The standardized tests remain important as grades no linger differentiate student performance. Our high school finally gave in to the parents’ complaints and now just gives A grades to pretty much everyone who shows up for class.
@roycroftmom holy cow. Our school doesn’t grade inflate. Out of 700 or so kids per class maybe 2-3 get all As in all honors or AP classes for all four years. Colleges can see the gPA ranges on the school info so they know. Our S19 has six Bs and got into Bowdoin, Davidson, Hamilton, William and Mary oOS, Carleton and more. And he has friends with Bs who got into Vanderbilt, Georgetown, U of Chicago all RD!
So…I’m a freshman in HS right now and I’ve always thought that the time constraint is a pro for me, I always move very quickly in tests. I was planning on doing serious prep for the ACT only, but if it is true that they will redesign the test, should I just focus on studying for the SAT?
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point.
Also, do you think all kids getting extended time are fraudulent, or just the ones trying to gain an unfair advantage?
@OhiBro take an ACT reading section with no time constraint. Then take the SAT reading section. No comparison. I think the ACT reading tests a much lower reading level. On the tests I was looking at yesterday, the SAT one had an excerpt from a Henry James novel and the ACT one had an excerpt from a more recent novel that read like it belonged in the YA section at the bookstore.
@homerdog , I am dyslexic, so there are no easy reading passages, even the ones from the YA section of the library that you joke about.
Extended time wasn’t even an option 30 years ago. I kicked tail in college and beyond, so the ACT/SAT (did better on SAT) did not accurately reflect my potential.
I hate to see kids these days that have similar special needs being the butt of jokes and called fraudulent when all they want is a chance to prove themselves.
@OhiBro I don’t see anyone commenting on accommodations on this thread. Of course kids who have them should use them for these tests.
@homerdog
Accommodations is exactly what bamamom2021 was talking about.
@OhiBro oh sorry. Right. There are parents who go out of their way to get kids accommodations. I’m sorry to say but that is true. Around here, one can get accommodations for a student who maybe borderline needs them but it will cost you. Certain docs will do it for you after a very expensive battery of tests that tend to show more “need” than a test the school would give to test for accommodations. But I also know kids who really, really need the extra time. It is too bad that parents game the system like that.
@homerdog Yes, we can certainly agree that there are some that game the system, unfortunately. And like you say, it is important to distinguish between the two. Some people seem surprised that extended time is even an option, and skewer everyone that has extended time, regardless of justification.
@squ1rrel , no one said they are definitely changing the ACT. I, as a test prep tutor, am speculating. It takes YEARS for a test to be reformatted. You’ll be out of high school by the time test is relaunched, if indeed that happens. and even then, there will be an overlap in which colleges will let students submit scores from the old or new test.
I am in full agreement that the ACT is a straightforward assessment and that the time constraint is what makes it difficult. I believe the ACT is more coachable than the SAT. My kid took both and thought the ACT was markedly easier than the SAT. Many of my students say the same. I have plenty of students who can’t handle the time for the ACT though, so they do the SAT instead.
Let’s not go down the accommodations road. If a person is going to cheat, they’ll do it however necessary. My kid had accommodations, he needed them, he used them. He did not cheat.
Linda, I have echoed your speculation to some parents already that the ACT will do Something to make the test more difficult. I remember multiple times where a specific section suddenly became more difficult and scores dipped until the collective test prep community learned how to counter the ACT’s move. As long as the Science “Reasoning” test is around, it can be toughened to include more obscure graphs and concepts (as they did around 2008-09, followed by the change to 6 passages 3 or so years ago). The math is going already going deeper, faster into harder (Algebra II and beyond) than it did 2 or 3 years ago.
I just hope the ACT doesn’t do an extreme makeover like the SAT’s done twice this century because every “Fix” for the SAT has seemed to have backfired over time.
Also, on accommodations… I have had many students with a wide range of profound learning differences, and those with extra time needed, and deserved, that time given the extra efforts they had to make just to take the test. Also, anytime I have a parent complain about a friend’s child “not deserving” extra time, I remind them that taking a test over 5 hours is a mental endurance race that most regular time students would never be willing to endure!
In short, those who wish to figure out a way to game the system will do whatever they can to game the system. Some will succeed; others will get caught.
Out of curiosity, have there been any studied comparing the difficulty or rigor of the two? Not just anecdotes or opinion, but something that is blinded where you can compare the difficulty of the two exams. The linked article really only discusses the ACT prep options, but I would have to think that there are prep tutors/ consultants/ programs for the SAT as well. I remember waaay back in the day (1990), my high school junior English class had every student work through a textbook called “Up your SAT” to help us bring our scores up. There is nothing new about parents and schools trying to teach tactics to help with testing. There are clearly a lot more options now, and with the spiraling admissions pressures, it isn’t too shocking that parents and students are taking advantage of whatever they can to raise their scores.
Class of 2002 Number of Composite 36s = 134 (total number of test takers 1,116,082)
https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/Natl-Scores-2002-data.pdf
Class of 2018 Number of Composite 36s = 3,741 (total number of test takers 1,914,817)
https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/cccr2018/P_99_999999_N_S_N00_ACT-GCPR_National.pdf
Adjusted for the # of test takers, there were 16 times more perfect scores for 2018 than 2002! And the test was basically the same difficulty, scored the same, etc.
I’m not surprised. Because the content on the ACT is pretty easy, all that needs to be practiced or tutored is time management. The SAT content is much harder to learn if you’re not already a strong reader.
I think AP exam scores are a much better indicator of ability to do college level work than the SAT or ACT (or even the SAT Subject Tests, which are just high-school level material). AP scores may even be more useful than GPA because a lot of high schools aren’t very rigorous, or the courseload taken wasn’t very rigorous.
AP scores can be useful @cloudeleven But many schools don’t offer AP classes, and some that do only allow them in Junior and Senior years. Students who take AP classes also skew towards those of relatively higher socioeconomic standing
For a lot of students there’s no need to pay for test prep or tutoring. Buy the official book ($35) and download a bunch of old tests from the internet and practice, practice, practice. If there is a concept - most likely math - that you don’t quite understand look it up on Kahn Academy.
This only works for kids who have internet access at home, many do not. This link shows that 39% of students do not have internet access at home. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=46&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
It’s also not feasible for these students to do this studying day in and day out at their schools and/or local libraries, where internet access can be also be spotty and/or limited.
@Mwfan1921 there are books out there that do the same thing as Kahn and explain each question from a practice test. There are also math-specific SAT and ACT books that review content. Our S19 didn’t like doing any prep online and only used paper books.