I’ve done some light research on the new SAT (I’m in university), so it’s possible that I don’t have a sense of the complete picture. It seems to me that they’ve decided to make the test a lot easier and more straightforward.
I think this is a bad idea if my information is reliable. I hope this doesn’t come out the wrong way, but I get the impression that they did this to fend off dumb criticisms against the test for having disparate socioeconomic and racial achievement outcomes (I can elaborate if needed to). What does this new test do, though?
It reduces the score ceiling, so more people are going to get perfect/near-perfect scores. This makes it more difficult to distinguish between high-achieving students, and thus lowers the amount of information it grants to universities (particularly more prestigious ones in this case).
It makes outcomes more dependent on just avoiding stupid mistakes and luck, as the amount of truly difficult material decreases.
If the test is more teachable, upper-income students with superior tutors have a larger advantage over lower-income ones of otherwise equal ability.
It reduces the g-loading of the test / how correlated with IQ it is, and to be rather blunt, that's the primary utility of standardized testing - to test cognitive ability. It isn't politically correct, but general intelligence is the single most significant predictor of economic and academic outcomes that we can test for.
Some would dispute that claim about the primary utility of standardized testing. For some, the main utility is that it is a common measure in an environment with inconsistent high school course rigor and grading (unlike, for example, in Canada, where external standardized tests are not used for domestic applicants to universities because high school courses and their grades are considered consistent at the province level).
Also, it is rather difficult to eliminate all “nurture” factors from an IQ test that purportedly measures “nature”. And if such a test were used in granting something desired like admission to a university, the “nurture” aspect becomes greater when the test preparation companies figure out ways to help students boost their scores.
@ucbalumnus - the nurture element will become more meaningful with the new SAT if it is more teachable, and this will favor those who can afford fancy prep tutors more. The old SAT could be taught, clearly, but expensive prep had limited value. That’s why SAT scores didn’t really correlate with adoptive parental income (only biological, as wealthier parents would on average be smarter and have smarter kids).
But I guess you could say that “nurture” always favors the rich more - it just strikes me as statistical noise here. They’re making it easier to teach to the test.
A quick search shows nothing really about this claim specific to the SAT. However, it brings up pointers to this reference, but with some IQ test (presumably not the SAT):
Both biological parent SES and adoptive parent SES were associated with 12 point differences between high and low SES. I.e. there is both “nature” and “nurture” that gets mixed into measurable IQ.