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Thursday, October 3. 2019

Untimed SATs for all?

There's a case for it, and a case against it. Support Builds For Making the SAT Untimed For Everyone


What's your thought? 

Posted by The Barrister in Education at 15:11 | Comments (23) | Trackbacks (0)

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The real world does not allow unlimited time to complete the tasks of your life. That is the world they should be preparing for unless university life is just a party in their well to do world.
#1 indyjonesouthere on 2019-10-03 15:28 (Reply)
From what I have read, it appears that the increase in students taking untimed SATs is led by affluent parents gaming the system for their kiddos.
Result of quick search: College Admissions Scandal Relied on More Students Using SAT Accommodation.
QUOTE:
To cheat on the test, Mr. Singer told parents to have their children pretend to have a learning disability to get a doctor’s note that would enable them to get extended time to take the SAT or ACT....

The number of students getting accommodations, which help them get more time on the SAT and ACT, has more than doubled from 2009 to 2016, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data. Students in affluent school districts are much more likely to get extended times than students in poorer districts, the data showed.
#2 Gringo on 2019-10-03 16:08 (Reply)
Try telling you boss that about your next assignment. I'm sure he/she will be amenable to you volunteering to pro-rate your pay and benefits accordingly.

Adapt or melt, snowflakes.
#3 Aggie on 2019-10-03 16:21 (Reply)
Unlimited time won't do the slow ponies any good, and will just annoy the clever ones. However, it should cut down on a lot of bellyaching from the Dunning-Kruger exemplars.

Apparently, we'd like to Spring to come a bit later for our current crop of snowflakes. Indulge them; it ain't Spring that gets you, it's Winter.
#4 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2019-10-03 16:38 (Reply)
It's very easy to get extended times and other forms of "assistance" on these tests.

I'm a fan of standardized testing regardless of the (somewhat, but not totally) questionable nature of 'racism' and other concerns.

It's my view that standardized testing has a place. It's not how the world works, or necessarily should work, all the time. It's a vestige of an old world with different learning and teaching approaches. Note I didn't say a better or worse world. Just an old world with different...

That said, the value of standardized testing does an amazing job of determining cognitive and recall skills, among other meaningful and useful traits. But let's be clear - I have a nephew who is a high functioning autistic and he KILLS the tests. You would just be hard pressed spending loads of time with him. Which makes him great for certain individualistic tasks, but really lousy for other team-oriented ones. Not to mention the occasional social meltdown when things don't go as planned.

So obviously, it can't test for everything - nor should we expect it to. It's just a tool in the toolkit.

I say keep it as is, timed and rigorous. But develop other tools to temper its shortcomings, or draw out the hidden skills and advantages of the individuals that it is not as useful for.
#5 Bulldog on 2019-10-03 16:44 (Reply)
I don't know.We don't have enough data. If some poor kid with Marty Feldman eyes needs more time because the words of the question keep moving I don't think we get real world intelligence measured for that individual with a timed reading dependent test. On the other hand, if the test isn't timed and we are suddenly awash in unprecedented #s of geniuses, then time sort is a valuable, real metric. Why not do a pilot with electronic tests, time stamp when the tests are complete and take an integration of time snap shots starting at the normal time's up and every 5 min after vs results. Let the computer and the researchers sort out what if anything extra time does for the majority.
#6 Karen on 2019-10-03 17:51 (Reply)
A couple of things: First of all, the SAT is fake. Did you ever wonder why the kids don't get their scored tests back? Because the administrators give each kid whatever score they think he or she should have. That's why they give black kids extra points. And that's why they take points away from white kids. The company "College Board" who administers the SAT has no oversight. It's a total scam. They do whatever they want. But more importantly, the SAT has almost no bearing on how well a student will do in college. If a kid gets good math grades in High School, then he will get good grades in college, too. The only thing that a college needs to see are a student's high school transcripts. But that creates a problem. Black kids have horrible grades. If they were judged only on that criteria, none of them would ever get accepted to college.

So the SAT is simply part of an effort to make the college acceptance process "Mystical." Students have to write "politically correct" essays, talk about inclusion, beat their chest over white privilege, and prove that they are ideologically qualified for the college experience. Acceptance to any college, including Harvard, Yale, and Oxford, is purely a political test.
To remedy the situation, the SAT and the ACT should both be discontinued. They're fake anyway. And there should be no essay requirements; or resumes with "volunteer activities." In fact, a student's name and ethnic information should not even appear on the application. Just an I.D. number.

What makes a good college student are good grades in High School. It's that simple. Nothing else needs to be considered.
#7 Ron B Liebermann on 2019-10-03 18:18 (Reply)
Previously used food.
If the SATs were a total and utter fraud, why do they correlate closely with IQ? Add someone's Math & Verbal SAT scores, and the sum is usually within 5 points of their IQ (measured any which-way you choose)
#7.1 RRA on 2019-10-03 19:42 (Reply)
High school grades don't mean much to me unless I know an awful lot about the school. That's the whole point of standardized tests. It follows that if we unstandardize them, they'll stop producing useful results.

All this heartache over whether the SAT is fair is really just insecurity about what we're supposed to think are the qualities that might predict a good student. If we really don't know, then why have admissions standards at all? Admit anyone who can pay, or who con someone else into paying for him. Of course, we'll still have the problem of deciding who, if anyone, learned anything useful in college, but employers have been dealing with that problem forever.
#7.2 Texan99 on 2019-10-04 08:57 (Reply)
Mr. Lieberman, you have an opinion.

I recommend you get some information instead. The SAT is a much better predictor of college success than high school grades. You didn't know that? Gee, I wonder why.
#7.3 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-10-04 17:19 (Reply)
The should allow anyone who chooses to have unlimited time. BUT they should note on their score that they choose to use that advantage and make it available forever to future employers.
#8 OneGuy on 2019-10-03 19:01 (Reply)
SATs have been dumbed down at least twice since I took them decades ago. Scores have been artificially elevated to the point where the test is essentially meaningless - just look at the concept floated this year to raise/adjust scores based on "social credit score."

Abolish them or admit they're just another aspect of social justice movement in mid-level education. Unfortunately our entire public school system seems to be heading down the drain of so-called social justice.

I would abolish completely all affirmative action in admissions, contrary to this week's court ruling. I would encourage strict meritocratic admissions, based on grades and objective testing. Unfortunately that is not conceivable these days. I advise in a major top tier university admissions process - and in the end it borders on the insane.
#9 John L on 2019-10-03 21:01 (Reply)
One of the parameters of effective students in truly challenging colleges is how fast the student reads. For this reason alone, SAT tests should be timed.
#10 mudbug on 2019-10-03 22:27 (Reply)
Oh, my. I have been tutoring the SAT (and the ACT, GRE, GMAT, various APs, etc.) for a decade, so I've formed a few opinions on the matter. Gringo, Bulldog, and John are all essentially correct in their assessments.

The SAT is a standardized, multiple choice test whose primary purpose is to assist college admissions officials in differentiating students. At best, it's a necessary evil. Standardized testing is to intelligence what training on nautilus machines is to mountain climbing (alas, the SAT no longer includes analogy questions -- go see the SSAT or Miller Analogies Test for that).

"Standardized" means that SAT questions are necessarily basic and formulaic. "Multiple Choice" means that the correct answers to these common questions are on the page, staring you in the face. It follows that the prime directive of the test is to make students miss certain questions -- usually through misdirection and time pressure -- because otherwise, it would fail as a ranking device.

However, the test is beatable precisely because it is repeatable. Taking it is an exercise in meta-cognition; once you learn what to look for, it's easy to give the test makers what they want. Some kids pick up on that, others don't. For example, in the reading section, kids who hate to read fall for superficial trap answers, whereas kids who love to read sometimes overthink things. The easter eggs are hidden in plain sight.

Making the test untimed will produce even more score inflation. The top end will become further compressed, necessitating ever more tests. We're already at the stage where high achievers are expected to take 4-5 SATs, a couple of ACTs, 3 subject tests, and goodness knows how many APs. What this has to do with education is questionable. The testing industry is well along Eric Hoffer's continuum: "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."
#11 gpc31 (Link) on 2019-10-03 23:00 (Reply)
And then there's people like me who, the more time we have on a multiple choice test (beyond the minimum to read and think for a minute or less on each question) start to second guess ourselves and change answers from correct ones to questionable ones...
#11.1 JTW on 2019-10-03 23:04 (Reply)
Taking it is an exercise in meta-cognition; once you learn what to look for, it's easy to give the test makers what they want.

I never bothered to take any SAT prep, and did OK. Your point about figuring out what the test-takers want reminds me of what I did the first time I took the GRE. I was having some problems with the Reading/Verbal section in choosing the correct multiple choice answer.

I decided to choose the answer that was written in the most obfuscating manner. As I put it to myself at the time of the test, choose the answer written in Sociology-speak. I ended up with a Verbal score slightly higher than what I got on the SAT-Verbal, years before. Apparently that was a successful strategy.
#11.2 Gringo on 2019-10-03 23:12 (Reply)
Let's make this a market. Offer timed and untimed versions and let the individual universities decide which version they want for admissions.
#12 John Fisher on 2019-10-04 06:06 (Reply)
First we must look at what is being measured by the test; in this case Scholastic Aptitude. Second, does the time allocated for the test aid in determining the measure for each test taker? If it is a factor then keep it, if not then make it whatever length of time you want.
#13 steve walsh on 2019-10-04 07:49 (Reply)
Very Important Thinking requires unlimited time. Einstein didn't do his stuff on a time punch clock.

But that's not what these tests are looking for, so no, it's a bad idea.
#14 Fred Z on 2019-10-04 08:01 (Reply)
Einstein thought and worked very quickly when he needed to. The abilities are strongly correlated.
#14.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-10-04 17:24 (Reply)
The SAT WAS a good IQ test but that changed years ago. I guess that is why Mensa no longer accepts SAT scores to qualify for membership.
#15 Andrew C Stanton on 2019-10-04 10:44 (Reply)
At my stepdaughter’s $45,000 a year private school, 20% of the students have been “diagnosed” with learning disabilities so that they’re now able to take an untimed SAT. (getting your kid privately tested is about $5000 out-of-pocket.)

At the nearby public school only 4% of the students there have qualified for an untimed SAT.

Given the situation yes I do think that the SAT should be untimed.
#16 Jm01 on 2019-10-04 13:27 (Reply)
I say no handicaps for anybody. If you're born with disadvantages I feel sorry for you, but helping you past the consequences is your family's problem, not mine.
#17 jdgalt on 2019-10-07 21:55 (Reply)

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