Talk:SAT/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Images without reliable source.

Back in the days when I used to think Wikipedia was scrupulous about sourcing (before I became a Wikipedian and read more talk pages and more article bibliographies more closely), I used to recommend to friends in a variety of online forums two images that show plots of SAT scores versus income for different "race" or ethnicity categories. One of those online forums had further discussion that prompted me to look for the underlying source for the images. There isn't any Wikipedia reliable source for the images that any editor has yet mentioned, so I have been deleting those images from the article recently. At length, a statement of a source is now included in the Wikimedia Commons data for the images, but that source is not at all a Wikipedia reliable source, failing several criteria identified by the Wikipedia content guideline. One very pertinent question about such an image is why it dates back to the early 1990s. By now there should be more recent data. The organization that gathers the raw data about all aspects of the SAT is the College Board, and no editor has yet pointed to any College Board publication, or any publication by independent researchers with access to College Board data, that replicates the findings shown in the unsourced images. So I've gone from being a believer to being a skeptic, and insist that the images be properly sourced by Wikipedia guidelines before returning to the article. (It would be better to update information on that point from a more recent reliable publication.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Data showing the general concepts.
.Gov site: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind93/chap1/doc/1c8b93.htm
SAT giver: http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2009.pdf
Travürsa (talk) 07:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
I am very familiar with the annual College Board reports--which is precisely why I began to doubt the provenance of the Wikipedia unsourced images after a while. The government report from the early 1990s is interesting, but it also doesn't serve as a source for the images, and it is rather dated information in several respects, as the official statistics in the United States (with which I am also very familiar) don't currently use the reporting format shown in the unsourced images. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:05, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2007/national-report.pdf
Using scores by ethnicity in comparison to family income and perential education, I have crated the following image http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7062/satd.png
These charts display data which is quite close to both http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Education2.png and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Income2.png
Therefore, I conclude the data from http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com//testing.htm is accurate within natural changes. Logically, the data has support, but I can not find a true Wiki Certified (tm) source.
Travürsa (talk) 01:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Please explain precisely how you related median scores to income by ethnicity when the data report you cite doesn't display income groups by ethnicity. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
All I did was multiply the mean score of each ethnic group by the mean scores at the given levels. I just wanted to display that there are striking similarities between the data from http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com//testing.htm and modern data.
Travürsa (talk) 04:27, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
The answer to WBB's question about why the data in SAT-SES-race charts are so old is given by La Griffe du Lion in the article linked above: ''Regrettably, the College Board no longer discloses these data. In 1996, they stopped publishing performance by income and parental education disaggregated by race and ethnicity."--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:10, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

1973 Average Math Score

Is it really 400? Or is it 500? Metsfan1001 (talk) 02:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

SAT International

As what I have seen, this page mainly introduces information for people who live in USA. According to Wikipedia:BIAS, it should be changed. As a Chinese, I need more information of SAT in PRC. So, If someone has connected knowledge, please add the knowledges to this page. --AppleJoyNeop (talk) 11:16, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Raw scores, scaled scores, and percentiles

The table in this section is not very satisfactory, as it stands. http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SATPercentileRanksCompositeCR_M_W.pdf is cited for the table, but that only has data for the combined M+V+W SAT (out of 2400). I consider some of the numbers in the "1600 scale" column suspect... for instance, I'm almost certain it can't be true that >= 1420 is 97th percentile while >= 1380 is 88th percentile. In the 2400 column, it takes a difference of 200 points to get this difference in percentiles, and in the 1600 column just 40 points? The 1600 column would be informative if it were true... but without some source I suggest it be removed.

Another issue that I have is, which percentiles/scores are included in the table have not been chosen systematically. I especially suggest removing the >= 1770 row, perhaps inserting rows for >= 2000, >= 1300, >= 1100, and perhaps inserting rows for the lowest percentiles (just as rows for the highest percentiles are there). Kier07 (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I went ahead and made these changes. I also removed the percentile 1 row, because I think it is confusing. In normal usage, this would mean you've outperformed less than 1% of test takers (the corresponding scores would be 400 and 600). In this case, it presumably means you've outperformed between .5% and 1% of test takers. Kier07 (talk) 15:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

link 29 is no longer active. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.133.107 (talk) 07:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Who can do an SAT test?

Hi. Do you need a high school diploma (or GED) to be able to do an SAT test? Example: Imagine you're living in Germany and have got your Mittlere Reife. To study in Germany you would need to do another three years of Gymnasium to receive the Abitur which allows you to go to a university. Would you then - without a high school diploma, GED or German Abitur - be able to do a SAT test and go to a university in the USA?

I know that if an American goes to Germany his or her high school diploma is seen by the insitutions as equal to Mittlere Reife. So an American would not be able to study in Germany. I don't know whether he or she would be able to study in Germany with SAT scores.

(Please excuse any linguistic mistakes I did, I'm not a native speaker ;-)) 19:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry it took so long for someone to respond to your question. Being from America, all I know is that student here take the SAT before graduating high school. I found this website, which may or may not help you. timrem 03:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Long-delayed answer, I know, but maybe it will help someone else... You don't need a high school diploma or any other credential to take the SAT. All you need to do is pay, fill out the registration forms, and be able to identify yourself on the test day. That said, let's address the other premise of the question -- that taking the SAT (or achieving some score on it) will enable the taker to go to a university in the USA. That's not how the system in the USA works. Each college and university (and those words mean different things in the USA than they do in many other countries) sets its own admissions standards, but none of them admit students based solely on test results. Virtually all require a high school diploma or the equivalent. However, you can get a GED, regarded as the equivalent of a high school diploma, by taking an exam. So while it is possible to "test your way in" to an American university, you should not expect to be admitted based on the fact that you took the SAT, or achieved any particular score on it. You need other credentials too.
To address the specifics of the question, the German students I've known at US universities all had an Abitur and had taken the SAT and done well. None of them tried to get in with a Mittlere Reife and the SAT.
As others noted, American students generally take the SAT in their 3rd year of high school, especially if they're planning to continue directly on to college after high school. However, some students take it before (to practice, to be recognized as especially smart, or because they are applying to go to college early) and many others take it later in life (because of changes in plans, or because they think their scores will improve, or other reasons). There is no limit to the number of times you can take the exam. Note that this is different from the PSAT, which is used for granting scholarships and which you can only take once. Darkstar8799 (talk) 12:26, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Creativity and stress

I think the section on "stress" is seriously defective. It cites no sources, relays vacuous feel-goodisms, and the final sentence is poor English.

Stress

The SAT exams have been regarded as a prominent cause for stress among aspiring students. [says who?] Many students [who?] feel that creativity will drive the future [vacuous], and that SATs do not measure creativity. [Perhaps many 17-year-olds who do poorly on the SATs think that although they are ill-educated, they are "creative". So what?] SATs are regarded [by whom?] to not measure the full capabilities of certain individuals as well. [Whoever wrote this sentence would not do well on the English SAT.]Doug1943 04:54, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

"IQ correlation" section

Remember, people, IQ is a useless assessment of anything and is only thought of seriously by people who 1) don't know how it's so easily manipulated by environment, 2) people who score highly on IQ tests and 3) raving racists trying to justify their master braces narrative.

We should either mention this all ("SES's effect on IQ, Climate's effect on IQs, Religiosity's effect on IQ, the mere retaking of an IQ test's effect on IQ, etc. etc.") in rapid succession or just do away with this useless section.--66.233.55.145 (talk) 00:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps IQ is overblown as a way to measure success in later life, but there is much research showing correlations between IQ and things like, well, SAT scores. If you can show references showing that IQ and SAT scores are totally unrelated, perhaps we might add that view? And that IQ is related to other measures (like you suggest) such as socio-economic status is probably true, but that does not necesssarily invalidate a correlation between IQ and SAT scores. And the addition of other variables, it would probably be out of place here in this article, which is about the SAT.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

First user is not very serious. If there is a correlation between IQ and SAT then obviously IQ isn't an "useless assessment of anything". That said, I disagree with the wording used in this chapter of the article. I think an r-value below 0.9 shouldn't be referred to as high(ly). It's a significant correlation. But only r-values above 0.9 is considered high/strong in statistics. Correct me if I am wrong. 90.130.58.73 (talk) 03:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Intelligence citations bibliography for updating this and other articles

I see a lot of questions on this article talk page about the SAT test. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:15, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

There is way too much use of primary, unreplicated sources so far in this article. Editing the article according to the Wikipedia reliable source guidelines will help bring about further improvements in the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:35, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. This is particularly frustrating for the topics in this article that have been extensively studied and well documented. It's poor practice and sloppy to try to use blog posts and self-published materials produced by companies when there is ample material from peer-reviewed, scholarly sources. ElKevbo (talk) 03:44, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Grid-in image

The image shown for "grid-in" answers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAT_Grid-in_mathematics_question.png is incorrect and misleading (but still better than nothing!) On the SAT, the answer still must be bubbled-in, and there is room for only FOUR characters (digits or characters) at the top of each separate column. Tripodics (talk) 01:32, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

References no longer have good links

Please could somebody help improve and update the following references (or the URL's within them, they no longer work): 28. "2010 SAT Trends". The College Board. 2010. and 38. "Chapter 12: Improving Paragraphs". The Official SAT Study Guide (Second ed.). The College Board. 2009. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-87447-852-5

the first (28) I cannot find because the URL doesn't work, nor can I find the other (38) anywhere.

Any help would be appreciated, I need these references for an article and I can't trace how the original wiki-editor found them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.234.69.57 (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Searching the College Board website for the SAT national report will find some of those links; others were copyright violations and should never have been posted here in the first place. Almost any local public high school counseling office will have the printed materials about the SAT at hand. For more background, see the Intelligence Citations bibliography here on Wikipedia. Good luck with your article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Name of the test and article title

Recently (since Google last cached them) most of the references to "SAT Reasoning Test" on collegeboard.org seem to have been changed simply to "SAT Test". Should this be reflected in the article and/or the title of the article? -- Erjwiki (talk) 15:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually, most of the College Board pages just call it "SAT." I will be bold and do an article rename based on the latest authoritative source, as soon as I have checked what that will do to redirect pages. Thanks for your attention to detail. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:45, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
I requested a page move to the best new name for the article (which is now a redirect) as a noncontroversial technical move. Thanks for catching this issue. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
As all of you can see, the article name has been changed to the new name of the test. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:27, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

RM

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Armbrust The Homunculus 13:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

SAT (test) → SAT – Currently, SAT redirects here. But we usually have primary topic articles at the base name, not at a parenthetically disambiguated name. I have been unsuccessful at figuring out what happened its history. The reeeeally important U.S. test is most likely the primary topic (see Google Books and Google News (not case-sensitive)), but if not, the article still needs to move. There are other (far less important) tests abbreviated as SAT(s), which means the parenthetical disambiguator here is not going to fly (see WP:PDAB). I'd recommend a seemingly policy-okay move to The SAT, but again, only if we consensusize that this is not the primary topic. I think it is, though. To sum up: when reliable sources use SAT, they usually mean this test. So we should move it to SAT. Red Slash 21:58, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

  • Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and User:Born2cycle/UNDAB. --В²C ☎ 19:30, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Question What other tests do you have in mind? What do the sources say about the full names and abbreviated names of each of those? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:38, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Most of the tests listed at Category:Standardized tests in the United States have "test" or the like in their name, and most of the ones that are acronyms or initialisms, seem to have included "(test)". Rwessel (talk) 22:52, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
    • WeijiBaikeBianji, Rwessel, there are two points I'd like to respectfully address. The first is that it is Wikipedia practice that when we have an article about X, we never put it at X (type) and then redirect X to it. (Goose (bird) is a redirect to Goose, not the other way around.) This article does not follow that convention and that has to change in some way.
    • Second, there are other tests called the SAT, though they are relatively unimportant. The Stanford Achievement Test Series is commonly referred to as the SAT or SATs, meaning that there is more than one SAT (test) out there. Generally, consensus has shown this to be a bad thing (see Titanic (film) - note that that link does not take you to the big important movie involving Leo, but straight back to the disambiguation page, because even though one of them is way more important, we still can't put a parenthetical disambiguation device and have it be ambiguous). In other words, since there are multiple tests abbreviatable to SAT, we can't leave this article here. See also WP:PDAB. I hope this helps explain it! Red Slash 02:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as the most common usage of "SAT" worldwide is to refer to this article's topic. Other uses can be covered through disambiguation, etc, as per routine. -- Scray (talk) 03:00, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. The redirect indicates that this is the primary topic of the term, so the term should be at the shorter title per WP:CONCISE. bd2412 T 15:23, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as proposer of preceding move per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC after reviewing sources and other preexisting articles and redirects. The College Board has not made this issue easy by changing the name of the SAT more than once since Wikipedia was founded, but now that there is a new official name, I agree that the name of this article should be simply SAT. I appreciate the other editors who have joined the discussion to point to the Wikipedia policy statement on disambiguation pages versus article names. I just went to fix the article about the Stanford Achievement Test (which still needs a lot more work) to further clarify the correct terminology per the sources. I support the move of this article to the test's official name as the primary topic of the three-capital-letter designation "SAT" in worldwide English. Thanks for your attention to detail. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:38, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per primary topic. Calidum Talk To Me 01:01, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

ETS

I think the first few lines are misleading or at best confusing. My understanding is the College Board now owns the test and therefore helps shape it, but ETS still writes the tests as well as administering it. That's what they do---develop "fair" standardized tests. The college board never "took over" the test from ETS. The universities who were members of the College Board (and others followed the example) began adopting the SAT as an admission test before ETS came into being. If anything, ETS took the test over from the College Board after it was created. http://www.ets.org/about/who/ http://about.collegeboard.org/history I'm writing an informational college paper over the test, BTW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antigone75 (talk • contribs) 22:11, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Antigone75 is correct. The SAT has always been owned by the College Board; ownership was never transferred to ETS. The ETS was formed in 1947, 21 years after the SAT was first administered, to handle the ever-increasing volume of standardized tests including the SAT. According to ets.org, "ETS develops and administers the SAT®, the Advanced Placement Program® Exams and other programs on behalf of the College Board. The College Board sponsors these testing programs and decides how they will be constructed, administered and used." So the second paragraph has incorrect information and is inconsistent with the entry for ETS. Erjwiki (talk) 02:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Along these lines of the above, unless there are objections, I'd like to change the second paragraph to read: "The SAT is owned and published by the College Board, a private, nonprofit organization in the United States. It is developed and administered on behalf of the College Board by the Educational Testing Service. (Reference will be: "Frequently Asked Questions About ETS". ETS. Retrieved 2014-06-06.) The test is intended to assess a student's readiness for college." Note that the reference given in the current version of this paragraph is no longer relevant. Erjwiki (talk) 16:04, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Section on "1980 test and associated changes"

This paragraph (about the "strivers" project) has no sources and I can't seem to verify any of it. Some quick research shows that there was in fact a "strivers" program, which the Wall Street Journal reported on August 31, 1999, several years after this paragraph suggests. The origins of the program seem to date to the early 1990s. For example, see: here, here, and here. Should this paragraph be deleted? Erjwiki (talk) 21:05, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The text in the section above was added more than 6 years ago, so a "citation needed" at this point doesn't seem useful. Unless there are objections, I'm going to delete this subsection within the next few days.Erjwiki (talk) 17:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

How crucial is test prep to this article? What do reliable sources say?

I see a lot of advertising claims about the effectiveness of test prep in the article that are not backed up by reliable sources. Let's discuss this. Who has scholarly sources to suggest on this topic? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 03:10, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

"Not backed up by reliable sources"? Reliable sources are not, nor have they ever been limited to scholarly articles. Rather than call these people liars, a neutral point of view must be preserved on the page by presenting the various different viewpoints. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BIASED#Biased_or_opinionated_sources --TDJankins (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
While a Preparation section is useful in general, the recent additions of specific test prep claims (in this article, and in others like GMAT ) is problematic to me. First, I don't know of any third-party reliable sources that have examined specific test prep claims, and thus mentioning specific claims from companies seems more like advertising than fact. Second, including these specific claims seems like a slippery slope where sooner or later every testing company has a basis for inclusion if they publish a score increase claim. Given that it can be extremely difficult to determine what's legitimate, the better approach seems to be having a broad overview of the study options (course, tutor, etc) instead of a rundown of specific companies or claims. Transmissionelement (talk) 16:23, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
In regards to whether a citation is being used to evidence test prep effectiveness or being used for advertising, all one need do to discern that is read the passage in question. You "don't know of any third-party reliable sources that have examined specific test prep claims." Do you know of any third parties that have examined all of the claims made by the test owning company? Should we have to have every single claim made by the test owning company examined by third party sources in order for them to be included on the page? Again, I don't think it's appropriate to call any of these people liars. The appropriate thing to do is to represent each of the major varying viewpoints in order to preserve the page's neutral point of view.--TDJankins (talk) 19:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
This is a topic I have read much about. Actually, there is considerably research evidence on the (lack of) test-prep effectiveness, and I know research psychologists who conduct some of that research and summarize the overall research in authoritative textbooks and practitioner handbooks for psychologists and college admission officers. So the claims about test prep in the article caught my eye, because by the Wikipedia verifiability policy, any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources, and by the content guidelines on reliable sources claims by people about themselves come into Wikipedia only if the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim. Without a doubt, the overall industry of test preparation is a topic that fits the main topic of this article. And without a doubt, some statements about test-prep-as-such belong in the article as long as the statements can be sourced to reliable sources. We are still in discussion here about what due weight is on the topic of test prep when the overall article is about the SAT test, and where to look for reliable sources the phenomenon of test prep. I suggest checking the user bibliograpy I've just been updating today for some helpful sources on several topics related to this article. Thanks for joining the discussion. (P.S. Please don't refer to editing that examines a source by reading the source and then updates article text to fit what the source says and what Wikipedia policy requires "destructive editing." That's just the kind of editing that happens to any professionally edited reference book, and it violates the editor conduct guideline assume good faith to call "destructive" what another editor might reasonably deem, on the basis of reliable sources, to be constructive editing. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:17, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

As it appears that my recent addition of the CNN article is what stirred up the repeated destructive editing, I will revert the page to the version prior to that in order for the page to maintain a neutral point of view.--TDJankins (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if test prep is exactly crucial to the article, but the effectiveness of coaching for standardized tests is certainly inextricable from the history of the SAT, from the College Board's "Effects of Coaching on Scholastic Aptitude Test Scores" (1965) to the FTC and Kaplan (1978), to today's test prep claims. I'd like to see more third-party viewpoints (not from the ETS, College Board, or test prep companies) in either this section or in the history section. Some good sources for this (to name two on somewhat different "sides") are "None of the Above", Chapter 6, David Owen, 1999, and "SAT Coaching, Bias and Causal Inference", Briggs, 2002. (The latter, a dissertation, is particularly useful for a compilation of references and studies, and can be easily found on the Internet.) Erjwiki (talk) 21:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

If you don't mind me responding to comments directed at me above, let's not make a straw man here. I never stated or "call[ed] any of these people liars." And, if an opinion were to be included, I think it helps if it comes either from a reliable source, or at least a company deemed notable. All that aside, while studies have been done about general test prep effectiveness overall, in my comment I was referring to the recent examination of specific claims by a specific company (as in, "company X increases scores by Y points") as that is what was added to this article (and others) originally. I still maintain that general commentary on test preparation is relevant to this article, but should only be a minor section. That is consistent with multiple viewpoints as well as neutrality. Cheers! Transmissionelement (talk) 03:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Transmissionelement. I'm not saying that you called anyone a liar, I'm saying it's not our place to speculate. And it doesn't matter anyways; when the context is "test prep companies have boasted higher results," a boast directly from a test prep company is a very reliable source.--TDJankins (talk) 19:27, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

TDJankins's edits and Victor Chmara's edits

TDJankins insists on adding to the lede the opinions of some some unknown SAT tutor as if this person, Edward Carroll, were a recognized expert on the psychometric properties of the test. The basis of his supposed expertness is that he has taken the SAT multiple times, a fact which is reported in a blog post.

Secondly, TDJankins insists on adding to the "Correlations with IQ" section claims that are either unsourced original interpretations or irrelevant.

To stop edit warring, I request TDJankins to answer the following questions and justify his edits on the basis of Wikipedia's policies:

1) There is a large peer-reviewed literature on what the SAT measures (see links in the previous section), so we would expect any expert on the test to have published such peer-reviewed research. What has Carroll published? Are his ideas mainstream or marginal in the field? What secondary sources establish that his views are so important that they should be covered in the lead section?

2) You refer to Carroll as "some experts". Can you demonstrate, using reliable sources, that Carroll is in fact several people, each of them an expert on the SAT?

3) In the "Correlations with IQ" section, why do you think it's relevant to report the g factor loadings of the various indicator tests?

4) Based on what sources do you think that .483 is "a low-end moderate correlation"? According to Cohen's widely accepted guideline, a correlation of 0.3 is moderate while 0.5 is large, so .483 is not "low-end moderate". What alternative effect size guideline are you using? In any case, the "low-end moderate" claim does not appear in the source, so it's original research and not allowed.

5) You restored the sentence about the authors not explaining how they corrected for range restriction. That's an interpretive claim and therefore original research. Correction for range restriction is a standard procedure explained in any psychometrics textbook, and the authors did not explain its details, just like they did not explain the details of the other normal statistical procedures they used.--Victor Chmara (talk) 00:00, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Victor. We don't need to hide the contexts of the Frey and Detterman paper. Doing so is irresponsible. Stats are meaningless without their context. Let me remind you that this bit of trivia does not even need to be on the SAT page at all, especially given that many feel psychometrics is pseudo-science and pathological science (the process by which "people are tricked into false results by subjective effects, wishful thinking, or threshold interactions"). I personally want it to stay on the page because I think it's an interesting perspective. Anyways, I'll humor your questions.

1) There is a large peer-reviewed literature on what the SAT measures (see links in the previous section), so we would expect any expert on the test to have published such peer-reviewed research. What has Carroll published? Are his ideas mainstream or marginal in the field? What secondary sources establish that his views are so important that they should be covered in the lead section?

With all due respect, what planet are you from where you think only academics are experts? And again, many don't believe psychometrics is even a legitimate science, so we probably shouldn't regard them as experts on a college admissions test. Further, I don't believe any of that literature states the SAT measures raw math or verbal abilities.

2) You refer to Carroll as "some experts". Can you demonstrate, using reliable sources, that Carroll is in fact several people, each of them an expert on the SAT?

You may have missed it, but I changed it to "Some of the SAT experts," since you appear to actually believe that there aren't any like minded experts.

3) In the "Correlations with IQ" section, why do you think it's relevant to report the g factor loadings of the various indicator tests?

Context. The SAT only had the sixth largest correlation or g loading. Why in the world would you try to hide this?

4) Based on what sources do you think that .483 is "a low-end moderate correlation"? According to Cohen's widely accepted guideline, a correlation of 0.3 is moderate while 0.5 is large, so .483 is not "low-end moderate". What alternative effect size guideline are you using? In any case, the "low-end moderate" claim does not appear in the source, so it's original research and not allowed.

The .4-.7 range is typically considered a moderate correlation. A low-end moderate correlation is a low-end moderate correlation; there's no original research there. Cohen's is the alternative guideline. It's from 1988 and the only people you ever see use it are psychometricians. It is wishful thinking and without basis. Regardless, you're right, it doesn't need to be characterized at all.

5) You restored the sentence about the authors not explaining how they corrected for range restriction. That's an interpretive claim and therefore original research. Correction for range restriction is a standard procedure explained in any psychometrics textbook, and the authors did not explain its details, just like they did not explain the details of the other normal statistical procedures they used.

"Correction" for range restriction is far from standard procedure and there are multiple ways of attempting to do it. For instance, the UC validity study made an explicit point of not using any "correction" for range restriction methods as they noted that methods of attempting to "correct" for range restriction have to depend on assumptions which cannot be directly verified such as assuming that the relationship between test scores is linear and identical across all observed and unobserved data ranges (see pg. 4 of UC and the SAT). Attempting to "correct" for range restriction always begs the question of how such a wondrous feet was accomplished. Presenting "correction for range restriction" as an ironclad thing is irresponsible. It appears that its wide use in psychometrics may be further evidence of pathological science. I personally think psychometrics has some redeeming qualities and some basis in science. However, too many liberties are taken throughout, such as here with "correction" for range restriction. If we're going to report such a thing on a Wikipedia article, it shouldn't be done in such a misleading way.

Finally, the bottom line is that all of this content is credibly sourced from the Washington Post article or the Frey and Detterman paper itself and you have no excuse to try to hide it or delete other editor's credibly sourced contributions from this page. As such, I will restore most of what was removed from the page.--TDJankins (talk) 06:03, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

There are people who think psychometrics is a pseudoscience, just like there are people who think that medicine is a pseudoscience, or that climatology is one, but there's no need to pay attention to such fringe views in Wikipedia, except perhaps in articles dedicated to such ideas. What the scientific view on cognitive testing is is easy to find in reliable sources. The idea that an article on the SAT, which is one of the best-known psychometric instruments, should eschew discussing psychometrics is amusing. Also, remember that your personal opinions on psychometrics are completely irrelevant here.
If you think Carroll's is a widely held view among experts, you should have no problem in providing reliable secondary sources to that effect. Proper published research is needed to establish anything about the SAT's properties because nobody can infer what it measures based on just their personal experience taking the test. "Some of the SAT experts" still implies several people, and you have not given any policy-based reasons why this one "expert's" opinion should be given a prominent place in the article (see WP:UNDUE). The reference to "raw math or verbal abilities" makes no sense, because there is no indication what a nebulous concept like "raw ability" would mean.
As to the g loading thing, no one's claiming that the SAT has a lower or higher g loading than some other test, so what is actually being hidden here? Secondly, Frey and Detterman do not report the g loading of the SAT. They report a correlation between g factor scores and SAT scores, and such a correlation is necessarily lower than a corresponding factor loading (unless the test battery is very large). Comparing factor loadings and factor score correlations is comparing apples and oranges.
It's good that we agree that there's no need to verbally describe the size of a correlation, but I'd love to see what your source is for the claim that .4-.7 is "typically considered a moderate correlation". Cohen was not a psychometrician, and his guideline is widely used across disciplines.
Not correcting for range restriction leads to an underestimation of the effect size. Not recognizing this reveals a basic ignorance of statistics. There are assumptions that go into such corrections, just like in the use of any statistical procedure. The uncertainties associated with such a procedure can be indicated by referring to the corrected correlation as an estimate, but the article cannot criticize Frey and Detterman for failing to do something unless there's a reliable source that states that (see WP:OR).
You have not attempted to justify your edits using Wikipedia's policies. Your personal opinions on what the truth of the matter is are of no consequence.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:44, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

CHANGES IN 2015 SAT

Starting in 2015 more foreigners will take the SAT than americans.The new exam will look for correct english..competition is tough as foreigners know english grammar better than natives as foreigners have studied the books while natives learn english in the streets.Another new part will be combining math and english-Word problems where the answer is not just a number but HOW you did it.Youll need to write clearly about the steps you took to get that answer..Im on a team that CREATES the SAT and grades it afterwards.The top universites will offer more scholarships in 2015.Cant talk about math or history or geography only english grammar my speciality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.43.122.132 (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Answer Sheet blog

I see that some article content has been cited to the Answer Sheet column in the Washington Post, described on its own website as "The Post's new education blog."[1] That blog has been caught in spin and incomplete documentation of its factual statements by other bloggers before,[2] so I have been aware for a while, as a regular reader of that blog, that I have to fact-check anything it says very carefully. Statements by one person, an employee of a test-prep company, have been cited in the article as statements by "some experts" on the SAT, but those statements are contrary to the great bulk of better sources by more informed scholars about the SAT. It would be worthwhile here to discuss reliable sources and due weight for an article about a topic that is the subject of considerable scholarly study (and also the subject of much commercial interest) to ensure that this article upholds Wikipedia policies. I think we can do a lot better than the Answer Sheet blog for sourcing this article. What sources do other participants in the editing of this article suggest? I have a source list in user space here on Wikipedia that includes quite a few scholarly and popular sources that discuss the SAT test.

References

  1. ^ Valerie Strauss (September 14, 2009). "The Answer Sheet: What Does the SAT Test?". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  2. ^ "The Innumeracy of Educators, or Mark Twain Was Right".

Thanks to the editor who suggested discussing this issue on the article talk page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 14:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Now this is fascinating. Here we have two Wikipedians (WeijiBaikeBianji and Victor Chmara) who are essentially saying "no, no, no, someone who takes the test for a living is not an expert, I'm the expert." Next WeijiBaikeBianji's discourse went to "Washington Post? Never heard of it." Finally, he launches a completely nonsensical attack on the Washington Post based on nothing. These Wikipedians need to leave their bias at the door.--TDJankins (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
You are of course mischaracterizing my argument. Perhaps there should be some nationally standardized test of reading proficiency. Part of advanced reading proficiency is source evaluation and treating factual claims differently depending on how extraordinary they are. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Here is a nonexhaustive set of links to recently published scientific journal articles and education policy articles about SAT testing in college admission. There are many other publications on this topic--the selection factor here is a link that any Wikipedian can follow to check the article text directly. I'll gradually format these bare links into references to add to the article here. I should point out that I am intentionally omitting the many research articles that can be found at the College Board website's subsection on research, but I have provided a link to that subsection by an edit to this article's External links section. There are also quite a few printed books on this topic that I have been gathering quotations from for this article and other articles. Gradually this article can become referenced to better sources more appropriate for an encyclopedia article on a higher education topic.
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Enjoy your reading. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:44, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Since the source links above were posted in September 2014, I've found other sources about the SAT in book chapters and review articles, and I wonder if any of the several other editors who are active here have been reading any of the sources and can suggest good sources for an update and improvement of this article. I've been involved in the recent promotion of the English language article here on Wikipedia to good article status, and one helpful part of the process of article improvement for that article was looking up authoritative sources and having multiple editors looking at those sources as the article editing proceeded. This article here could be a lot better if it cited and used better sources. Who would like to join in on improving this article to good article status? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Taking the SAT many times does not make you an expert on its psychometric properties anymore than driving a car for many years makes you an auto engineer. There's a big academic literature on what the SAT measures, so citing the scatterbrained ideas of this random guy published in some blog as if it were legitimate expert opinion makes no sense in light of Wikipedia's content policies.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:53, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Have the sources relied on in the Chabris article in Slate been used to edit this article yet?

In an online community, I encountered today a discussion among researchers on standardized tests (among other topics) mentioning some useful guides to the literature on the SAT. One of those guides, an article by Hambrick and Chabris in Slate points to some good research sources. We should check the article we are working on here to see how well the article reflects those reliable sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

The article in Slate points to some good sources, and it would be helpful for further edits to this article here on Wikipedia to read the Slate article and check its sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Gender

What about transgenders - transgenders(unknown gender) , transgenders(now female) and transgenders(now male)  ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.109.65.175 (talk) 13:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Does anyone have a source about this issue? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:46, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
This must be a joke by the anonymous poster. What does assessment of scholastic achievement have to do with gender or transgenders? One either knows the material or one doesn't. — QuicksilverT @ 17:19, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Gathering sources for article improvements to B-class, high-importance article

I'll be reviewing the previous peer reviews of this article from years ago (linked to from this article talk page) and the (failed) featured article nomination for this article to get a sense of what improvements to the article were most desired by previous reviewers, based on possibly much earlier states of the article. I've enjoyed updating IQ classification and (with the help of other editors) English language to good article status, so I'm reasonably familiar with the current good article criteria. I would like to help this article reach good article status, and I hope other editors here will join in on checking sources, which is always one of the crucial steps in improving article quality. Better sources make better articles. Below I'll list a variety of sources that can serve as background reading while we find the best sources for new edits to article text and for guiding restructuring the article's organization and emphasis. Feel free to comment here with sources that you find particularly helpful that fit the Wikipedia reliable sources guideline.

  • Liu, Jinghua; Harris, Deborah J.; Schmidt, Amy (2006). "Chapter 33: Statistical Procedures Used in College Admissions Testing". In Rao, C. R.; Sinharay, S. (eds.). Handbook of Statistics. Vol. 26: Psychometrics. Elsevier. pp. 1057–1091. doi:10.1016/S0169-7161(06)26033-4. ISBN 978-0-444-52103-3. Retrieved 2 July 2015. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help) – via ScienceDirect (Subscription may be required or content may be available in libraries.)

at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]

National Test-Takers’ SAT Scores, 2009-2013]

I'll be adding some other sources during further updates to this talk page section. Feel free to add in others. Enjoy. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:12, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

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