<p>sewhappy, undoubtedly carelessness did my son in - twice! But there was plenty of other evidence of his math ability. (Junior year BC Calc score, AMC, AIM scores etc.) His SAT math score was fine, just not an 800. Do high IQ people do better on the SAT in general? Sure? But you a motivated student can also study for it and improve their score by hundreds of points.</p>
<p>I actually do believe in sewhappy’s hardwired theory. My older son was like that - even when he was a newborn you could see him observing things and he couldn’t stand not knowing how things worked - he was an amazing observer and considered everything a puzzle. He hated secrets. Written language was a code he started trying to crack when he was two years old. He knew more about the many different ways a toilet could work than I had ever imagined. My younger son was completely different. He never cared about things, but from the time he could talk he was observing how people behaved and making observations about that. One became a computer scientist the other is in International Relations.</p>