SAT rant
Anyone here agree that you are not given enough time to complete the SAT?
Wrote this on a forum. Gonna drop it here too, cause why not. The more people become aware of this, the better. Plus forums are full of biased people so sooner or later I may get a lot of hate and maybe even my post removed. At least this is my personal space and I have all the right to express my opinion.
My take on this is that the SAT/ACT are just a way to milk money. They found a good marketing strategy with just one flaw - it's illegal. Oh, but I am forgetting the world we live in. Money has the power, thus whoever has more of it, has the power to decide, regardless of the fairness of the outcome. So how do they do it? SAT basically lures you in with relatively easy-medium level difficulty, but an unfair amount of time. The reason many students choose SAT is because they are attracted to the low difficulty compared to other tests. This brings them confidence and psychological comfort. If they made the subject tests too hard, no one would be drawn to them. Students would feel discouraged from the start and not even attempt to take it. But by flaunting easy subjects, they give hope; they make people think they have a chance to score really high very easily, which couldn't be further from the truth. After all, no one is drawn to a test because of the time. The thing that stands out is the content. It also makes sense to have SAT organized several times a year during consecutive months with those specific dates - if you get a low score (which you definitely will), you can take it again! So convenient, isn't it? Also, they get more money the more attempts you take. But of course, that's so not their purpose. Now about those dates - think about it. You get tested at the start of each month and you only get the results after a month and A HALF. Not enough time to check your results and decide if you want to go for another. You're forced to just go ahead and register for another SAT before knowing your score in case you are doubting your results too much. Not to mention you don't even have much time to decide since the testing day is usually around the registration deadline for the next month's test. Yet again, quite convenient, isn't it? Any qualified teacher/psychologist/researcher/scientist in the field would tell you that the time allotted is not proportional to the difficulty/complexity of the subjects. And as I said above, I think very few people believe speed of perception or problem solving is what makes a person intelligent. And if colleges/universities are looking for this specific trait in students, it shouldn't be administered by a test that is meant to reflect intelligence and general performance, since these two don't go hand in hand. Problem-solving speed and intelligence are not mutually exclusive but they're not dependent on one another either. So if universities want to find people with performance speed, they should require a specific test. If they want students with overall solid performance and intelligence, they should go for a general test - which is what SAT is supposed to be. And if they want both, they should require another specialized test. It makes absolutely no sense to blend all requirements into one test just for the sake of "top universities wanting to distinguish students who can solve things fast" as I've read on some threads on a forum as an argument to the time limit. It's like saying you are altering a test in order to cater to the needs of a niche part of the world. Top universities represent a very very low percentage. Making a test that is basically specialized for their needs only and tagging it as a general test is not only illegal, but nonsensical. It also has no logical basis to say that "no one expects you to score high" and "universities other than harvard will accept lower scores" because it is in fact wrong. I personally applied to a university in UK that required quite a high score and it wasn't a top uni, but no way near bottom either. It was among the best ones in UK but not Harvard or Oxford level. According to comments like the ones mentioned above, you would deduce that all other great universities that just aren't niche will accept low scores. This is definitely not true. In order to verify this, I compared the entry requirements of top, great and average UK and US universities, for US, UK and other international qualifications, to see if they correlate. And it resulted in a clear discrepancy when it came to the US qualifications, which proves people consider the SAT a general test, not a specialized performance speed test, and thus they demand scores based on that criteria, which cannot be determined from the SAT. Here are some of my findings for Physics course for example: Oxford - top UK requirements: A*AA European Baccalaureate: 85% US requirements: 2100 (1400 new SAT) Harvard - top US: 2260 (1510) King's College - great UK: AAA - A*AB European: 80% US: 1900 - 1950 (1270 - 1300 new sat) Sheffield - average UK: AAB European: 80% US: 1800 (1200 new sat) If SAT was in fact a general performance test, then the above requirements would be fair and accurate, but given the fact SAT is created in such a way that it does not test you like other exams, in terms of general performance, but instead based on speed, then it makes no sense to judge its scores like you would others. This shows international universities and perhaps even US ones, do not judge accurately as they are unaware of these details. Thus this unfairness affects the future of students and it shouldn't be taken lightly thinking "average or lower than top unis will accept low scores" since it is clearly not the case. They are blatantly unaware of the true meaning of SAT and they just determine the requirements based on a standard set of testing methodology. My rant is done. While I wish there was something I could do about it, I know suing or other legal methods, despite having a logical and legal basis, even with other people's backup (as improbable as that is) would result in nothing since SAT has existed for ages now and there have been attempts at correcting it before but they didn't budge. It means those in power are corrupted to the core and nothing can take them down. It's a sad world.
