Getting a Zero on the SAT

[BowlerGuile]

Personally, I don’t plan to try this at all, but I want to discuss getting a 0 on the SAT, just like the title says and it’s significance in your college application.

Recently, my Test Masters’ teacher said that MIT will automatically accept students who score a 0 on the SAT. I searched around the internet with no luck on finding that info.

In that case, would getting a 0 on the SAT help someone’s application? And how exactly do you ensure a 0 on the current SAT? I’ve heard you have to get every single question incorrect.

[guineagirl96]

That’s not possible. The lowest score you can get on a section of the SAT is a 200, so 600 total (at least that’s what it used to be). When they convert your raw to a scaled score, there is a minimum score they will give.

See this page: https://sat.collegeboard.org/scores/understanding-sat-scores

Also thinking that colleges will automatically accept someone for that is ridiculous. That’s just simply not true.

[comfortablycurt]

…I honestly don’t even know how to respond to this.

As mentioned previously, one cannot get a zero on the SAT. If we suppose that it was possible though, it would make absolutely no sense at all for MIT or any other school to automatically accept students that got a zero on the SAT. What in the world makes you think that they would? I think whoever told you this was just messing with you.

[Jr12317]

@BowlerGuile

Personally, I don’t plan to try this at all, but I want to discuss getting a 0 on the SAT, just like the title says and it’s significance in your college application.

No never.

@BowlerGuile

Recently, my Test Masters’ teacher said that MIT will automatically accept students who score a 0 on the SAT. I searched around the internet with no luck on finding that info.

He must be kidding with you. As @guineagirl96 said 200 is the lowest on each section. I don’t find any answer to this… Also you won’t find any info on.

@BowlerGuile

In that case, would getting a 0 on the SAT help someone’s application? And how exactly do you ensure a 0 on the current SAT? I’ve heard you have to get every single question incorrect.

Then probably everyone will take the test as a joke. It will never help to your app to get 600 on the SAT.

Finally, is this a serious thread?

[MITer94]

I once thought about trying to answer every question incorrectly to score 600, which is hard since randomly guessing gives a 4/5 chance of success, and (4/5)^100 is low. But you could just mark two answers to each question.

[HRSMom]

If 600 is the minimum, maybe only a genius can figure out how to get a 0?

[JustOneDad]

^ Ha Ha, okay, I get it now.

[marvin100]

[url=http://www.colinfahey.com/sat/]It’s been tried…/url

14.1 The challenge of answering all questions incorrectly

The challenge of answering all questions incorrectly on the SAT is comparable to, but less than, the challenge of answering all questions correctly. This section describes some of the differences.

For the essay, it is trivial to get the lowest raw score possible. The essay can be left blank, or written illegibly, or it can be off-topic. Meanwhile, getting the maximum combined score of “12” is obviously a challenge.

For “student-produced response” math questions, getting the lowest raw score possible is trivial. The response can be left blank, or filled with syntax errors, or filled in with values that are extremely unlikely to be correct. Meanwhile, getting the correct answers is a challenge.

The non-trivial challenge for the goal of getting the lowest raw score possible on the SAT is in avoiding correct answers for the 160 questions with 5-choice responses. A person trying to answer all questions correctly must actually identify all correct answers. Meanwhile, a person trying to answer all questions incorrectly has two options: (1) find the correct answer; or, (2) find any of the four incorrect answers. So, even if a question has a high difficulty, one need only identify a single incorrect response to be able to answer the question incorrectly. Sometimes identifying one of the incorrect responses is much easier than identifying the single correct answer.

However, there are some SAT questions that are sufficiently difficult that answering correctly and answering incorrectly are equally-challenging tasks. It is almost impossible to avoid having to actually find the correct answers to specific questions, to be assured of answering them incorrectly; this is almost always the situation for passage-based reading questions and the majority of the 5-choice math questions.

[MITer94]

@marvin100 for reference, (4/5)^100 is about 2.04*10^(-10).

[BowlerGuile]

@Jr12317 Not totally serious, just curious.

I though the maximum score one could get on the SAT without doing a thing was 600 while one could reduce the score down by getting every question wrong. According to @marvin100 's post, Fahey tried this but only had one question right, leaving his score to still be 600. The problem is, though, is that this is a 2005 test he took. Although, CollegeBoard probably didn’t change a thing about the scoring system. Why fix what isn’t broken (even though CollegeBoard has tried to fix the SAT several times in general, 2016 being the most recent). So, yeah. Thanks, dudes.

[AmericanGothic]

@MITer94 Marking two answers to every question will NOT give you 600. If you mark two answers for a single question, the computer automatically counts the question as omitted, and then you’ll have raw scores of 0’s. However, in most SAT administrations, a raw score of 0 on the conversion table corresponds to 200+ (210~240). This is true for all three sections. So in this way you’ll get a total score of 700~800.

Therefore to “secure” the 600, omit all the hard questions. For the easy questions, make sure you get the correct answer first, then mark one of the wrong answers on the answer sheet. Thereby you’ll get a negative raw score, for which a 200 is much more likely.

[AmericanGothic]

Your teachers are pulling your leg. I think they are making 2 implications:

1. MIT is incredibly difficult to get into, as hard as it is to get every question incorrect in the SAT.

2. For the majority of applicants, the MIT is impossible, just as it is impossible to get a 0 in the SAT. (minimum score is 600)

[petrichor11]

This is an urban legend that’s been around since at least when I was in high school. Only then it was with the added twist that they give you two hundred points for writing your name, so if you score a 200, it’s counted as a perfect score.

No. Doesn’t work that way.