I'm skeptical, given the shortened time and the elimination of longer essays. There just isn't enough material to accurately pigeon-hole someone - wrong answers earlier in the test will have far more effect on the score than ones designed to assess where you are within a subset.
New strategies will emerge with far more impact on the end result, and that will give wealthier families access to even more improvement from better training.
Add to that the simple loss of a whopping 26% of the test time and they might as well just admit that what they're shooting for is simply a way to weed out the bottom test-takers without impacting the so-called social justice aspect of admissions.
I'm sure the universities worked carefully with the college board to get what they wanted - an easier test and the ability to continue trying to assemble a study body that can more easily be indoctrinated than taught.
Is it more efficient, or just politically more conforming? And then, what about the reading comprehension portion, which required students to analyze an essay in much the same way math students attack a story problem?
I would never, ever presume innocence with modern college administrators. They are a disease that is thoroughly metastasized and is consuming higher education. Since these are the College Board's clients, I am immediately suspicious.
Blunt pencils are better when it comes to answer forms. A well-used golf pencil is perfect. This feels a lot more like a reverse take on Clarke's Childhood's End than a "get off my lawn" issue.
Processing speed is a vital component of cognitive ability. Several of the recent changes has gone toward reducing that element of the testing including this last one. Even though the colleges have known for decades the ability for test results to give them a common numeric metric to assure they let in folks who can actually do the work, they continue to push the testing organization to make it less likely to do exactly that.
There are technical solutions to this including secure browsers, secure applications, and forced/locked-down networks. The laptops are constrained to use a particular wifi network to access the test. And once on that wifi network, the laptop can reach no where else. If the computer changes network , then the app or browser declares the test is invalid and the student is disqualified.
They'd probably be required to install a secure browser. They'd also still be in a room with a proctor. That opens up a separate set of issues, though. The code for these kinds of programs is closed-source and students are required to give it admin level access over their machines.
I am a teacher. We already have laptops that are configured for on-site testing from MAP and CAASPP. The proctor will handle the testing session info for students to login and take their exams. I imagine that SATs will be more likely to be configured like this or students will have to go to dedicated testing centers like we do for proctored exams like CSET, Praxis, RICA, GRE, etc . . .
The testing sites do not have the computers configured to have search engines. People are given keys to lock their iPhones, backpacks, etc in small lockers before they enter the testing room.
Yeah, ultimately I think I'd have to reach the conclusion that the College Board would have to provide computers (more specifically tablets with big screens) rather than install their software or (even worse) give into the temptation of Zoom sessions. Otherwise, the kids could easily prepare their computers to store and present information despite safeguards, and, worse, record the entire test so the whole operation could easily be reverse-engineered.
They'd have to be in a room with no internet access, and the test could be administered through installation of a separate application that creates a file that could be retrieved when the application is uninstalled.
Still, that would require admin access, simply for installation and uninstallation.
And, yes, another advantage for parents with money and knowledge, as they could provide laptops with bigger screens and more precise peripherals, plus training on the movements necessary to navigate the test.
And then you have to handle cheating in a different way. A screen perpendicular to the desk is one heck of a lot easier to read with a glance forward than a dot-filled answer form on a desk's surface. So fewer kids in a room.
And then you'd lose any time gained from the shorter test to all the time required to install this on each laptop.
All to provide this extra precision that could only be accomplished with a smaller set of key questions which will get gamed by those in the know rather quickly.
So... 1) the test mostly serves to weed out the lowest performers. And 2) the test subtly acts to give more incentive for the very wealthy to pay for tips that will be far more effective than in the past - so the legacies with their big checkbooks can more easily purchase higher scores.
It is ENTIRELY unclear what they are doing and how it will be used. Will everyone get the same score, roughly, but the weaker students flagged? Or will only the “adaptive” score be known, and kids who scored well, but on easier material, be treated as equals to others?
And if admitted to elite schools based on these tests, will they be allowed to fail? Or will they just be given good grades? Will plagiarism, etc. be tolerated in order to give the illusion of competence? The epidemic of plagiarism involving current highly placed black females in academia does not bode well.
The GRE has been using computer adaptive tests for almost 25 years. The statistics are sound, and no kid getting 1500 should waste half an hour proving that he can do arithmetic perfectly over and over again. I am concerned with the bring your laptop part of it, as I'm sure people will figure out how to cheat
Agreed - computerized adaptive scoring has been in use for a long time with a good amount of data to back it up. Many professional licensure exams utilize this format (I’ve personally taken the pharmacy board exams). This article appears to be more of an editorial but I’m still surprised The Free Press didn’t look deeper into the question of the accuracy of adaptive scoring.
The problem is that it's a lot like AI: unless you know what was programmed into it to begin with, it's difficult to trust what comes out.
There's also the issue that if you don't do well on the first few questions, you'll be shunted down by the adaptive scoring to the point where you can't ever reach the same score you could have if you had just been doing the same set of questions everyone else had.
I recall that when I took the General GRE in 2000, it was this type of test. But the English GRE was the old pencil and bubble style. I did extremely well on both, so I can't extrapolate from my own experience, but I still have to wonder what's in the programming.
It is probably fair to say that scores from the “old” testing method will not be apples-to-apples comparisons to the scores for the “new” testing method. There was never 100% congruence between SAT and ACT score either - they use different types of questions and scoring methodology but both claim to help predict the probability of success in college.
I took the ACT in high school because that's the test my preferred university wanted. But it's interesting that the overall scoring sections (math, science reading, social studies reading, and English) had the same spread in my ACT at 16 as my general GRE had at 33: very high scores in English, slightly lower scores in reading, and in the upper middle in math.
It's also worth noting that I flunked out of college in my fourth year, largely due to clinical depression and no one suggesting a gap year or anything but a cookie-cutter approach to college. A gap year would have done me a world of good, as would taking a very light load during winter semesters, when my seasonal depression was at its worst. On paper, I was destined to succeed in college. Not so much in factors that don't get tested for.
My grad school grades were stellar, because I'd had enough life experience (including experience dealing with my depression) by then to know what I wanted from college and how to get it. Again, not things you can test for.
It seems like a form of tracking. If you miss early questions, you will be sent to an easier track, where even a perfect score will be unimpressive. In some ways, that is the very problem that standardized testing is designed to remedy: Even B's in top schools reflect more academic achievement than A's in weak ones, so students in lesser schools need a chance to prove themselves.
I was going to make the same point. Rather than lower standards, adaptive questions is akin to improving the efficiency with which the test can determine where you fit in the distribution.
Bring your own laptop does seem quite concerning though.
The College Board knows that an easier test with rising scores for minorities means more schools require it, more people take it, and they can claim that it is "fair."
The test has been getting easier for a long time now and the trend is only likely to accelerate. That's because the goal is not to accurately assess applicants. Instead, it's to continue to champion "diversity" while Asian-American and white kids engage in a hunger games to secure fewer and fewer spots at the most competitive colleges.
Meanwhile, these most competitive colleges have extensive tutoring services for unqualified admits who go on to resent their peers.
Worse still, many of the unqualified will graduate and be awarded undeserved positions of authority in college administration and business and public office, where they will "flatten the curve" even more.
The biggest fix required for academic integrity - offer the test as a choice for "timed" or "extra time". And report that choice to the colleges.
The most obvious form of academic dishonesty concerning standardized tests is unreported extra time. And the colleges are equally guilty. Colleges are incentivized not to distinguish between tests taken with time vs 50% extra time. These inflated scores will then improve the overall scores that colleges report as their testing averages. Currently, the admissions office receives no information regarding test time as part of the college application...in order to protect the applicants medical privacy. When the number of untimed test takers is so high, there is hardly a stigma. And therefore hardly a reason to protect the medical privacy.
Extra time is offered to students who are diagnosed with anxiety, ADHD, or other disabilities. Unsurprisingly, the wealthier the student, the more access to a doctor who will provide that diagnosis. Some reasons for extra time are with merit - as my daughter's intelligent classmate with cerebral palsy certainly needed the extra time. But for the most part, these reasons for extra time are acquired through subjective testing from psychiatrists who are also incentivized to positively present a disability diagnosis. There is no bloodwork or ct scan or any definitive medical test to diagnose so many disabilities, and so it's a system that can easily be manipulated. Extra time is the cheater's loophole.
My daughter attends a high school with students along a wide socio-economic range. The wealthier the student, the more likely that their tests are arranged with extra time (school tests, standardized tests and even AP tests). Exactly half the students in her AP Calculus class receive extra time.
An alarming number of honors students (I'd love the statistic) take standardized tests with extra time at the public and private high schools nearby. At my daughter's school, more than one classmate is a National Merit Finalist, receiving extra time advantage. These classmates are nationally recognized for academic achievements as elite students. Though in the classroom, it's a different story. One of her classmates relies on her testing advantage - to complete tests after taking a break and sometimes finishing the following day. How is that even a test?? Needless to say, this student studies far less than others who must complete their work before the bell rings.
My daughter scored in the mid-1400's on the SAT, running out of time and guessing on the last problems. She took a few practice tests to prepare, and on the untimed tests, she's scored in the mid-1500's. If we were cheaters and her classmates played it fair, my daughter could have been the national merit finalist instead.
THANK YOU for sharing that!!! I can't believe the timing of that article - especially after writing my response.
There are only two solutions for this cheating.
1. Report all scores as timed or extra time.
2. Offer the test a. timed or b. extra timed to everyone AND report all scores as such
I'll be very unpopular writing this. I don't believe that ADHD is real. I don't believe that having anxiety should permit an advantage taking the test. And most of all, I hate the idea of kids being medicated for these so-called disabilities. Aside from dyslexia, it's all BS.
The worst is that these kids who get a big boost 100-200 points higher are getting into schools and taking a spot from other students who are more deserving. I've been watching it happen real time to my daughter. She's watching her weaker classmates (with extra time) succeed at this admissions game - they have been accepted to schools while my daughter has been waitlisted. Just terrible.
The schools are definitely playing a game too. As test optional, they need to make sure their admitted students who submit scores will fit in the ranges that they want to publish (ie. 1520 at the 75th percentile to 1450 at the 25th percentile). They make it clear not to submit scores if you don't fit in this range. Only half of applicants now submit test scores at many highly competitive schools - given the criteria.
I absolutely agree with you. Anyone who truly needs extra time struggles in ways that probably preclude going to the most competitive colleges.
Given that these cheating parents will resist any efforts to report who gets extra time, one potential "fix" is to give all students the maximum time permitted for those with accommodations.
Your daughter has something none of her peers has - integrity. They may be winning the admissions battle, but they are losing the life skills war. Their parents have basically told them that there is something wrong with them when there isn't or that they don't feel confident that they can succeed on their own merits. Eventually, most of them will reach a point when mommy or daddy can't run interference for them anymore and it won't be pretty.
That's a great score. My son scored 1380 doing it without the extra time. He also said he ran out of time and just filled in the circles on some questions. That is part of the test design. Processing speed is an important aspect. Never heard of kids going home and coming back the next day to finish, but the whole extra time scam throws off the whole test. Totally unfair. Despite that, I am sure your daughter will do fine as she is prepared to do college work and hopefully she found a great place for her to go to school.
I'm pretty sure the SAT has been getting easier for years. 35 years ago, perfect scores of 1600 were extemely uncommon, now it seems every school district of any size has at least one every year.
A far larger percentage of high school students take the test today compared to decades earlier. We pretend that students with scores below average can perform college-level work by creating universities that teach high school classes and charge outrageous fees for this nonsense.
Somewhere between .07% and .1% get perfect scores currently out of 2 million or so SAT test takers.. But, they don't publish the actual numbers so no one is sure. !n the 1970s there were around 20-25 perfect scores out of 1 million or so test takers or .002%.
They openly admit that they have dumbed down the test. It's to accommodate low achieving students of a certain demographic who otherwise are mostly locked out of higher education.
Although I agree that something has gone terribly wrong with College Board and the SAT, the implication that the test is "easier" is wrongheaded. It's a standardized test, one that essentially produces a Gaussian curve. 1% of test-takers will score in the top 1% on the new Digital Test, just like the older paper test. If you are anxious about more students getting perfect scores, worry about the ACT--the number of students earning perfect scores has increased exponentially because that test's "DNA" and underlying assumptions are very different from the SAT.
The problem with the new Digital SAT isn't that it's "easy" (as one comment notes, her son "dropped 200 points" on the new Digital SAT) but rather that it may be irrelevant. The new Digital SAT doesn't have reading passages anymore, just single paragraphs followed by a single question. It's as if it were designed by TikTok. The difficulty now primarily derives from a brutal scale and distractors.
The author and nearly everyone writing about the SAT/ACT also seems to misunderstand a key element of "test-optional" admissions: they were never really optional. The author suggests that in 2019 he couldn't have known that these tests would soon not be "necessary"--but the data shows that the majority of accepted students submitted scores, even in the midst of COVID and that students who submitted scores--even scores below an institution's average--were accepted at a much higher rate than those who didn't submit. Purdue accepted only 3% of last year's class without scores. Unless you fit into a very special category, the SAT/ACT was never really optional.
To understand how Ivy-level American universities admit students you need to read Pierre Bourdieu, rather than Michel Foucault, and brush up on Castiglione's The Courtier, which advises aspirants who wish to navigate an aristocratic, courtly world in which those with power rarely mean what they say. It is puzzling that so few journalists seem willing to ask how institutions that don't share their $40 billion-dollar endowments even with their own students can serve "equity," or how Ivy League campuses that reject 95% of qualified applicants (and seek to reject 96% in the coming year, thus improving their "selectivity") can somehow embody "inclusion." The floating signifiers of "equity" and "inclusion" today primarily gain their meaning within structures of power that would be familiar to Sir Philip Sidney.
My son graduated from Yale ten years ago. The racial "diversity" in his class was stunningly skin deep, literally. The overwhelming majority of people of color in his class were socioeconomically homogeneous with the wealthy whites in his class.
Great post. But, you are wrong about the test getting easier. If you consistently do things to make the tests easier, you end up with many more top scores than if you didn't. This "bunching" creates a situation where you can't differentiate between the top 5-10% of test takers. So elite colleges, who claim to only take the top in cognitive ability don't, they reject a bunch of folks who score 1500-1600 for various reasons. If the harder tests were kept like they were up to the 1990s, then they would be able to accept all the top scorers because there are only a few hundred of them instead of thousands of them (100 or so 1500+ scores in the 1970s, for example, could easier all matriculate to MIT or Harvard or Stanford). Now if you are Jewish and/or Asian and get a 1500 + score you might not get into the top schools since there are several thousand kids getting 1500+.
You point out some useful things, but I'm not sure you're entirely correct. Yes, there are more great scores and more perfect scores now compared to the 1970s. And yes, the SAT was "re-centered" in the 1990s--as you suggest, the older tests were harder. But there are other factors, too. Many more high school students took these tests (until 2020) than in 1970. And back in the 1970s and 1980s, many still believed these tests weren't "coachable," so they didn't prep for them; I know i didn't study for the SAT back in the 1980s. And immigration in the 1990s--especially after the IMF's hard-nosed financial policies in South Korea, eventually brought "hagwon"-style test-prep to California. I would suggest that during this period--at least until 1996-- the test didn't get "easier" in any sense--the test-takers just studied for the tests more rigorously. In some regards, the test-takers got better.
If I understand your point, and what you are suggesting is true, then each new iteration of the test 1) the "2400" scale in 2005 and 2) the return to the "1600" scale in 2016 and the 3) new "Digital SAT" should have produced more and more perfect scores. But in fact, perfect scores have been mostly flat in the past decade. It's been the ACT that has produced many more perfect scores, and that test hasn't changed appreciably; it's the population of test-takers for the ACT that has changed.
The SAT has been revised four times since 2005, a pattern that SATs smack of desperation on the part of College Board (and perhaps reminds us that David Coleman was a McKinsey-ite--he's essentially consulted the test to death). College Board is trying to compete with the ACT by offering a test that "seems" easier. In 2016, teachers and counselors often claimed the "new" SAT would be "easier" because College Board removed vocabulary. Of course, College Board added more 18th and 19th-century passages to compensate--there was no significant uptick in perfect scores on the SAT since 2016. The new "Digital SAT" has shorter passages and gives students more time--and about 50% of the comments for this article bemoan that the test will be easier--but the Digital SAT has re-introduced vocabulary, and has more mean-spirited distractors. It may, in the end, prove to be "easier"--but we'll have to wait and see. For College Board, I think it's enough that it will seem easier or "feel" easier without necessarily actually being easier.
In the end, you may be right. But I think it's more likely that College Board, like a carnival game operator, simply needs to offer something that looks, at a glance, like it will be easy--but that also guarantees most people don't win the game. For a while the ACT prevailed in that marketplace--it didn't have vocabulary, and thus looked easier. But in reality it was very "speeded," an insurmountable barrier for some students. Although College Board used words like "fair" and phrases like "more equitable" in introducing the 2016 SAT it was, essentially, a reverse-engineered ACT.
The deeper problem is probably not resolvable: you can't recognize the importance of testing the basic skills of high schoolers and simultaneously demand equitable results across all regions and demographics--these skills are not equitably distributed. Perhaps they could be, someday--but, somewhat ironically, not with policies that hope to achieve immediate equity by eliminating standards and rigor in grading or in mathematics. These tests, like all tests, are designed to make distinctions. They can't simultaneously reveal differences and contribute to the current notion of "equity."
On multiple-choice tests the wrong answers are typically called "distractors." When the passage is challenging--featuring an unreliable narrator, a counter-intuitive main idea, or perhaps two longer passages that measure working memory--the distractors are "distracting" only to those who didn't get the main idea. But when the main idea is pretty obvious or the passage is fairly straight-forward, the difficulty has to come via trickier distractors. For instance, in the new Digital SAT there are graphs that appear fairly straight-forward, and are accompanied by a brief paragraph. A "distractor" on the new SAT might offer something that is true if you just consult the graph--and you'd be tempted to pick it--but something that isn't explicitly mentioned in the brief paragraph. Until you grasp the (mean-spirited) logic of the questions, you'll get them incorrect. This sort of question is akin to someone pointing out that, technically, a tomato is a fruit. Well, Ok--I guess.
I fail to see how "adaptive" testing is superior to the old way. What's more, the College Board has already been dumbing down the SAT test for decades now; a double 800 is not the intellectual achievement it was in the 1970s (back when I took it and barely managed double 700s).
Accommodating students' short attention spans and preference for digital medium is stupid. There are still plenty of professors out there who demand hand-written essays and quizzes. My own daughter is having to do that with some of her profs.
What's more, software is so fiendishly clever and hard to police that requiring students to bring in their own laptops is fraught with risks.
Go back to pencils and paper tests, make everyone aspire to the same challenge, and the cream will rise to the top. Not everyone is college material nor should everyone feel entitled to attend college. Nor should it be seen as the only pathway to a comfortable living.
Big Academia, including the College Board, has lost the faith of a growing number of Americans through its deceptive and insidious radical politicalization of education. At every step they have obfuscated their actions with benign-sounding terminology and nomenclature that disguised the reality of their objectives. Consequently, it is reasonable to view the new SAT with suspicion and skepticism. Is it purely an improved assessment tool or the vehicle for an unstated agenda? Unfortunately, our ability to assess its true impact is handicapped out of the gate. What academic psychometrician wants his name on a paper that will evaluate this new test if the results of that assessment are politically incorrect?
My son just took the March digital SAT & dropped 200 points from the last December paper exam. Yes 200!
Thank gd he has the first score under his belt. His goal was to improve his English score- of 4 sections he did great on 3 but bizarrely bombed 1 section bringing the total way down - something looks off but he will not be retaking it. Note in our large high performing public school there is no “test optional”, that only works for the kids that fit a college’s institutional priorities
This is fascinating - yes there can be some testing variability, but it begs the question - were the questions getting harder and harder because he was doing well? Thereby bringing his score back to the mean?
The changes seem to make it easier. Shorter, fewer, adaptive? The idea is to separate the “men from the boys” (sorry ladies, just an expression). What is the point of such a test if everyone gets the same score?
Only well educated people can be truly free... Efforts at reducing standards, eroding expectations and destroying families are not "progressive". They are little more than efforts to introduce a caste system into the United States that would put medieval India to shame... In 100 years America will be divided into 3 distinct groups... the elite, the stupid and the woefully stupid...
The College Board, which makes the SAT, really fooled conservatives that believe in merit for college admissions. Now, they will continue to rake in billions in tax payer funding with a new test that has little to do with merit, while indoctring kids with leftist ideology via their tax payer funded AP curriculum that's taught in most schools around the country.
Bring back the old SAT no essay section . 1800 is perfect and it works . If u do not do well u know what extra classes should be taken before paying college expenses.
It’s good for all students to know if they r prepared for college and where their weaknesses lie. It saves parents and students money!
Every time the teacher union changes things it’s always bad . We need phonics and rote math . Everyone can learn this way . Also , stop catering to the stupid :bring students up to and beyond expectations. I taught and if students believe they can do amazing things .
I took the SAT way back in 1965 and I completely agree with eliminating the essay section: Verbal REASONING skills (which are largely innate) need to be evaluated, not WRITING skills (which can largely be taught). So eliminate any essays entirely. I don't believe there was an essay section back then, but as its been 59 years since I took the SAT my memory could be off.
I'm skeptical, given the shortened time and the elimination of longer essays. There just isn't enough material to accurately pigeon-hole someone - wrong answers earlier in the test will have far more effect on the score than ones designed to assess where you are within a subset.
New strategies will emerge with far more impact on the end result, and that will give wealthier families access to even more improvement from better training.
Add to that the simple loss of a whopping 26% of the test time and they might as well just admit that what they're shooting for is simply a way to weed out the bottom test-takers without impacting the so-called social justice aspect of admissions.
I'm sure the universities worked carefully with the college board to get what they wanted - an easier test and the ability to continue trying to assemble a study body that can more easily be indoctrinated than taught.
All these changes sound great.
GMAT's been using adaptive testing for years, and using it successfully. It's more efficient, so needs lest testing time to make an evaluation.
None of these changes means the test is easier. We can judge that by comparing new vs. old score distributions.
Let's presume innocence, and let's not be grandpas that shout "Back in my day we had to sharpen PENCILS!"
Is it more efficient, or just politically more conforming? And then, what about the reading comprehension portion, which required students to analyze an essay in much the same way math students attack a story problem?
I would never, ever presume innocence with modern college administrators. They are a disease that is thoroughly metastasized and is consuming higher education. Since these are the College Board's clients, I am immediately suspicious.
Blunt pencils are better when it comes to answer forms. A well-used golf pencil is perfect. This feels a lot more like a reverse take on Clarke's Childhood's End than a "get off my lawn" issue.
Same with the GRE 20 years ago when I took it. All on computer, adaptive. I can recall no moral panic about that. I still miss pencils tho :)
Processing speed is a vital component of cognitive ability. Several of the recent changes has gone toward reducing that element of the testing including this last one. Even though the colleges have known for decades the ability for test results to give them a common numeric metric to assure they let in folks who can actually do the work, they continue to push the testing organization to make it less likely to do exactly that.
If the kids are using their laptops to take the test, what is there to prevent them form doing a search for the answers?
Maybe I am missing something here.
There are technical solutions to this including secure browsers, secure applications, and forced/locked-down networks. The laptops are constrained to use a particular wifi network to access the test. And once on that wifi network, the laptop can reach no where else. If the computer changes network , then the app or browser declares the test is invalid and the student is disqualified.
They'd probably be required to install a secure browser. They'd also still be in a room with a proctor. That opens up a separate set of issues, though. The code for these kinds of programs is closed-source and students are required to give it admin level access over their machines.
I am a teacher. We already have laptops that are configured for on-site testing from MAP and CAASPP. The proctor will handle the testing session info for students to login and take their exams. I imagine that SATs will be more likely to be configured like this or students will have to go to dedicated testing centers like we do for proctored exams like CSET, Praxis, RICA, GRE, etc . . .
Yes, but all they have to do is copy and paste the question to a search engine.
The testing sites do not have the computers configured to have search engines. People are given keys to lock their iPhones, backpacks, etc in small lockers before they enter the testing room.
Yeah, ultimately I think I'd have to reach the conclusion that the College Board would have to provide computers (more specifically tablets with big screens) rather than install their software or (even worse) give into the temptation of Zoom sessions. Otherwise, the kids could easily prepare their computers to store and present information despite safeguards, and, worse, record the entire test so the whole operation could easily be reverse-engineered.
They'd have to be in a room with no internet access, and the test could be administered through installation of a separate application that creates a file that could be retrieved when the application is uninstalled.
Still, that would require admin access, simply for installation and uninstallation.
And, yes, another advantage for parents with money and knowledge, as they could provide laptops with bigger screens and more precise peripherals, plus training on the movements necessary to navigate the test.
And then you have to handle cheating in a different way. A screen perpendicular to the desk is one heck of a lot easier to read with a glance forward than a dot-filled answer form on a desk's surface. So fewer kids in a room.
And then you'd lose any time gained from the shorter test to all the time required to install this on each laptop.
All to provide this extra precision that could only be accomplished with a smaller set of key questions which will get gamed by those in the know rather quickly.
So... 1) the test mostly serves to weed out the lowest performers. And 2) the test subtly acts to give more incentive for the very wealthy to pay for tips that will be far more effective than in the past - so the legacies with their big checkbooks can more easily purchase higher scores.
It's very dystopian, isn't it?
Among the kids taking the test are some of the best and the brightest. I think they will be able to navigate around any failsafe measures.
It is ENTIRELY unclear what they are doing and how it will be used. Will everyone get the same score, roughly, but the weaker students flagged? Or will only the “adaptive” score be known, and kids who scored well, but on easier material, be treated as equals to others?
And if admitted to elite schools based on these tests, will they be allowed to fail? Or will they just be given good grades? Will plagiarism, etc. be tolerated in order to give the illusion of competence? The epidemic of plagiarism involving current highly placed black females in academia does not bode well.
The GRE has been using computer adaptive tests for almost 25 years. The statistics are sound, and no kid getting 1500 should waste half an hour proving that he can do arithmetic perfectly over and over again. I am concerned with the bring your laptop part of it, as I'm sure people will figure out how to cheat
Agreed - computerized adaptive scoring has been in use for a long time with a good amount of data to back it up. Many professional licensure exams utilize this format (I’ve personally taken the pharmacy board exams). This article appears to be more of an editorial but I’m still surprised The Free Press didn’t look deeper into the question of the accuracy of adaptive scoring.
The problem is that it's a lot like AI: unless you know what was programmed into it to begin with, it's difficult to trust what comes out.
There's also the issue that if you don't do well on the first few questions, you'll be shunted down by the adaptive scoring to the point where you can't ever reach the same score you could have if you had just been doing the same set of questions everyone else had.
I recall that when I took the General GRE in 2000, it was this type of test. But the English GRE was the old pencil and bubble style. I did extremely well on both, so I can't extrapolate from my own experience, but I still have to wonder what's in the programming.
It is probably fair to say that scores from the “old” testing method will not be apples-to-apples comparisons to the scores for the “new” testing method. There was never 100% congruence between SAT and ACT score either - they use different types of questions and scoring methodology but both claim to help predict the probability of success in college.
I took the ACT in high school because that's the test my preferred university wanted. But it's interesting that the overall scoring sections (math, science reading, social studies reading, and English) had the same spread in my ACT at 16 as my general GRE had at 33: very high scores in English, slightly lower scores in reading, and in the upper middle in math.
It's also worth noting that I flunked out of college in my fourth year, largely due to clinical depression and no one suggesting a gap year or anything but a cookie-cutter approach to college. A gap year would have done me a world of good, as would taking a very light load during winter semesters, when my seasonal depression was at its worst. On paper, I was destined to succeed in college. Not so much in factors that don't get tested for.
My grad school grades were stellar, because I'd had enough life experience (including experience dealing with my depression) by then to know what I wanted from college and how to get it. Again, not things you can test for.
It seems like a form of tracking. If you miss early questions, you will be sent to an easier track, where even a perfect score will be unimpressive. In some ways, that is the very problem that standardized testing is designed to remedy: Even B's in top schools reflect more academic achievement than A's in weak ones, so students in lesser schools need a chance to prove themselves.
I was going to make the same point. Rather than lower standards, adaptive questions is akin to improving the efficiency with which the test can determine where you fit in the distribution.
Bring your own laptop does seem quite concerning though.
The College Board knows that an easier test with rising scores for minorities means more schools require it, more people take it, and they can claim that it is "fair."
The test has been getting easier for a long time now and the trend is only likely to accelerate. That's because the goal is not to accurately assess applicants. Instead, it's to continue to champion "diversity" while Asian-American and white kids engage in a hunger games to secure fewer and fewer spots at the most competitive colleges.
Meanwhile, these most competitive colleges have extensive tutoring services for unqualified admits who go on to resent their peers.
Worse still, many of the unqualified will graduate and be awarded undeserved positions of authority in college administration and business and public office, where they will "flatten the curve" even more.
The biggest fix required for academic integrity - offer the test as a choice for "timed" or "extra time". And report that choice to the colleges.
The most obvious form of academic dishonesty concerning standardized tests is unreported extra time. And the colleges are equally guilty. Colleges are incentivized not to distinguish between tests taken with time vs 50% extra time. These inflated scores will then improve the overall scores that colleges report as their testing averages. Currently, the admissions office receives no information regarding test time as part of the college application...in order to protect the applicants medical privacy. When the number of untimed test takers is so high, there is hardly a stigma. And therefore hardly a reason to protect the medical privacy.
Extra time is offered to students who are diagnosed with anxiety, ADHD, or other disabilities. Unsurprisingly, the wealthier the student, the more access to a doctor who will provide that diagnosis. Some reasons for extra time are with merit - as my daughter's intelligent classmate with cerebral palsy certainly needed the extra time. But for the most part, these reasons for extra time are acquired through subjective testing from psychiatrists who are also incentivized to positively present a disability diagnosis. There is no bloodwork or ct scan or any definitive medical test to diagnose so many disabilities, and so it's a system that can easily be manipulated. Extra time is the cheater's loophole.
My daughter attends a high school with students along a wide socio-economic range. The wealthier the student, the more likely that their tests are arranged with extra time (school tests, standardized tests and even AP tests). Exactly half the students in her AP Calculus class receive extra time.
An alarming number of honors students (I'd love the statistic) take standardized tests with extra time at the public and private high schools nearby. At my daughter's school, more than one classmate is a National Merit Finalist, receiving extra time advantage. These classmates are nationally recognized for academic achievements as elite students. Though in the classroom, it's a different story. One of her classmates relies on her testing advantage - to complete tests after taking a break and sometimes finishing the following day. How is that even a test?? Needless to say, this student studies far less than others who must complete their work before the bell rings.
My daughter scored in the mid-1400's on the SAT, running out of time and guessing on the last problems. She took a few practice tests to prepare, and on the untimed tests, she's scored in the mid-1500's. If we were cheaters and her classmates played it fair, my daughter could have been the national merit finalist instead.
I would love an expose on accommodations. Rich kids are never average or dumb; they just have different "learning styles" or "test anxiety."
Their parents are the academic equivalent of air travelers who take their emotional support peacocks on the plane.
From the NY Post - https://nypost.com/2024/03/27/us-news/private-school-students-get-fake-adhd-diagnoses-boost-sat/
THANK YOU for sharing that!!! I can't believe the timing of that article - especially after writing my response.
There are only two solutions for this cheating.
1. Report all scores as timed or extra time.
2. Offer the test a. timed or b. extra timed to everyone AND report all scores as such
I'll be very unpopular writing this. I don't believe that ADHD is real. I don't believe that having anxiety should permit an advantage taking the test. And most of all, I hate the idea of kids being medicated for these so-called disabilities. Aside from dyslexia, it's all BS.
The worst is that these kids who get a big boost 100-200 points higher are getting into schools and taking a spot from other students who are more deserving. I've been watching it happen real time to my daughter. She's watching her weaker classmates (with extra time) succeed at this admissions game - they have been accepted to schools while my daughter has been waitlisted. Just terrible.
The schools are definitely playing a game too. As test optional, they need to make sure their admitted students who submit scores will fit in the ranges that they want to publish (ie. 1520 at the 75th percentile to 1450 at the 25th percentile). They make it clear not to submit scores if you don't fit in this range. Only half of applicants now submit test scores at many highly competitive schools - given the criteria.
I absolutely agree with you. Anyone who truly needs extra time struggles in ways that probably preclude going to the most competitive colleges.
Given that these cheating parents will resist any efforts to report who gets extra time, one potential "fix" is to give all students the maximum time permitted for those with accommodations.
Your daughter has something none of her peers has - integrity. They may be winning the admissions battle, but they are losing the life skills war. Their parents have basically told them that there is something wrong with them when there isn't or that they don't feel confident that they can succeed on their own merits. Eventually, most of them will reach a point when mommy or daddy can't run interference for them anymore and it won't be pretty.
Wishing you and your daughter the best of luck.
That's a great score. My son scored 1380 doing it without the extra time. He also said he ran out of time and just filled in the circles on some questions. That is part of the test design. Processing speed is an important aspect. Never heard of kids going home and coming back the next day to finish, but the whole extra time scam throws off the whole test. Totally unfair. Despite that, I am sure your daughter will do fine as she is prepared to do college work and hopefully she found a great place for her to go to school.
I'm pretty sure the SAT has been getting easier for years. 35 years ago, perfect scores of 1600 were extemely uncommon, now it seems every school district of any size has at least one every year.
A far larger percentage of high school students take the test today compared to decades earlier. We pretend that students with scores below average can perform college-level work by creating universities that teach high school classes and charge outrageous fees for this nonsense.
Somewhere between .07% and .1% get perfect scores currently out of 2 million or so SAT test takers.. But, they don't publish the actual numbers so no one is sure. !n the 1970s there were around 20-25 perfect scores out of 1 million or so test takers or .002%.
They openly admit that they have dumbed down the test. It's to accommodate low achieving students of a certain demographic who otherwise are mostly locked out of higher education.
Bingo!
Yes. My husband got one back in 1981 or 1982. It was really meaningful then. He's brilliant.
My scores were much less impressive, sigh.
Although I agree that something has gone terribly wrong with College Board and the SAT, the implication that the test is "easier" is wrongheaded. It's a standardized test, one that essentially produces a Gaussian curve. 1% of test-takers will score in the top 1% on the new Digital Test, just like the older paper test. If you are anxious about more students getting perfect scores, worry about the ACT--the number of students earning perfect scores has increased exponentially because that test's "DNA" and underlying assumptions are very different from the SAT.
The problem with the new Digital SAT isn't that it's "easy" (as one comment notes, her son "dropped 200 points" on the new Digital SAT) but rather that it may be irrelevant. The new Digital SAT doesn't have reading passages anymore, just single paragraphs followed by a single question. It's as if it were designed by TikTok. The difficulty now primarily derives from a brutal scale and distractors.
The author and nearly everyone writing about the SAT/ACT also seems to misunderstand a key element of "test-optional" admissions: they were never really optional. The author suggests that in 2019 he couldn't have known that these tests would soon not be "necessary"--but the data shows that the majority of accepted students submitted scores, even in the midst of COVID and that students who submitted scores--even scores below an institution's average--were accepted at a much higher rate than those who didn't submit. Purdue accepted only 3% of last year's class without scores. Unless you fit into a very special category, the SAT/ACT was never really optional.
To understand how Ivy-level American universities admit students you need to read Pierre Bourdieu, rather than Michel Foucault, and brush up on Castiglione's The Courtier, which advises aspirants who wish to navigate an aristocratic, courtly world in which those with power rarely mean what they say. It is puzzling that so few journalists seem willing to ask how institutions that don't share their $40 billion-dollar endowments even with their own students can serve "equity," or how Ivy League campuses that reject 95% of qualified applicants (and seek to reject 96% in the coming year, thus improving their "selectivity") can somehow embody "inclusion." The floating signifiers of "equity" and "inclusion" today primarily gain their meaning within structures of power that would be familiar to Sir Philip Sidney.
My son graduated from Yale ten years ago. The racial "diversity" in his class was stunningly skin deep, literally. The overwhelming majority of people of color in his class were socioeconomically homogeneous with the wealthy whites in his class.
Great post. But, you are wrong about the test getting easier. If you consistently do things to make the tests easier, you end up with many more top scores than if you didn't. This "bunching" creates a situation where you can't differentiate between the top 5-10% of test takers. So elite colleges, who claim to only take the top in cognitive ability don't, they reject a bunch of folks who score 1500-1600 for various reasons. If the harder tests were kept like they were up to the 1990s, then they would be able to accept all the top scorers because there are only a few hundred of them instead of thousands of them (100 or so 1500+ scores in the 1970s, for example, could easier all matriculate to MIT or Harvard or Stanford). Now if you are Jewish and/or Asian and get a 1500 + score you might not get into the top schools since there are several thousand kids getting 1500+.
You point out some useful things, but I'm not sure you're entirely correct. Yes, there are more great scores and more perfect scores now compared to the 1970s. And yes, the SAT was "re-centered" in the 1990s--as you suggest, the older tests were harder. But there are other factors, too. Many more high school students took these tests (until 2020) than in 1970. And back in the 1970s and 1980s, many still believed these tests weren't "coachable," so they didn't prep for them; I know i didn't study for the SAT back in the 1980s. And immigration in the 1990s--especially after the IMF's hard-nosed financial policies in South Korea, eventually brought "hagwon"-style test-prep to California. I would suggest that during this period--at least until 1996-- the test didn't get "easier" in any sense--the test-takers just studied for the tests more rigorously. In some regards, the test-takers got better.
If I understand your point, and what you are suggesting is true, then each new iteration of the test 1) the "2400" scale in 2005 and 2) the return to the "1600" scale in 2016 and the 3) new "Digital SAT" should have produced more and more perfect scores. But in fact, perfect scores have been mostly flat in the past decade. It's been the ACT that has produced many more perfect scores, and that test hasn't changed appreciably; it's the population of test-takers for the ACT that has changed.
The SAT has been revised four times since 2005, a pattern that SATs smack of desperation on the part of College Board (and perhaps reminds us that David Coleman was a McKinsey-ite--he's essentially consulted the test to death). College Board is trying to compete with the ACT by offering a test that "seems" easier. In 2016, teachers and counselors often claimed the "new" SAT would be "easier" because College Board removed vocabulary. Of course, College Board added more 18th and 19th-century passages to compensate--there was no significant uptick in perfect scores on the SAT since 2016. The new "Digital SAT" has shorter passages and gives students more time--and about 50% of the comments for this article bemoan that the test will be easier--but the Digital SAT has re-introduced vocabulary, and has more mean-spirited distractors. It may, in the end, prove to be "easier"--but we'll have to wait and see. For College Board, I think it's enough that it will seem easier or "feel" easier without necessarily actually being easier.
In the end, you may be right. But I think it's more likely that College Board, like a carnival game operator, simply needs to offer something that looks, at a glance, like it will be easy--but that also guarantees most people don't win the game. For a while the ACT prevailed in that marketplace--it didn't have vocabulary, and thus looked easier. But in reality it was very "speeded," an insurmountable barrier for some students. Although College Board used words like "fair" and phrases like "more equitable" in introducing the 2016 SAT it was, essentially, a reverse-engineered ACT.
The deeper problem is probably not resolvable: you can't recognize the importance of testing the basic skills of high schoolers and simultaneously demand equitable results across all regions and demographics--these skills are not equitably distributed. Perhaps they could be, someday--but, somewhat ironically, not with policies that hope to achieve immediate equity by eliminating standards and rigor in grading or in mathematics. These tests, like all tests, are designed to make distinctions. They can't simultaneously reveal differences and contribute to the current notion of "equity."
Can you explain what you mean by "mean-spirited distractors"?
On multiple-choice tests the wrong answers are typically called "distractors." When the passage is challenging--featuring an unreliable narrator, a counter-intuitive main idea, or perhaps two longer passages that measure working memory--the distractors are "distracting" only to those who didn't get the main idea. But when the main idea is pretty obvious or the passage is fairly straight-forward, the difficulty has to come via trickier distractors. For instance, in the new Digital SAT there are graphs that appear fairly straight-forward, and are accompanied by a brief paragraph. A "distractor" on the new SAT might offer something that is true if you just consult the graph--and you'd be tempted to pick it--but something that isn't explicitly mentioned in the brief paragraph. Until you grasp the (mean-spirited) logic of the questions, you'll get them incorrect. This sort of question is akin to someone pointing out that, technically, a tomato is a fruit. Well, Ok--I guess.
I fail to see how "adaptive" testing is superior to the old way. What's more, the College Board has already been dumbing down the SAT test for decades now; a double 800 is not the intellectual achievement it was in the 1970s (back when I took it and barely managed double 700s).
Accommodating students' short attention spans and preference for digital medium is stupid. There are still plenty of professors out there who demand hand-written essays and quizzes. My own daughter is having to do that with some of her profs.
What's more, software is so fiendishly clever and hard to police that requiring students to bring in their own laptops is fraught with risks.
Go back to pencils and paper tests, make everyone aspire to the same challenge, and the cream will rise to the top. Not everyone is college material nor should everyone feel entitled to attend college. Nor should it be seen as the only pathway to a comfortable living.
Big Academia, including the College Board, has lost the faith of a growing number of Americans through its deceptive and insidious radical politicalization of education. At every step they have obfuscated their actions with benign-sounding terminology and nomenclature that disguised the reality of their objectives. Consequently, it is reasonable to view the new SAT with suspicion and skepticism. Is it purely an improved assessment tool or the vehicle for an unstated agenda? Unfortunately, our ability to assess its true impact is handicapped out of the gate. What academic psychometrician wants his name on a paper that will evaluate this new test if the results of that assessment are politically incorrect?
Everybody gets a 1600! Yay!
And a trophy.
My son just took the March digital SAT & dropped 200 points from the last December paper exam. Yes 200!
Thank gd he has the first score under his belt. His goal was to improve his English score- of 4 sections he did great on 3 but bizarrely bombed 1 section bringing the total way down - something looks off but he will not be retaking it. Note in our large high performing public school there is no “test optional”, that only works for the kids that fit a college’s institutional priorities
This is fascinating - yes there can be some testing variability, but it begs the question - were the questions getting harder and harder because he was doing well? Thereby bringing his score back to the mean?
The changes seem to make it easier. Shorter, fewer, adaptive? The idea is to separate the “men from the boys” (sorry ladies, just an expression). What is the point of such a test if everyone gets the same score?
Only well educated people can be truly free... Efforts at reducing standards, eroding expectations and destroying families are not "progressive". They are little more than efforts to introduce a caste system into the United States that would put medieval India to shame... In 100 years America will be divided into 3 distinct groups... the elite, the stupid and the woefully stupid...
The College Board, which makes the SAT, really fooled conservatives that believe in merit for college admissions. Now, they will continue to rake in billions in tax payer funding with a new test that has little to do with merit, while indoctring kids with leftist ideology via their tax payer funded AP curriculum that's taught in most schools around the country.
Bring back the old SAT no essay section . 1800 is perfect and it works . If u do not do well u know what extra classes should be taken before paying college expenses.
It’s good for all students to know if they r prepared for college and where their weaknesses lie. It saves parents and students money!
Every time the teacher union changes things it’s always bad . We need phonics and rote math . Everyone can learn this way . Also , stop catering to the stupid :bring students up to and beyond expectations. I taught and if students believe they can do amazing things .
I took the SAT way back in 1965 and I completely agree with eliminating the essay section: Verbal REASONING skills (which are largely innate) need to be evaluated, not WRITING skills (which can largely be taught). So eliminate any essays entirely. I don't believe there was an essay section back then, but as its been 59 years since I took the SAT my memory could be off.
The problem is not with adaptive testing but with total lack of transparency on how that will relate to how the test will be scored.