[geeks] Mensa

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sat, 12 May 2007 @ 20:43 -0500, Lionel Peterson said:

> >From: Aaron Finley <aaronfinley at gmail.com>
> >Date: 2007/05/12 Sat PM 05:56:13 CDT
> >To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> >Subject: Re: [geeks] Mensa
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >If you get a 1000 on the SAT, and your friend gets a 1500 in half the
> >time it took you to get a 1000, then you could say "oh, he's just good
> >at taking tests" but really...
> 
> I thought the SAT was sexist and racist, and was skewed towards
> "middle-class" americans? I think it's great that some colleges are no
> longer using SAT results to screen applicants...

I didn't take SAT.

My college entrace exams were too high for them to turn me away, so it
didn't really matter.

If you have the money, you can pay to send your kid to special SAT
training courses, which basically teach you how to score high. It's a
multi million dollar business.

> When I went to college, the SAT was harder (my opinion), a dozen years
> ago (or so) they monkeyed with the math and gave everyone another 200
> points towards the 1600 possible points, send everyones scores higher,
> and I'm sure, making kids "feel" smarter...

Meanwhile it seems literacy and numeracy are falling.

I don't doubt that sometimes things like SAT are good measures, but
I also know a lot of students train for it, which seems to me to
invalidate it as a test.

You shouldn't have to study for a test.

If you have to study for a test, then you don't know the material, or
you are studying just to pass the test, not learn what it is about.


-- 
shannon          | If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
                 |         -- Mark Twain