The concordances provided can help translate scores - there’s no global number that can be applied to everything. A 500/500 pre-1995 translates to 1170 (+170) today. A 420/380 would be a 1010 (+210). And a 1600 is still a 1600 (+0).
+90 and +70 would be an average mid-range jump.
I don’t think a test being “easier” is actually meaningful. Is a 1020 on the SAT “better” than a 30 on the ACT because it’s 34x “higher”? Is the test “easier”? The numbers all relate to percentiles and that’s what really matters. Assuming the tests are fairly well designed and tested, a 90th percentile student will score in the 90th percentile compared to peers, whether that’s 1300, 1500, 33, or 88. Users of the test scores inherently translate to these comparative numbers. I don’t think anyone at Yale would believe 25% of their students today are smarter than 99.5% of the students in the past because of their raw 800 test numbers.
@RichInPitt Wow, a 1500 in 1982! That score is nothing to be ashamed of! Was your Verbal 800? How did you know all of the vocabulary words? Also, by “tough curves” are you referring to the June 2018 SAT?
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800 was in Math. I found an old article that said there were 9 perfect 1600’s back in those days. Harvard alone had >350 applicants with 1600 in their lawsuit data (so a couple of years back). The percentile argument falls apart at the test ceilings - I’m glad my D has AMC/AIME scores to differentiate.