The SAT II score and it's national percentile which one is better reference factor?

mifune
Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:03:47 +0000

I agree with silverturtle and the percentile argument. I will respond to this using the same post that I used on a different forum:

“I believe that the percentiles associated with the SAT II are much more indicative of performance than the scores themselves. But I do think that the current difficulty and scoring of the tests are fine as they are. All Subject Tests are standardized to assess a body of knowledge appropriate for a particular level. It is just that many appeal to a particular and better-prepared demographic. For instance, the exams in Far Eastern languages (i.e. Chinese, Korean, Japanese) typically have a higher mean score since these are most often taken by native speakers and are languages that are not widely offered as educational opportunities for non-native-speaking students. (That accounts for the relatively lower mean scores for the more commonly taught languages such as Spanish, German, and so on.)”

Assessing students on the basis of their performance relative to others is very useful information for a university. Overall, I feel that standardized testing percentiles are more constructive data than other comparative measures like class rank.

So although the score evaluates one’s overall knowledge, the percentile places the score into its proper context.