<p>Another post inspired me to post my first question. I should have said SAT II’s rather than achievement tests. Perhaps I’ll try again. In my field of work, an achievement test is a measure of how much of a subject you have learned. Often it is used to evaluate the system that is educating you. It is not something that you prepare for, beyond applying yourself at school. Maybe you “practice”, if your school want’s to look good.In the context of college admissions, or elite college admission perhaps, what does it mean when you prepare for weeks or more to score near 800?</p>
<p>I don’t really understand the point of this thread.</p>
<p>First of all, just to clarify, achievement tests are, like you said, tests that measure how much of a subject you have learned. Thus, the tests that you have in most of your high school classes are achievement tests. As I’m sure you know, it would be downright foolish to not study for at least some of these tests. The only tests that you aren’t supposed to study for are Aptitude tests, but these are a whole other story.</p>
<p>Put simply, if studying would make the difference between an A and a D, I’m sure you’d study. It’s the same with the SAT. If you aren’t prepared for the exam, it’s highly probable that you won’t score very highly.</p>
<p>CC has led me to believe that SAT scores aren’t very important. There have been countless people with relatively low scores who got into elite colleges. Clearly, and 800 will help your application more than a 450 will, but, so long as you have many things that make you an attractive applicant, your SAT score isn’t all that important.</p>
<p>I guess I’m not sure I want to encourage my daughter to spend 8 weeks improving her SAT II’S, when she could be working on her grades, activities, applications, essays, and just having a good time. ( She’s not a “CC” kid) I 'd never even heard of SAT II’s when she signed up for them ( needs for UC’s), and she took them after finishing a reasonable ( few if my AP’s at her school; 2 for seniors I believe) curriculum quite successfully. So I’m thinking the scores weren’t “CC” great, but they reflect what she learned. What’s better about them reflecting what she studied for another eight weeks? What would that mean?</p>