Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

home.dartmouth.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 451 posts

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#441

Post by thfuran »

zeroCalories wrote: post #102
ryukoposting wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. Being good at taking tests in high school is a positive indicator for being good at taking tests in college? A staggering discovery.

I don't know if you're trying to make a point about test taking, but you're aware that college GPA is composed of more than just being a good test taker? Better way of putting it might be: someone that scores highly on an IQ proxy is good at everything.

So you think performance at each of those other things is negatively correlated with test performance?

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#442

Post by omgJustTest »

causi wrote: post #77
omgJustTest wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the thing that tests do not sample is persistance. Missing that degree of freedom misses important mind-sets to achieving goals. One of the most interesting studies, not specifically focused on "success" / GPA, but on "life-satisfaction" comes from a longitudinal study "Project Talent"[1]. The key correlation to "life-satisfaction"/happiness is how many questions a person _attempts_ to answer on an otherwise un-f…

Disagree. You can retake the tests, hence they do test for persistence.

The test is too long to finish, basically at some point the students look through the pamphlet and decide no one can finish this thing.

"Retaking" misses the implementation of this test, it is more akin to "I'm going to keep giving you problems as long as you are willing to sit here" kind of thing.

Additionally this is the main correlation of the study. I doubt if researchers had in mind that the number of questions answered would be significant. If you told students "we are testing for number of questions answered" obv would distort the results.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#443

Post by omgJustTest »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #67
omgJustTest wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the thing that tests do not sample is persistance. Missing that degree of freedom misses important mind-sets to achieving goals. One of the most interesting studies, not specifically focused on "success" / GPA, but on "life-satisfaction" comes from a longitudinal study "Project Talent"[1]. The key correlation to "life-satisfaction"/happiness is how many questions a person _attempts_ to answer on an otherwise un-f…

> IMO the thing that tests do not sample is persistance See Angela Duckworth's research on "grit"; it is indeed very difficult to test for.

I would agree it is hard but not impossible to test for. The test being very long, at some point people just figure no one can finish it... and in some ways that is how I feel about work in life.

I imagine if you told people "we are not testing for correctness, just number of problems solved" then you would skew this test.

However when the tests were administered in the longitudinal study, the researchers didn't know which metrics would be important so they just put a lot of problems on it.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#444

Post by omgJustTest »

smeej wrote: post #185
anthonypasq wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this clearly pales in comparison to the extended effort for 4 years of highschool that is factored into your gpa

In most cases, I'd agree with you, but my parents thought it would be a great idea to have me start taking the exams in 7th grade so that by the time it mattered, boy would I be ready. Over four years, I added 350 SAT (1200-1550) points and 5 ACT points (30-35), but it seems pretty likely to me that it wasn't the direct work ("persistence") that made the difference as much as the generic four more years of schooling…

Retaking tests, to optimize a specific metric, I think is a direct misunderstanding of this point.

If one sets a goal to achieve & takes many tries at it, it is similar but not the same as "heres a bunch of questions, answer as many as possible and some correlations in the answers might be more important than others".

I think if you want to predict success there are two key factors: 1. Test takers must have weak feedback on their results 2. Test takers must be told that there is not uniformity in the importance of specific questions & some may be worth more than others. The test must be long enough that no one is willing to sit for the entire duration, and test takers should not be given an end-time or instruction on how to take the test.

Why? #1 mimics the weak feedback in real-life scenarios, if someone doesn't find you likeable for some unknown reason ... you'll probably see less of them.

#2 gets at you may never really know whats key to your success & hopefully by trying you get "lucky".

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#445

Post by [deleted] »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #33

If this was a paper submitted by one of my students, they would fail. Why would these faculty members sign their names to this drivel? If you read carefully, you see how useless SAT and ACT scores really are. Here are just a few insane things. > Figure 1 shows a linear relationship between SAT scores and cumulative first-year GPA for Dartmouth students. SAT scores are grouped into 16 equal-sized bins, and we plot mea…

[deleted]

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#446

Post by [deleted] »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #33

If this was a paper submitted by one of my students, they would fail. Why would these faculty members sign their names to this drivel? If you read carefully, you see how useless SAT and ACT scores really are. Here are just a few insane things. > Figure 1 shows a linear relationship between SAT scores and cumulative first-year GPA for Dartmouth students. SAT scores are grouped into 16 equal-sized bins, and we plot mea…

[deleted]

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#447

Post by LudwigNagasena »

thfuran wrote: post #439
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If academic education is not their top priority, it would be beneficial to separate research facilities from universities and let universities be glorified fraternities. It's a waste to spend resources of top professors on "formation of a person's character" when they can help build the next generation of elite scientists and engineers.

Should scientists and engineers not have good character?

I don’t think it’s a job of academia to instil “good character” into students. It reminds of scientific textbooks in the USSR that had to mention Lenin in their preface and the mandatory subject that taught the history of the Communist Party.

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#448

Post by smeej »

omgJustTest wrote: post #444
smeej wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cases, I'd agree with you, but my parents thought it would be a great idea to have me start taking the exams in 7th grade so that by the time it mattered, boy would I be ready. Over four years, I added 350 SAT (1200-1550) points and 5 ACT points (30-35), but it seems pretty likely to me that it wasn't the direct work ("persistence") that made the difference as much as the generic four more years of schooling…

Retaking tests, to optimize a specific metric, I think is a direct misunderstanding of this point. If one sets a goal to achieve & takes many tries at it, it is similar but not the same as "heres a bunch of questions, answer as many as possible and some correlations in the answers might be more important than others". I think if you want to predict success there are two key factors: 1. Test takers must have weak feed…

I didn't "train for the test." There were no SAT books or training courses or anything like that.

Sure, taking it a few times meant I knew what it felt like to take it. I knew what the books were like and how the proctors would act. I knew what could go wrong and what kinds of distractions I should be ready for.

That's why I think I only actually got better at the same rate that I would have if I weren't taking the tests.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#449

Post by BobaFloutist »

brigadier132 wrote: post #73
BobaFloutist wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they should be publicly run and free to take and send to universities.

"Should". Every time I read the word "should" I cringe. Everything should be free. I should be able to go to restaurants for free and have the chefs prepare the food for me and the waiters serve me and I should do this and not have to pay money. After all food should be a right.

> Every time I read the word "should" I cringe.

You should probably get that checked out.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#450

Post by ryukoposting »

zeroCalories wrote: post #177
ryukoposting wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in my experience in the Big Ten. For any math/science class, the plurality of the final grade was made up by exam scores - typically 45-60 percent, to my recollection. 60ish percent is a very particular number, because it's the highest weight that doesn't make it possible to pass the class by doing almost nothing except the exams. At 65 percent, you're giving students an easy way to game the system. Some classes…

Yes exams are heavily weighted, but labs/assignments are not usually easy in stem courses. You're delusional if you think that you're gonna get a 4.0 by half-assing course work, and even more delusional if you think someone like that will average over 90% on their exams. The SAT covers fairly basic topics that nearly every student should know, that's why it's like an IQ test. When I was in school freshmen would take…

Nothing you've said refutes my argument that exams are the most important component of a college GPA. Yes, homework can be hard, but it's rarely a plurality component of a final grade. Yes, labs can be a major component of a final grade, but they're rarely difficult enough to constitute anything more than a soft curve.

> You're delusional if you think that you're gonna get a 4.0 by half-assing course work

Nobody employing such a strategy was trying to get a 4.0 in the first place. In fact, setting the benchmark GPA for rigorous postsecondary education at 4.0 is itself delusional.

> The SAT covers fairly basic topics that nearly every student should know, that's why it's like an IQ test

Having taken two IQ tests administered by two different psychologists, I can confidently say no. The SAT does not resemble an actual IQ test. The SAT doesn't test short-term memory, and it only indirectly tests associative thinking.

That said, there's probably a correlation with IQ test scores, because smart people are smart, and so they perform well at tasks designed to test intelligence... just like how being good at taking tests in high school, means you'll probably be pretty good at it in college too.

Post reply on HN