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SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

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Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#51

Post by mehulkar »

brianchu wrote: post #30
mehulkar wrote: post #11

This reminds of me playing Hearts on a PC. You can try really hard to get a good score, or you can get the worst score possible and win the round[1]. I didn't read the whole article, but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to know the correct response to every question. (A little less black & white for the essay section, but you get the gist.) Colleges should have a lottery admission av…

The lottery idea is a terrible one. Missing just one question on the test is enough to drop your score from a 2400 to a 2370 in many cases. Achieving a "perfect" score is largely due to luck.

Woops, my lottery was supposed to refer to people who can get the lowest possible ("perfect") score. Looks like I can't edit my comment now.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#52

Post by mehulkar »

gizmo686 wrote: post #23
mehulkar wrote: post #11

This reminds of me playing Hearts on a PC. You can try really hard to get a good score, or you can get the worst score possible and win the round[1]. I didn't read the whole article, but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to know the correct response to every question. (A little less black & white for the essay section, but you get the gist.) Colleges should have a lottery admission av…

> but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to know the correct response to every question. Not exactly. To get the lowest possible score, you only need to know a incorrect response to every questions. This is a very different thing, as it is not uncommon for a question to have some obviously incorrect answers.

Knowing an absolutely incorrect answer to every question is difficult to ensure. It leaves things up to chance since you cannot prepare for the exact questions you get. On the other hand, knowing all the correct answers is perfectly doable.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#53

Post by mehulkar »

greatzebu wrote: post #22
mehulkar wrote: post #11

This reminds of me playing Hearts on a PC. You can try really hard to get a good score, or you can get the worst score possible and win the round[1]. I didn't read the whole article, but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to know the correct response to every question. (A little less black & white for the essay section, but you get the gist.) Colleges should have a lottery admission av…

You don't really need to identify the correct answer; you only have to be able to find an answer that you're sure isn't correct. Of course, that's much easier if you know what the right answer is, but there's pretty commonly one obviously wrong option.

The "obviously wrong option" often turns out not to be as wrong as I first thought.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#55

Post by biscarch »

brianchu wrote: post #50
ComputerGuru wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PSAT is (in my anecdotal opinion) much harder to "ace" than the SAT. NMSQT qualification was around ~215/240 for last year, that would definitely count as flying colors. I'd say anything over 205ish would be "acing" the PSAT. I've met many highly-talented individuals who did really great on PSAT/ACT/etc, but none of whom could have achieved a 200+ on the PSAT without studying (for) the test extensively beforehand…

I second what biscarch said. It is most certainly an over-generalization to imply that highly-talented individuals must have studied for the PSAT in order to have done well. In my experience, it is quite common for intelligent people to do very well (NMSC Finalists) without studying, especially because that was true for me and several of my friends.

I'd be interested to know about your habits in hs to see if there is any behavioral correlation.

ie: did you go to class? do homework? spend more time on projects that were non-school related? etc.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#56

Post by narsil »

ghshephard wrote: post #27

I had to laugh when reading about the Fantasy "Calculators" - included as a fantasy is a "Slide Rule" - when I took my grade 12 physics provincial finals in 1987, I didn't have a calculator with me, but that was not unexpected, so students were also provided with a booklet of log tables - a predecessor, of course, to the slide rule. The log tables, of course, were more than sufficient for whatever complex multiplicat…

These are still used frequently in high schools across the world. For example, Indian high schools following the CBSE system do not allow calculators, but log tables are permitted for some courses.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#57

Post by bagosm »

mehulkar wrote: post #52
gizmo686 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to know the correct response to every question. Not exactly. To get the lowest possible score, you only need to know a incorrect response to every questions. This is a very different thing, as it is not uncommon for a question to have some obviously incorrect answers.

Knowing an absolutely incorrect answer to every question is difficult to ensure. It leaves things up to chance since you cannot prepare for the exact questions you get. On the other hand, knowing all the correct answers is perfectly doable.

This is not true. For example you know that the result of 5.123.443 x 9.999.999 can't be 42. But you dont immediately know the correct answer, which is harder.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#58

Post by archangel_one »

narsil wrote: post #56
ghshephard wrote: post #27

I had to laugh when reading about the Fantasy "Calculators" - included as a fantasy is a "Slide Rule" - when I took my grade 12 physics provincial finals in 1987, I didn't have a calculator with me, but that was not unexpected, so students were also provided with a booklet of log tables - a predecessor, of course, to the slide rule. The log tables, of course, were more than sufficient for whatever complex multiplicat…

These are still used frequently in high schools across the world. For example, Indian high schools following the CBSE system do not allow calculators, but log tables are permitted for some courses.

Yep, at my high school in New Zealand we were required to learn how to use log tables, even though we all had calculators. I don't know if it was a compulsory part of the curriculum though, and I wouldn't be surprised if they don't do it any longer.

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#59

Post by yummyfajitas »

imjk wrote: post #34
tokenadult wrote: post #19

A lot of the comments here are related to the idea of whether or not the SAT can be regarded as being much like an IQ test. It can, and psychologists routinely think of the SAT that way. Despite a number of statements to the contrary in the various comments here, taking SAT scores as an informative correlate (proxy) of what psychologists call "general intelligence" is a procedure often found in the professional liter…

How do you reconcile the large leaps in SAT scores that people achieve through preparing for the test? For example, while I had a fairly respectable score in high school, after I spent a little time working as an SAT tutor in college, I was regularly scoring perfectly on all practice tests and recently release new tests. Surely my IQ hadn't jumped drastically. Just curious for your take on this.

According to studies not performed by a company selling test prep, there is no large leap in SAT score.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124278685697537839.html

Re: SAT: Getting the lowest score possible

#60

Post by yummyfajitas »

tzs wrote: post #25
nateberkopec wrote: post #16

A lot of the SAT-apologist comments here missed one of the most amazing parts of the post: > "The correlation between [...] combined verbal and math scores and freshman GPA is .52;" .52! And it's pulled straight from the College Board's Terms and Conditions! And later on, it goes on to explain that high school GPA's correlation is just .54! The graph he produced to visualize the scatter involved with a .52 correlatio…

Ideally, shouldn't there be weak or no correlation between score and college grades, when your sample is all SAT takers? My reasoning (not entirely non-serious) is that people who score high on the SAT get into hard schools and so get their GPA smacked down to average, whereas those with poor SAT scores get into easy schools where they can earn an average GPA.

Harder schools don't necessarily have harder grading. I taught at both Rutgers and NYU - if anything, Rutgers was tougher than NYU.

At Rutgers we failed people regularly. At NYU this would raise red flags and generate huge numbers of complaints (from students and parents).

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