A lot about the SAT has changed since I took it (around 1996-97), but I can say that when I took it, there were indeed very many ways to "hack" the test. For example, even though geometry figures explicitly say "not to scale", they are in fact made to scale so that people couldn't use the argument that the scale of the figure "misled" them. Even without using a ruler, one can often rule out one or more answers by knowing that the figure is to scale. Also, in the reading comprehension parts, the correct answer to a question would never be one which was morbid or excessively sad. So, for example, if the story was about a person who was taken to a hospital after suddenly falling ill, and one of the questions was "what happened to the person at the end of the story", and one of the choices was "C) He died", that can be ruled out without even reading the text. That said, most of the SAT is basic enough that I would think that someone smart enough to apply all these tricks would have done OK anyway. They might be able to pick up 100 points (out of 800 at the time), which is significant but not greatly so. Sean On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 6:15 PM, Benjamin Grant wrote: > Firstly, SATs aren't much of a test for intelligence. Tons of people pay > lots of money for private tutoring and their scores go up drastically. It's > a flawed test for sure. Regardless, the fact that standardize testing fails > doesn't mean there aren't smarter people. Yes, also grade inflation here has > ruined GPAs pretty much too. My GPA in high school would have been higher in > high school if i took a study hall instead of computer programming(honors > classes were worth 4.5, so everyone's GPA is greater than a 4. So by taking > a class worth a 4.0 and getting an A, my GPA dropped). > > On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Herbert Graf wrote: > >> On Mon, 2009-04-13 at 13:08 -0700, Vitaliy wrote: >> > solarwind wrote: >> > >> "Smart" is a measure of how quickly and efficiently you can process >> > and >> > >> absorb this knowledge. >> > > >> > > And how do you envision measuring that? It's like comparing apples >> > to >> > > oranges. An orange is smarter than an apple. What does that even >> > mean? >> > >> > There are plenty of ways. IQ test is one. There is also SAT/ACT (I'm >> > sure >> > you have equivalents in Canada). >> >> FWIW, for those curious, we don't in Ontario. >> >> The only criteria for universities to choose students are their marks in >> their final year of high school. >> >> I personally dislike "standardized testing" and think the SAT is very >> unfair to certain elements of the population. That said, the way we do >> it is equally as bad since going to a "challenging" high school actually >> hurts your university chances. >> >> TTYL >> >> -- >> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive >> View/change your membership options at >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist >> > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist