Though some consider the SAT as one of the most significant tests in a student’s career, the test’s true motive of discovering how successful a student will be in college has become distorted through excess
By Chloe Berger
Though some consider the SAT as one of the most significant tests in a student’s career, the test’s true motive of discovering how successful a student will be in college has become distorted through excess studying and expensive tutoring.
The current SAT has become a measure of how much one studies, and has stopped holding its weight of a predictor of potential academic success. It’s intimidating to think that a 3-hour test could determine my worth as a student. An SAT score no longer measures student intellect, but rather a student’s test-taking and studying ability. According to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, more than 800 colleges and universities have started to disregard applicants’ SAT scores completely.
A major reason for ignoring SAT scores is its discrimination to lower socioeconomic classes. In a 2011 New York Times article, programmer Chang Young Chung and professor Thomas J. Espenshade made a study from the late 1990 national data, showing that 29 percent of the highest-class students scored above 1400 on the SAT, while only 14 percent of the lower-class did the same. Lower-class students have a disadvantage due to a lack of ability to invest in expensive tutoring and study supplies. When nullifying test results, colleges find that they receive a more economically and racially diverse campus. In an attempt to repair the SAT’s flaws, the College Board has decided to redesign its traditional test. The drastic changes will take place during the spring of 2016.
Instead of learning excess vocabulary just for the sake of the test, the students taking the new SAT will study vocabulary that they may actually use in college. Students don’t have to learn words like “saccharin,” but focus instead on ones like “synthesis.” They don’t have to just memorize words for the sake of a standardized test, for they will carry those useful tools to express themselves in college.
A main focus of the new SAT is changing its context in order to apply new information in coming years. While students that take the test before 2016 have to study an array of high school mathematics, the more fortunate new SAT takers will need to study for fewer but more useful sections.
Since I am a sophomore at PDS and will have to submit my applications to college before the new SATs will be launched, I will have to frantically spread myself across my gargantuan SAT book to be prepared. However, my younger brother, who will graduate in 2019, can instead focus on a strong foundation in certain subjects, which is more plausible.
The goal of the SAT is that students will demonstrate they are ready for college, so the revamped test will assess more realistic learning skills. For the new test, students are expected to have more of an analytical mind. They are required to construct their essay using logic to persuade the reader rather than make an argument based on a personal background or invented examples. The reading and writing section will focus more on examining data in real world situations. Readings will consist of known passages from history such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which is something that is not only more useful to my future, but also something with which I am familiar.
To deal with the racial and economic inequality that is prevalent in the current SAT, the new SAT proposes a program called Access to Opportunity. As stated on the College Board website, this program is meant to educate low-income students of college choices, application processes, and graduation rates. This addresses the uneven playing field of standardized tests and has a policy that the students enrolled will apply to at least four colleges that are best suited for them.
Until the spring of 2016, students will continue to spend their summer hours in school, desperately trying to cramp unused education into the corners of their minds. I will have to start committing multi-syllable words to mind and learn impractical and obscure problems that I may never use again. The younger and luckier students will have condensed study books that won’t kill a massive number of trees. They have to meet expectations that are more realistic to ask from a high schooler. It’s my hope that students will have a more accurate barometer of their abilities in this new SAT, and colleges will realize that students are more than the bubbles they fill in.
Chloe Berger is a sophomore at Princeton Day School.