Scholastic Aptitude Test. This is a standardized test designed to determine the rough educational level of students entering college. The exam consists of a verbal and a mathematics section, with a maximum score of 800 on each. IIRC, there is about a 70% correlation between the S.A.T. score and college performance (That's what I seem to recall from a statistics class.) There has been a great deal of discussion regarding cultural bias in this and other standardized tests, as some students, particularly those from poor backgrounds with poor schools, will not do well on this test, yet, through hard work, will still be successful in college.

High scores on this exam are highly prized by students, and especially, the parents of students. I once knew a kid as a freshman in college who allegedly introduced himself as "Joe (not his real name, can't remember), I scored 1500 on my SAT." Needless to say, he was not mister popularity. A test which was popular in the South back in the day was the ACT which served a similar function as the S.A.T., but the maximum score was 32, and there were four sections instead of two. At one point, the southeastern colleges only accepted the A.C.T., but now I think the S.A.T. is accepted pretty much everywhere, whereas the A.C.T is still mostly a southern thing.

The SAT is created and administered by the Educational Testing Service, ETS.

The SAT is the "Scholastic Assesment Test." It used to be Scholastic Aptitude Test" but they're dropping the name and just keeping it an acronym. It's the epitome of Standardized tests.

There are 2 forms, the SAT I, which is the one people usually talk about, and the SAT II, which are subject tests. The SAT I is about 3 hours, while each SAT II is one hour.

The test scoring is simple. For every question you get correctly, you get a point added to your score. For every question you answer incorrectly, you lose one quarter of a point. This is to discourage guessing, but you need to get four questions wrong to cancel out the point gained by a right answer. Leaving an answer blank gives you no points, plus or minus. If you can eliminate at least one possible choice with process of elimination, GUESS! Guess by all means, using the remaining answers. Eliminating one answer will boost your odds a great deal, and you'll get a few extra points overall. There, no need to get a review book, now that I've divulged the major secret.

The score you wind up with will become your composite score. It is then taken, and converted to the Scaled Score. The Scaled Score can be between 100 and 800 per section; Verbal, Math, or SAT II section. Basically, your score is on a grade curve. You can't get a zero, so you essentially get 100 points for writing your name,

You'll find registering and sample tests over at collegeboard.com, the official SAT site.

I'd seriously reccomend studying for this test. You have better odds at winning the lottery than getting a perfect score on your first try. Luckily there are many ways about this. Study Books have previous tests and tips. Classes are availible at High Schools and test centers. Websites such as Kaplan.com, collegeboard.com, and princetonreview.com are all helpful.

There are two major players in the SAT study industry: Kaplan and the Princeton Review. Both make it very very simple to master key parts of the test. You can find either in book form, Prep courses, and web site. Both are easy to follow, have a sense of humor, and use similiar methods. Both offer higher scores or your money back. YMMV.

To get a feel for how it influences your college chances, see Median SAT scores for Colleges

In the UK England (many thanks gkAndy), short for Statutory Assessment Tests. A series of tests in English, Maths and Science taken at the end of each Key Stage (Department of Education and Skills jargon for the different levels of learning in schools). They are therefore taken in Year 2 (English only), Year 6 and Year 9.

The two earlier English tests are taken in the form of multiple-choice comprehension questions, whereas the Year 9 tests are more essay-based (similar to the GCSE tests taken in Year 11).

Although much is made of the tests from the pupils' perspective, they are utterly meaningless in any official context, and are used only to measure the progress of students - and of course the performance of their teachers as well. How anyone can still believe exams like this are an accurate way of measuring intelligence or aptitude for anything escapes me.

If you've applied to college recently, you've probably bitched about the SATs and noted that, frankly, they suck. You may have wondered why--after all your years of labor, AP courses, extra-curriculars, and the like--you are going to be judged in part or in whole on one number, one single number, that you earned in a few nasty, brutish, and short hours.

I thought I'd try to explain.

It's actually depressingly simple. Suppose you're the head of the admissions office. Your job is to select exceptional students, or, at the very least, to select candidates who won't burn out and fail out in a year or two. You've received, say, 15,000 applications for 1500 spots. There's no way you can read, judge, and rank 15,000 applications in the time you have available. You have to winnow it down to a smaller number of applications--to a number that you can actually read and evaluate.

The SAT is specifically marketed for this purpose. It's a test that's designed to predict success in college. It turns out that if you pick an applicant from the High-SAT group of students, you can be relatively sure that you've got a successful student. If you pick from the Low-SAT group of students, you can't be as sure. Now, remember your goal: you're trying to reduce your application pool to a smaller, more manageable size, and ideally you'll have as many successful students as possible in that pool. From which SAT group will you pick?

Yep. If you want to achieve your goal, you have to pick from the High-SAT pool. Then you can look at those people more closely to see if you can get rid of the other folks from the High-SAT pool who won't make it. (In practice, of course, you'd also probably look at the GPA or the AP scores of the Low-SAT batch to try to pick up one or two particularly good kids.)

That's it. That's all. It doesn't matter that the test covers juvenile math and uses boring reading-comprehension questions. It doesn't matter that the test doesn't give you any ability to express your true intelligence (whatever that is). It doesn't matter if nobody can figure out why it predicts success; it only matters that it does so predict, and, according to the evil monopolists at ETS, it does. Sure, it's nice that all (or most) students receive exactly the same test, but its predictive ability is most important. Heck, colleges would judge you on your nose size if that were a better predictor.

Sorry. Keep reading those Princeton Review books.

It has also got to be remembered that part of the reason colleges use the SAT is because it's one more piece of information they can use to choose between students. Often colleges receive thousands of applicants for just a few hundred, or few thousand, spots. Remember, not only are students vying for a limited number of spots in the class, they are also often trying to get scholarships.

I don't personally know how they choose who to admit and who to reject, but most of what I've heard and read is that standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT are a factor in their decision, but not the most important factor. They have to look at a variety of factors, including class rank and GPA, extracurricular activities, and essays. None of these alone would be a good indicator of how well any particular student will do in college, just as the SAT or ACT alone are not a perfect indicator. But when you consider all of these factors together, you begin to get an idea of what a particular student is like and whether or not they are what is right for a particular college.

College evaluators also tend to keep in mind that a poor SAT or ACT may only indicate that someone was not feeling at their best for three hours one saturday morning. A bad SAT does not necessarily reflect poorly on a student, but a good SAT does reflect well on a student. However, I for one am not entirely convinced that a good SAT indicates one will be successful in college.

I wouldn't be surprised if in some cases a good SAT score might actually cause one to succeed in college. For instance, say a student gets a good SAT score. After looking at all of the student's information, the college in question decides to grant the student a scholarship. Like many scholarships, this one requires the student to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA to keep the scholarship. Therefore, because the student happened to do particularly well one saturday morning, he now has much more motivation to succeed in college.

So is the SAT perfect? Probably not. However, the SAT helps give a college admissions board a little bit more information about a student, and they are seeking as much information as possible to help them decide which students to accept and which to reject.

Sat (?),

imp. of Sit.

[Written also sate.]

 

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