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MATH SAT Scores Reach 36-Year High
AP ^
| 8-26-03
Posted on 08/26/2003 12:06:49 PM PDT by dogbyte12
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:03:02 AM PDT by Jim Robinson.
[history]
The College Board, which owns the nation's most popular college entrance exam, said Tuesday that this year's high school graduates had an average cumulative score of 1,026 points on the SAT, up six points from 2002. Both the average math (519) and verbal (507) scores were up three points from last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: matheducation; sat; testing
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To: dogbyte12
My cousin home schooled her two sons until she found a good private (Christain) school for them to attend. Her oldest just graduated in May. His ACT score was an overall 35 and he is a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. He was awarded a full academic scholarship to Auburn University where he entered in June. He is studying pre-med and plans to be a surgeon. And he is a wonderful young man, with his head on straight. My whole family loves him dearly!
21
posted on
08/26/2003 12:51:02 PM PDT
by
auboy
To: kinsman redeemer
S.A.T. tasts made easier
To: dhuffman@awod.com
explain please-i tested 1439 in 1963
To: ladyjane
You're talking sense to me. Remember that those "897 perfect scores" no longer mean that the test-takers have to get every question right -- since the 1990s you can get a perfect score even if you have a couple of wrong answers. Before that, "perfect" really meant 100% correct answers. Yes, homeschooling is a great thing, and yes, lots of East Asian kids are performing very well in school, but that's probably not enough to make this kind of a difference. BTW, I definitely recall previously reading that under the old system, SAT scores peaked in 1963. It's interesting that this press release has no data before 1967.
24
posted on
08/26/2003 12:59:19 PM PDT
by
TheMole
The SAT has never been a good test of aptitude in mathematics. It's all about knowing the tricks that ETS throws in. The math itself is simple.
To: dogbyte12
Interesting....Are our schools beginning to turn it around?
A definite sign of hope.
26
posted on
08/26/2003 1:07:44 PM PDT
by
.cnI redruM
(Nothing Is More Vile Than A Blowhard With Halitosis! - redruM)
To: dogbyte12
Talk about screwed up schools. My son scored 610 on the SAT's as a seventh grader which puts him performing at better than 77% of graduating seniors and he hasn't been taught yet most of the math that the exam covers.
The school he goes to moved him out of the advanced math class for 8th grade because he failed to complete his homework regularly last year. They reconsidered when I asked them the effect on the self esteem on the average students would be having him in the class skewing test grades.
27
posted on
08/26/2003 1:13:46 PM PDT
by
VRWC_minion
(Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and most are right)
To: tcostell
Hmm. I favor private schools. I don't know about whether there should be no public schools for those who don't have the money to attend private schools. Part of me says this is one of the costs that is required if a society wants an informed electorate. The other part says that the market should provide. But since there are, in the real world market failures, I don't know what you do with kids who can't/don't get into private schools. Do you really want to write them off?
28
posted on
08/26/2003 1:18:23 PM PDT
by
LS
To: dogbyte12
said Tuesday that this year's high school graduates had an average cumulative score of 1,026 points on the SAT, up six points from 2002In addition to what the other posters said about the test being 'recentered' (read extra points given for simply breathing), and as we all know that the hard stuff like analogies and the antonym section have been removed, I have two things to say:
1. The scores have risen six measly points and we're excited?
2. A score of 1026 out of a possible 1600 figures out to approximately 63%. When I was in school that was a D-.
To: dogbyte12
mo probably they dumbed down the tests
30
posted on
08/26/2003 1:29:43 PM PDT
by
joesnuffy
(Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
To: LS
They started messing with these tests back in the 70's. I lost count of how many times they dumbed them down, cause I just don't care.
Teachers are the bottom of the barrel of college educated people. They are the turkeys who are too stupid to hammer a nail and too stupid to get a real job.
They do keep journalism majors off the barfloor.
To: Lizavetta
1026 is a scaled score. The scaled score that is reported is determined on the absolute percentage of the correct answers minus a fraction of a percentage of an incorrect answer. When I took the SAT, you got one point correct for a correct answer, and had .25 deducted for an incorrect answer. So if you got 9/10 correct, your score was really 8.75/10. The quarter point penalty was used as a hammer to prevent random guessing. If memory serves, there were five foils per multiple choice question. By giving a .25 deduction, it was statistically worse to take a blind guess, than to skip the question entirely. (9/10 for skipping vs 8.75/10 for an incorrect answer)
Based on this information, there has to be a way to dileneate a quarter of a point -- hence a scaled score. The mean score when I took it was 880 (430 V/410 M). My only bragging rights on the exam is that I scored identical marks in verbal and math.
32
posted on
08/26/2003 1:36:30 PM PDT
by
gas_dr
(Trial lawyers are Endangering Every Patient in America)
To: dogbyte12
Translation - they've succeeded in lowering the standard enough now to show an unimpressive 6 point increase.
Blah, blah, non-Asian minorities, blah, blah. Whoa, back up, what about the non-Asian minorities? Could it be that the Asian minority is skewing the study's stats so they are taken out of the mix?
To: dogbyte12
I grant you that if this would have happened during the KKKlinton years, A(SS) P(rick) headlines would have been....MATH SAT Scores Reach 36-Year High under Clinton!! I pray this gaint news rag will sink like the NYSlimes!!
To: Congressman Billybob
The higher math scores are probably legitimate. After all, math is math.That's true, but some math questions are more difficult than others. The SAT math scores could fluctuate upward or downward depending on the level of difficulty of the math questions on the SAT. But I have no way of knowing if this was the cause for the higher SAT scores in this case. Hopefully it was simply due to American students studying harder and testing better because of it.
35
posted on
08/26/2003 1:44:20 PM PDT
by
usadave
To: Eagles2003
Er, as a teacher I guess I take umbrage at that. In fact, I know some excellent public school teachers, and private school teachers. They work their butts off, and certainly are not stupid.
What happened, though, is that in the 1970s, they changed the requirements for teachers. It used to be that to get better pay, you had to have a Master's or above IN YOUR MAJOR, but beginning in the 1970s, the schools (largely due to the unions) started to accept ANY advanced credit hours, including education. Thus, people who actually were getting better trained before the change started to take "ed" classes (which teach you nothing---I know, because I took them---and got raises. They became less well prepared than ever.
However, recently many states (including Ohio) started to work with the requirments to ensure that teachers knew what they were doing, and required tests for the teachers. This brought back some of the "major" subject learning.
36
posted on
08/26/2003 1:46:51 PM PDT
by
LS
To: gas_dr
As others have stated, I too remember back in the 70's when anything above 850 was impressive. I also remember shortly after my slightly impressive scores, the test was dumbed down which made my scores most embarassing.
To: dogbyte12
SPOTREP
To: TheMole
You're talking sense to me. Remember that those "897 perfect scores" no longer mean that the test-takers have to get every question right -- since the 1990s you can get a perfect score even if you have a couple of wrong answers. Before that, "perfect" really meant 100% correct answers. I've heard this before. How does it work? Do you have a source? I'd be interested to see how you miss questions and get a "perfect" score?
39
posted on
08/26/2003 2:06:08 PM PDT
by
TankerKC
(If I can take a Creative Writing class, why can't I take Creative Spelling class?)
To: dogbyte12
My kids' public high school produced a kid that got 1600 on the SAT and a perfect 36 on the ACT. Plenty of kids not too far behind, either.
40
posted on
08/26/2003 2:12:45 PM PDT
by
RonF
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