<p>Lobgent,
I can only hope you are joking about the “ever-so-humiliating” 2390s and
2380s out there…</p>
<p>Yes I was joking, and hence the quotations around the original. 
Sorry if anyone felt insulted.</p>
<p>And about the 780: it could be that, along with rarity of missing a certain amount of questions to just be able to get that slightly sub-800 score, the curve on many of the SATs that year lacked a 780.</p>
<p>There are two things affecting scores:</p>
<p>There are always more 800s than 790s and 780s because of the fact that 800 aggregates a long tail of test-takers whose results would be over 800 if the test measured that. So, even if the attributes tested are distributed in a perfect, conventional bell curve, the last measurable score will have a greater number of people than the next few scores down. I think if you look at the test distributions, usually 760 or 750 is the first score where there are more people than at 800.</p>
<p>Also, on some tests I think it is extremely difficult to achieve certain specific scores. It may be that to score a 780, you have to both miss one and leave one blank.</p>
<p>
Not true. The reason that perfect scores increased was entirely due to the recentering of the test (that is, they changed the curve) not to any change in its content. The change in 1990 was merely a name change, that is, the College Board stopped claiming that its test was an aptitude test (and then in 1994, they stopped claiming it was anything).
I agree, however, that scoring a 2400 isn’t that impressive (and like lobgent, I say that as someone who got one). The math section, particularly, reveals nothing about one’s mathematical abilities. There are occasionally tricky questions in the other two sections, but for the most part, the difference between a 2400 and other high scores is simply the ability to concentrate for 4 hours without making errors. Perhaps that’s important, but much less so than some make it out to be.</p>
<p>On the March 2007 SAT, at least one possible incarnation for a 780 CR was two wrong, one omit. Two wrong on CR was still an 800. There was a thread back from the March scores in which folks posted the number missed/omitted and the corresponding score for each section. </p>
<p>I always thought 790 would be an incredibly difficult score to get.</p>
<p>JHS, good point about 800 capturing all the potential 850s and 900s out there and therefore having a higher total of scorers than 780, etc.</p>
<p>There are different ways of thinking about SAT/ACT scores.</p>
<p>For the majority of students, the scores are associated with certain grade level curricula and GPAs. In other words, it is assumed that college-bound seniors will have taken 3 years of social studies, 4 years of English Language Arts, and so on. Adcoms do not make admission decisions on the basis of SAT/ACT scores alone, but consider what classes applicants have taken and how well they have done in those classes.</p>
<p>For participants in Talent Searches, the ACT/SAT scores work differently. First, they show potential, as mammall correctly states, since 7th and 8th graders have typically not formally studied the materials covered by the SAT/ACT (however, many have done so outside of school, often in an unsystematic way); secondly, SAT/ACT scores serve as gatekeepers into certain kinds of courses. It is assumed that Talent Searches participants will go on to take high school courses, and possibly college level courses before they apply to colleges. It is not expected that they will be applying to colleges even if they score high; nor is it believed that, even those who outscore by far college-bound seniors are intellectually ready for college.</p>
<p>I do not know of any college that would admit applicants on the strength of perfect scores alone, be they seniors or 8th graders. I would also be very surprised if adcoms did not look for signs of further achievements on the part of students who submitted high scores from 7th or 8th grade. One student I know who scored 1550 in 7th grade and never took the SAT again, was taking 3 APs every year beginning in 9th grade. By the time she graduated early at the end of junior year, she had 9APs. She also had an essay published in the Concord Review, a much more impressive achievement than an 800 on the SAT.</p>
<p>I am not satisfied with any of the explanations about the distribution of the high end score in a single subject. I am not going into detail of why each one is not adequate. For example, I have considered the possibility that 800 number contains all the potential 800+ scores (we may very well see such an effect on SAT2 math 2c). While that can explain why 800 count is greater than 790 count, it cannot explain why 790 count > 780 count, and 780 count > 770 count in math.</p>
<p>My theory is that in math, the 770, 780, 790 and 800 scorers are really at the same level. The difference is how many silly mistakes they make. Scores below that have too many wrongs to be explained by silly mistake. For the top group, we do a model where we assume that there is a constant small probability of making mistake in each question. Since the chance of making two silly mistake is smaller than the chance of making one silly mistake, the output from such a mathematical model would show pattern in the data.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that you cannot get a perfect if you have any mistake or omission in SAT1 math. If in CR, you can perfect score even with mistake, then the result is that 800/790 count ratio is higher in CR than in math. That is what we are seeing.</p>
<p>I would not try the model on SAT writing, because the essay score make it more complicated.</p>
<p>Of course it is not quite right to assume that all top scorers make mistake at the same rate. So I have try a model where some scorers are very careful and don’t make mistake, while the rest are more careless and can make mistake. The model can still output the same type of data pattern. So this is not a issue.</p>
<p><a href=“bomgeedad:”>quote</a></p>
<p>I am not satisfied with any of the explanations about the distribution of the high end score in a single subject.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Absolutely right. </p>
<p>It is funny how many people give easy pseudo-explanations (it’s the “scoring system” or the cutoff at 800) without actually having checked that the analysis works. I think it is more complicated than that.</p>
<p>Bomgeedad:</p>
<p>S had one wrong answer on the SAT-Math and received an 800.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That varies from one form of the test to another.</p>
<p>I wish the SAT I math would be replaced with just Math Level 2…that would be so much easier! On the math IIC you can get 10 wrong out of 50 and still get a 800 =D</p>
<p>math 2c has a very generous curve, although I don’t think it goes as far as allowing 10 wrong. That is why people on the SAT/ACT forum feel a lot confident about getting 800 in 2c than SAT1 (remember CCers are not the average student).</p>
<p>If SAT1 math allows at least 1 wrong for a 800 score, that is a good thing and good news for my son who would be taking the SAT later this year. When I am talking about people making silly mistake, I am thinking about him as an example.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some genuine previously released SAT II tests I have seen do assign a score of 800 even to an item content performance with ten wrong answers. I can’t remember if the SAT Subject Test Math Level 2 test is one of those. My son has taken that test, and his score was reported only as the standard score, with NO indication of how many items, if any, he missed. That is different from the way SAT Reasoning Test scores are reported, as you perhaps know from personal experience.</p>
<p>By the way, here is a link to an article </p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools; </p>
<p>by the College Board on how standard scores on the SAT are equated from test administration to another.</p>
<p>S made 4 silly mistakes when he took the SAT in 7th grade; his score was 710. A difference of 3 mistakes was worth 90 points! And these were silly mistakes of arithmetics.</p>
<p>He took the Math2C test together with the SATII-Writing. The score report analyzed his performance on the SATII-Writing but not on the Math2C, so we don’t know if he made any error.</p>
<p>I suspect the reason that there are fewer 790 SAT I math scores than 800 scores is because I think you need to not answer one of the questions and then get the rest of the questions correct. It’s very unlikely that someone who could do the rest of the problems correctly would not even attempt one of the questions.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the scoring is like, but I think some of the high scores that have a very low frequency of occurrence require you to omit one of the questions.</p>
<p>I’ve been lurking here for four years and failing-to-gain-admission-with-top-scores threads are getting tedious. We all know someone with perfect SAT scores, a 4.0 cum and great ECs (including raising $250,00 to seek a cure for cancer) who interviews well, and yet didn’t get into the school(s) of his/her choice. (This assumes that he/she wasn’t the son/daughter of a generous legacy which DOES put you over the top.) </p>
<p>The focus should be on expectation management – accepting that there is life after four years at a non-ivy.</p>
<p>JMO</p>
<p>One of my kids learned a valuable lesson about the importance of the student-produced reponses and the harsh math curve: on the Fall 2006 PSAT, one OMIT resulted in a 760 math. He forgot to bubble one of the SPRs, though he wrote in the correct answer.</p>
<p>Math, of the three SAT sections, is the most unforgiving of silly errors, it would seem. One can miss a couple of editing Qs, get a very high essay score, and keep an 800. One can also get a perfect MC score, an above average essay score (i.e., 9 or higher) and still get an 800.</p>
<p>When DS1 took the SAT-II Math Level II in his freshman year, the practice tests indicated a curve on the test of between 7-8 questions. (It made the decision to have him test without prep an easy one.) Knowing the depth of the curve also drives our recommendation to DS2 (who does not love math and is prone to silly errors) to take the SAT-Math Level II vs. Level I. It’s more forgiving. But DS2 will do some prep.</p>
<p>It would be nice if the CB released one’s number of errors/omits on the subject tests the way they do on the PSAT and SAT.</p>
<p>Because of rounding, getting only 1 wrong is the same as 1 omission.</p>
<p>Using CB’s 10 real SAT (i.e. the old SAT, I don’t have the new copy for the new SAT), here are how many you can miss and still make 800. The first column is for verbal, the second is for math. O stands for omission. W stands for wrong. Of course W can always be substituted by O.</p>
<p>3W/2W2O 1W
2W1O 0W
2W1O 0W
2W 0W
3W/2W2O 1W
4W/3W2O 1W
4W/3W2O 1W
2W1O 1W
2W 1W
2W1O 1W</p>