thought it was literally just "Practice" SAT.
The reason I probably can't imagine this stuff is that I grew up in the UK, where exams are exams, and everyone knows you can study for them (even if they don't).
The idea of a set of exams being pitched as an aptitude test you can't study for (when in fact you definitely can study for aptitude tests) is weird.
I guess children in many public schools in America are being failed on such a basic level - not being told what the tests they're taking mean and whether you can study - that I had no idea.
> it definitely was preached that the SAT was an aptitude test so you couldn't study for it.
This seems like you were just straight up lied to, and is sad.
It's not an exam like any other high school exam, it's totally unique. It's not meant to be studied for -- it's meant to give a general overview of your total scholastic ability. (It's also not even run by the school system, it's a private company that you have to pay in order to take the test.)
But the reality is that you can "game" it by learning patterns in the types of questions they ask, and how to give the answer they're "looking for" on the verbal section, when the correct answer is often highly subjective for questions on analogies and reading comprehension. And you can also focus on a very narrow subset of words and math problems that tend to statistically recur. There's also literally strategy around when you should guess vs. when you should leave an answer blank, depending on your confidence. These are what test prep focuses on -- not on improving your general scholastic aptitude in any way.
So it's not studying for an exam in any normal sense. It's more like "gaming" it.
As for children being failed on such a basic level in many public schools in America -- on that, you couldn't be more correct, sadly.
This hasn't been true for almost a decade, and now you can guess on any question.
With standardized state tests, IQ tests, SAT/ACT, you don't get any feed back. For standardized state test you spend a lot of time on the test and are never given any feedback at all. When I was in school I just stopped taking them. I would sit there and not fill in anything. Why should I? The SAT was more of the same. I would not receive any feedback about what I got wrong and I have no idea what the questions will be or what I will be tested on. A lot of students then say why bother and just sit and fill in all A bubbles or leave their sheets blank. There is no point in studying for such a test as you have no idea what will be on the test.
Now the ACT is better since they have a test question bank and if you take it enough times you'll see most of the math and grammar questions. But the reading stuff is all random and lots of the questions arbitrary with even the authors of the excerpts used saying they have no idea what the correct answer is supposed to be about "what was the author's intent". Still how many students know any of this? Most teachers don't, fewer students.
With "high stakes" state standardized exams so many schools in the US spend most time in class drilling and prepping for these that everyone loses interest. It is incredibly boring prepping for this stuff and they push test prep for over 10-13 years, badgering the students about how important it is for a test they will get no feedback from, and which is taking up the majority of time in over a decade of state education. Everyone sane checks out and gives up.
I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every aspect of a poor child’s life, because some of what’s being written here is embarrassingly naïve.
Not all of us were so lucky.
Fine [0][1][2][3]. Keep in mind this isn’t some “1+1=2” problem, and people have dedicated their lives to figuring this out, so if you’re looking for a “conclusion” then I don’t recommend human psychology.
Let me know if you have any questions, but honestly I’m wary of an attempted trolling on your part so please come honestly and with curiosity. Also this is not my area of expertise, and you’ll likely get a better understanding of this very complex issue if you look into this on your own. At best I can be (and frankly am only interested in being) a starting point.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/the-m...
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/20734446
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/10/24/3-ways...
[3] https://talkpoverty.org/2017/06/01/matters-poor-kids-dont-ti...
My argument is not "Poor kids universally have time to do what they want." It's hard for me to believe you are having a good faith conversation, or even read my comments, if this is your opening line.
> Fine [0][1][2][3]. Keep in mind this isn’t some “1+1=2” problem, and people have dedicated their lives to figuring this out, so if you’re looking for a “conclusion” then I don’t recommend human psychology.
The fact that none of these represent a counter argument, and some actually support my premise, supports the above, you either haven't read my comments at all, or you flavored them in your own mind to such a degree that they no longer represent anything I actually said.
I'll restate my point a final time in hopes you'll actually address it: *time is the most equitably distributed resource amongst poor youth. Is it universally so? No. Is it perfectly so? No.* Two of your four links talk about the parents' time (either time with their children or otherwise) and the last two talk about time for recess. I fail to see how either of these represent less time for high school students, the kind who take the SAT, to study for the SAT.
Had you provided links that showed that kids in poverty have less time to study than their rich counterparts by some non-trivial margin, that'd be relevant, but all of your links just point out other places in poor kids lives that they are disadvantaged (less parental supervision, less childhood vocabulary, less childhood free social time, etc.), which are all definitely problems, but I fail to see where college administrators can use those to inform admissions in any meaningfully objective way.
If you can’t see how a leads to b, there are no words I can write here to convince you of anything, about anything.
I can’t make connections for you, you need to figure this out for yourself, which is why I never expected you to do anything but stick to your “let’s have an Internet argument about an obvious fact” strategy.
Again, vague disagreement isn't super helpful. I'd love to have my mind changed to match reality if I'm mistaken in some way.
In a poor family, the kids are likely working a part-time job before going to school and then another part-time job (or two) after school. There's not much free time. They might also be the caretaker for younger siblings since their parents are also working three full time jobs so they never see them.
In terms of fairness across racial and economic strata, standardized tests like the ACT and SAT are the fairest ways to judge college applications.
And I would very much love to live in a world where the sum total possible things a child has to worry about are extracurriculars or studying. Good lord what a better place we’d live in if that were true…
You'd expect there to be a tension if ACT/SAT scores measured free time.