SAT's

RudyGarmisch

RudyGarmisch

Active member
Staff member
... are evil and worthless. I'm a junior at the UW, and last week, I began training to become a SAT prep teacher at Princeton Review. Basically, I'll get to teach a bunch og high schoolers freaking out about college how to take an SAT. And yes, it pays, very nicely.

I thought I'd share what I've learned so far in my training, since undoubtably, a lot of you are going to take SAT's soon. The SAT is crap. Its worthless. And everyone does it. Now, there is another type of test you can take, the ACT, which actually does somewhat measure your scholastic aptitude. The SAT DOES NOT. Its a bullshit test created by the ETS (people that run College Board - Third largest nonprofit earnings last year behind #2, the Red Cross and #3, the Catholic Church...) set up so that given a set of students, a nice bell curve will surely appear.

Basically, ETS achieves this by setting up the test so that it will fool you. They make tricky questions and bullshit weak answers in order to snare as many students as possible. Instead of hard questions, they give you hard answers. Its not like any other test you'll have ever taken. Its not set up to be like one. Thus, to do good, dont treat it like a normal test.

And thats not even it. Theres so much more wrong with this test. Heres some other fun facts:

- The SAT is actually terrible at predicting a students average GPA. Instead, it does much better at predicting three other factors: Your race, your gender and your family's average income.

- The SAT changed last year to add an essay section. That however, wasnt the biggest change. Its now 4 hours long, a full hour longer than before. No material was cut to make way for the essay and 3 NEW SECTIONS.

-And they still only give you 11 minutes of total break - Two 5 min breaks and one 1 min stretch break. Want to know why kids get so many questions wrong after the 2nd hour of testing?

Please guys, trust me on this - if you want good SAT's, get a book on how to take them or take a class if you have the money. Its a bullshit requirement in my opinion, but its still a requirement, so work the system and dont fall for the ETS traps. Studying and doing good in school is by no means an assurance you will do good on them.
 
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Actually, if any of you guys have questions, I'll try to answer as best I can, post em here.
 
They are in fact WORTHLESS haha take it from someone who nearly got kicked out of high school and then a year later got into Harvard.

They don't mean shit in the big picture. The only thing worthwhile in school is finding a bomb ass teacher and connecting with them and taking as many life lessons in from them as possible.
 
Honestly, if you didnt take the SAT's and instead gave the school an essay about why the SAT's are meaningless, it would do more. SAT's arent required anyways, except at Harvey Mudd.
 
er dont have much else to do.

I never did school well because my teachers, a few asside, never challenged me, or got me interested in the subject matter. I also just didn't give a shit about school work unless I found the topic interesting. I was pretty much just focussed on my passion which is making video games, so thats what I did.

When I did graduate high school I got offers from a few companies, Sony Online Entertainment, Blizzard (when they were located in Canada) and one other in Boston. I took the job in Boston as an entry level game designer, worked there for a year, founded my own computer company, then apllied to the Harvard writing program. Got in went through the paces, realized how fucking lame people in Cambridge (not all of them, just the ones who still have vote kerry stickers on there cars, oh wait thats all of them) and left. Moved up to VT right near Mt Snow and I am at a small ass college now.

Transfering to UVM next year prolly to go for a doctorate in Botony.

Oh and I am now head of design and theory with the company I work at and I am helping consult with two other companies that are making MMO games with tenative launches within the next 5 years.

And yeh that about sums it up.

Hope I elaborated enough.

 
ya i took some stupid thing called the PSAT and its the Preparatory SAT, and that was fuckin retarded it said that i would become a good cabinet maker
 
Oh and to answer this question. THERE IS NO BOOK. You can't study for them. They are supposed to test what you have learned in school thus far. The kids who do well on them are usually just the ones that have no issues paying attention and get there school work in on time.

Its just a bunch of bullshit to try and catagorize and promote a flawed educational system. I can't wait until teachers realize kids don't give a fuck, for the most part, about what they are saying. They need to think outside the box and get away from the god daum linear bullshit teaching styles of the past.

Or this country needs to get hardcore like Asia.
 
they werent that bad. im pretty sure they just measure your logical thinking ability. all the stuff that they ask you about you should have learned in like 8th grade at the latest. its pretty much inherent ability... unless u take a class that teaches you how to take em haha.
 
You sure thats the PSAT? Sounds more like an apptitude test? Then again its been a long ass time since I took a standerdized.
 
Wait, wait, wait. What do the SAT's test you for? I thought it was like school stuff, not learn what your going to be stuff.
 
He is thinking of a different test. The SAT's are supposed to test what you have learned in the educational system thus far. They were great back when shit like that mattered. Now kids are learning tons of stuff on their own outside of school.

I know a kid who is 14 years old and was up for a job that was gonna pay about $60-100k a year. When he told the company how old he was they told him to wait two years, he is now head programer for some small gaming company in Europe and he is 17 I think.

He learned NOTHING of what he does in school.

Best thing you learn in school is social skills and a few good life lessons.
 
I took the SAT's and I did pretty well but mainly cause I am asian and we can afford a tutor. I got a 2230 on the test and I have to say the thing that helps the most is a tutor. Classes dont do shit for you. If you find a good tutor who can help you find all the tricks and little stupid shit on the SAT then it helps a lot. Im asian but I still got an 11 on the essay, want to know why? Well my tutor pretty much gave me a fill it in formula for the essay and i followed and got an 11 out o 12. There are a bunch of other tricks that they dont tell you about in books that help a lot.
 
i took an aptitude thing kinda deal and it had a range of such retarded jobs....some of the more outlandish ones were NBA player, supermodel, and i shit you not "professional bull rider" oh and astronaut....what the fuck is that shit.
 
i took it once, 2270, i was satisfied

i agree that it is a gay test and they try to trick you, highly unneccessary. once you know how to approach it though, its not that bad.
 
i didn't look at it at all. and i got a 1530/2400. iknow it's not good, but it's abotu average, and i'd say it's alright seeing as though im not to "smart"
 
Princeton Review has a great book that you can buy, "Maunal for the SAT". You dont need to do the course to buy it, and it shows you everything you need to know for the SAT, what tricks ETS loves to use to fool students and how to slap ETS around a bit, and increase your score.

The SAT at one time did actually test your abilities. However, why it got this bad is another matter. ETS has to go and make sure the questions each year fool a certian percentage of people. On average, a large majority should end up with 400-600 points per section (around a 1000-1400 out of 2400) because its scaled so. If one year more students get more points, bringing the average above 500 a section, ETS goes back and edits the questions to make them harder for next year. Basically, through all of this editing, they've lost sight of what questions should actually do on a test - find out what students know. Questions on the SAT dont do that - each question has some answer that is meant to lead you away from the correct answer. They also love using difficult phrasing to confuse students. Again, its not the material that makes it hard - its the awful construction, length, weak ass answers, trick answers, instructions and wordplay that they use.
 
Yes they do. On my districts SAT's, they had us fill out a little questioner before the test, as they did with PSAT's. It asked our name, race, gender, family income, and all sorts of good survey questions. Even if you havent submitted your info, enough of a database is always collected each year from a certian percentage of schools to match up scores to things like race. ETS actually has to report this to the government to make sure they arent biasing the test.

By the way, latest figures show that Asians lead in average SAT scores, followed by Whites, Hispanics and then Blacks for the average American family income. For lower income families, its the same, except switch the order of Whites and Asians. Guys seem to have an advantage over girls as well, but with more girls attending college than guys in the US, you have to wonder...
 
They don't predict it, they put you into catagories based on what you put in the forms before the test.

ie when they ask what your parents do, if you say wallstreet they put you in a different catagory then if you say janitor.

Kinda fucked not sure what they do with it after that, but I am sure it comes up in the admission process.
 
i completely agree, THE SAT IS BULLSHIT. i didn't do as well as i had hoped on my SATs the 3 times i took them. i resorted to taking the ACT, which i did very well in. i wish i had just taken the ACT. it's so much better at measuring your actual intelligence, the SAT is a load of shit. TAKE THE ACT AND DO YOURSELF A FAVOR.
 
i only had to take the ACT, i got a 27, then there are my friends who got a 33 and a 31, but they werent happy enought with it, so they took it again
 
SAT's are on the way out, its true. ACT's are taking over, and the whole idea of standardized testing is starting to fall out of favor with college admission offices.
 
I took the ACT's too and I got pretty much the equivalent. I got a 34 but i do have to say that I thought it was easier than the SAT. I liked how there were 3 huge sections instead of a bunch of mini ones. Personally both of them sucked balls but how else are we going to set a standard for intelligence. School grades cant be used because there are just waayyy too many variables. There has to be one standardized test that everybody takes to score everybody. Sure the SAT may not test your intelligence but it will test your intelligence against the rest of the nation. Some people are smarter at catching the little tricks and some people just aren't adept enough. Sure there is also the rich families that can afford to pay for classes and tutors but that can only help so much. There is also just basic intelligence that some people have and some dont. I dont like the tests but colleges need a way to rank you.
 
just to let you know... the SATs were created by white racist men who were trying to keep blacks out of school.
 
W.A.S.P.s white anglo saxon protestants. bunch of guys from harvard who thought blacks had no rights in america. they didn't do it but there grandkids made the test
 
jea I pwned the SATs...2300. It may be a flawed system, but at least its easy to do well.
 
i never hand shit in or pay attention watsoever, failed out of my prep school in the 10th grade and magically did better on it than a lot of those over achieving mo-fo's that get straight a's.
 
i totally agree with you, the sat's are so wack. I got a 2000 on them, but got a 34 on the act's both times I took them. I have a 3.7 gpa at one of the best public schools in MA (westwood). I take two AP classes (got an A in both first term), and I got a 5 on the AP physics test last year. I didn't do a review course for the SAT's because I think it's just rediculous that you need to take a special class just to do well, so that's probly why I did so poorly.

But i'd have to say the thing that pisses me off the most about the SAT's is the fact that they have "trick" questions. Both times I took it, I was able to do all the math sections TWICE, doing it the first time filling in the bubbles, and the marking the answers again and checking them. I was 100% sure that I got the right answers after the test, but yet I get it back and i got a 700 and a 730. Why can I ace an AP calculus class without studiying for any of the tests, but not pass a simple algebra test (SAT's)? That's just screwed up, because math and science are my best classes. It just makes me angry. I got a perfect 36 on the math on ACT's both times. I already got into college tho, and am going to RPI next year, which was my top choice. I would have aplied to MIT and other good engineering schools but RPI has the athletics, and I want to play football there. Yeah, that's my rant
 
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