An MCAT score of....

BU Medical Sciences
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darkjedi said:
If I had to venture a guess/strictly anecdotal evidence, the vast majority who had a 35+ would've probably scored 1500+/1600. I'm old so we were on the 1600 scale. There will obviously be outliers as there is limited correlation between the two tests.
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I think you perhaps overestimate the "consistency" of applicants throughout their academic careers. Or maybe you underestimate the difficulty of the SAT? Scoring above a 1500/1600 on the SAT seems much harder to me than scoring 35 on the MCAT. But I'm honestly not familiar with the SAT percentiles so I could be very wrong on that.
 
Narmerguy said:
I think you perhaps overestimate the "consistency" of applicants throughout their academic careers. Or maybe you underestimate the difficulty of the SAT? Scoring above a 1500/1600 on the SAT seems much harder to me than scoring 35 on the MCAT. But I'm honestly not familiar with the SAT percentiles so I could be very wrong on that.
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I feel as if they test different things. The SAT seemed (to me) very much a test of "how good are you at taking tests?"

The MCAT seems to have a certain baseline of knowledge which you need to score very well at all, then at certain level "how good are you at taking this test?" comes into play very strongly. After that it throws in some trivia to differentiate between the very tip top percentages.
 
mehc012 said:
I feel as if they test different things. The SAT seemed (to me) very much a test of "how good are you at taking tests?"

The MCAT seems to have a certain baseline of knowledge which you need to score very well at all, then at certain level "how good are you at taking this test?" comes into play very strongly. After that it throws in some trivia to differentiate between the very tip top percentages.
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I'd agree with you. I'll preface this by saying that I think both tests are crummy and are over-interpreted by admissions staff. However, even given that, the SAT has been heavily researched and shown to be only slightly better than useless in selecting good students for college. I fully believe this is related to it being a test that practically tests how good you are at thinking like a testmaker. People like you and I tend to be good at these tests, while others may struggle. It's disappointing sometimes to be the beneficiary of such arbitrary systems that propagate inequalities and all other kinds of mess.
 
10/12/14 V/B/P
36 Total MCAT

800 V 710 M
1510 SAT

Don't remember the writing, but I think the total score was around 2200.
 
There is no comparison for me because I didn't study for the SAT. I got a 1770.

On the MCAT, I studied for two months and I got a 32Q.
 
What in the...when I took the SAT the highest possible score was 1600. I got a 1300 without studying but I guess that doesn't look so good now.
 
SAT: 1770 (math: 550, writing: 550, verbal: 670, essays got a 3/6 each for 6/12)
ACT: 27 (reading: 30?, science: 30?, math: 25, don't even remember what the fourth section was)
MCAT: 39S (PS: 12, VR: 13, BS: 14)

I'm a bit of an odd case though. I pretty much slept my way through high school and took the SAT and ACT at a time when I didn't even know how to FOIL (actually I re-learned how to do that the night before I took the ACT, which was after I took the SAT). I did very minimal prep for the SAT and ACT. I had the princeton review books, but I only casually looked through them.

When I got to college I was obsessed about making up for my bad performance in high school, so this time I actually studied for classes and took things seriously. I took the MCAT last year which was a year after graduating (changed career plans) and after 6 months of review since I had forgotten most of everything. So in my case the SAT/ACT had zero predictive validity for my MCAT score, since I was a very different person when I took the MCAT compared to the person I was in high school.
 
Aerus said:
There most likely is SOME correlation between SAT scores and the MCAT, but it's probably not a huge correlation.

To say there is no correlation whatsoever is a much bigger claim than you would think.

No correlation means that a person with a 400/1600 or 600/2400 on the SAT is JUST AS LIKELY to get a 41 on the MCAT as a person with a 1600/1600 or a 2400/2400.

Can you see the difference between some correlation and no correlation now?
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If there's a correlation I'd say its those with good memory and study habits generally do well on both. 😀
 
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OCDOCDOCD said:
SAT: 1770 (math: 550, writing: 550, verbal: 670, essays got a 3/6 each for 6/12)
ACT: 27 (reading: 30?, science: 30?, math: 25, don't even remember what the fourth section was)
MCAT: 39S (PS: 12, VR: 13, BS: 14)

I'm a bit of an odd case though. I pretty much slept my way through high school and took the SAT and ACT at a time when I didn't even know how to FOIL (actually I re-learned how to do that the night before I took the ACT, which was after I took the SAT). I did very minimal prep for the SAT and ACT. I had the princeton review books, but I only casually looked through them.

When I got to college I was obsessed about making up for my bad performance in high school, so this time I actually studied for classes and took things seriously. I took the MCAT last year which was a year after graduating (changed career plans) and after 6 months of review since I had forgotten most of everything. So in my case the SAT/ACT had zero predictive validity for my MCAT score, since I was a very different person when I took the MCAT compared to the person I was in high school.
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I'd say this is the case for a very large # of people though. I did well on the SAT and the MCAT but I was still a very different person who took the MCAT. 4 years of college changes a lot, even if to others on the outside it doesn't appear that way.
 
Donald Juan said:
Just because you did something doesn't mean that "more often than not, almost everybody" does it. And I wouldn't count anybody out who doesn't study. This guy Zack Morris scored a 1500 on his SAT (back when it was out of 1600) and he was a complete slacker in high school who was more worried about picking up chicks than studying. I don't think he studied a day in his life for anything.
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Saved by the Bell?
 
YoungProdigy said:
Yea, it seems like it. Most people now study for it.

Just to clarify:

Getting a 2350 is like getting 2 questions wrong in Critical Reading (out of 67), 1-2 wrong in Math (out of 54), and 2 wrong in writing (out of 49). Do you still believe that it's possible to do that without studying?
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I'm with you...I took the SAT in 2005. Literally everyone that I knew, who had intentions of doing well, studied like crazy for it.
 
I still find it amazing people study for the ACT/SAT. I came from an extremely small public HS and no one dreamt of studying. Managed to pull of a 33 on the ACT cold, but who knows what may have happened it I studied 🙄
 
Bauman1535 said:
I still find it amazing people study for the ACT/SAT. I came from an extremely small public HS and no one dreamt of studying. Managed to pull of a 33 on the ACT cold, but who knows what may have happened it I studied 🙄
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You're lucky, at my school a 2050 meant you were as dumb as a brick.
 
Lol getting a 2350+ without any studying. You old timers seemed to have it easier.

Some of the most brilliant kids I know (now at HYP type schools), studied their ass off to achieve 2300+ scores.

I feel as though some people who are naturally very gifted can get very high scores on the current SAT; however to come near perfect, you NEED to study those tricks that the CB puts in those exams.
 
Lamel said:
Lol getting a 2350+ without any studying. You old timers seemed to have it easier.

Some of the most brilliant kids I know (now at HYP type schools), studied their ass off to achieve 2300+ scores.

I feel as though some people who are naturally very gifted can get very high scores on the current SAT; however to come near perfect, you NEED to study those tricks that the CB puts in those exams.
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Lol, maybe it is just the dumbing down of the American populus? 😀
 
OldGrandDad said:
Lol, maybe it is just the dumbing down of the American populus? 😀
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Or rather EVERYONE is studying for these tests now, so it's much harder to score higher with a certain amount of questions wrong.
 
95th percentile among the general high school population and 95th percentile among a group of individuals who passed the prereqs for medical school are two completely different measures.
 
I agree with what a lot of people have said in this thread (even though some of them may seem contradictory): the MCAT is more difficult than the SAT, some people can do well on one but not the other, good test takers tend to do well, and there is a correlation between the scores on the SAT and MCAT. I agree with these somewhat contradictory statements because I think all standardized tests have a two layers of complexity: syntax and reasoning. Whereas syntax is all about knowing the rules, reasoning is about applying the rules.

You have four types of test takers:
1. Solid reasoning, solid syntax-- your typical good test taker who will rock both tests
2. Solid reasoning, rocky syntax-- your typical smart slacker who can rock both, but doesn't know enough to do so
3. Rocky reasoning, solid syntax-- hardworkers who can rock both tests, despite not being a gifted test taker
4. Rocky reasoning, rocky syntax-- well, you can imagine

The SAT tests for general competency in basic math, grammar, vocab, and reading comprehension. Although these are subjects that all K-12 should cover, some schools simply don't. The people who rocked the SAT without studying for it probably had a strong educational background in these areas. After all, they have been exposed to these basic skills for 12 years. These can be 1 and 3. On the other hand, those who went to schools that didn't cover these skills absolutely have to study to do well on the SAT. These tend to be 2 and 4. However, if the type 2 studies hard, they can easily become type 1 and rock the MCAT.

The MCAT on the other hand is different because it's a reasoning test layered over a very particular knowledge base that people don't get general exposure to. Everyone has to put in the effort to learn the syntax and then apply the rules. Those who do well on the MCAT are almost exclusively type 1 and 3. That's why the MCAT is more difficult for some people who didn't have to study for the SAT. Does this mean that the MCAT is a harder reasoning test? I don't think so. I think someone who is equally proficient in the syntax for both the SAT and the MCAT will get the same percentile score (maybe slightly lower for the MCAT because it's a more competitive pool of test takers).

My own scores for those interested in looking at trends:

SAT- 2340 (99th percentile)
MCAT- 39R (99th percentile)

I definitely studied for both of them.
 
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ACT: 25 then 28 (71st and 91st percentile, respectively)
MCAT: 34 (93rd percentile)

It almost sounds similar.
 
Lamel said:
Lol getting a 2350+ without any studying. You old timers seemed to have it easier.

Some of the most brilliant kids I know (now at HYP type schools), studied their ass off to achieve 2300+ scores.

I feel as though some people who are naturally very gifted can get very high scores on the current SAT; however to come near perfect, you NEED to study those tricks that the CB puts in those exams.
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Old timer? 😕 I'm 22! 🙄

And no, it's not the curve...a 2360 was then and still is now, just one question wrong on the Math section, 1 point off the essay, and nothing else. The SAT is primarily a test about test-taking, though...which happens to be my forte. I don't know what CB 'tricks' you are referring to; they're the same as any other standardized test ever, and fairly predictable if it's the sort of thing you're good at.

Studying seems to be school-dependent...many of my friends were gunning for top 10 universities, and no one ever suggested studying for the SAT. Other schools seem to have had a different mantra. I don't know why that's so unbelievable.
 
Remind me again why we're wasting time trying to convince each other of the need to study (or not study) for a test none of us will have to take again in our lives?
 
I had an ACT of 25 and then 2 months later 30 (32 science and 33 reading), didn't study much, just did a few practice exams.

GRE 1310 700 math and 610 verbal , taken 2 years ago before the change. I only practiced for the math section, no comparison of the GRE to MCAT!

MCAT of 30 10/10/10 (practice exams were averaging 35, 30-39) 🙁 What I learned is MCAT requires a ton more studying than I realized, you can't compare to the GRE and other standardized tests. Critical thinking skills will only get you so far, content review is very important and that is where I should have put more effort. I studied 3 hrs most days the last 6 weeks, less before that time but over a long period.
 
darkjedi said:
If I had to venture a guess/strictly anecdotal evidence, the vast majority who had a 35+ would've probably scored 1500+/1600. I'm old so we were on the 1600 scale. There will obviously be outliers as there is limited correlation between the two tests.
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MCAT 37

SAT 1200 (on the 1600 scale)

As a disclaimer, my SAT wasn't very representative because I didn't study at all (completely forgot about the test until the day before). I got into the school I wanted with that score so I didn't bother to retake.
 
0kazak1 said:
You're lucky, at my school a 2050 meant you were as dumb as a brick.
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I got a 2090 on the SAT. Went to a public ivy anyway, graduated magna cum laude, got a 38 on the MCAT. You should probably chill out with judging people based on a test people took when they were 16.
 
darkjedi said:
If I had to venture a guess/strictly anecdotal evidence, the vast majority who had a 35+ would've probably scored 1500+/1600. I'm old so we were on the 1600 scale. There will obviously be outliers as there is limited correlation between the two tests.
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I should reemphasize the "There will obviously be outliers as there is limited correlation between the two tests.". It is also a very uneducated guess based purely on my own discussions with my friends and classmates about their scores. People mature drastically from HS to post college, it's no surprise people pull their acts together and blow the MCAT out of the water.
 
mehc012 said:
Old timer? 😕 I'm 22! 🙄

And no, it's not the curve...a 2360 was then and still is now, just one question wrong on the Math section, 1 point off the essay, and nothing else. The SAT is primarily a test about test-taking, though...which happens to be my forte. I don't know what CB 'tricks' you are referring to; they're the same as any other standardized test ever, and fairly predictable if it's the sort of thing you're good at.

Studying seems to be school-dependent...many of my friends were gunning for top 10 universities, and no one ever suggested studying for the SAT. Other schools seem to have had a different mantra. I don't know why that's so unbelievable.
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If you scored a 2360 without studying, then you either come from an affluent background, was educated very well growing up (good schools), or grew up with people who spoke very correct English or a combination of these factors.

Most people who study for the SAT do so because they probably don't have any of the above. Ability to think critically, like you said, does help, but it cannot overcome the weaknesses stated above without studying.

I would say that it's almost (if not is) impossible for a poor person from an immigrant family (one who is non English speaking or speaks very very colloquial English) who grew up in a poor neighborhood (and thus went to a poor school) to score a 2360 without studying.

The SAT is very biased against people who weren't exposed to proper English grammar and poor people.
 
The two really aren't comparable unless you're just asking about the percentile. MCAT just carries so much more weight. I scored 99th percentile on my SAT (2260) and colleges didn't really seem to care all that much. Scoring a 38+ on the MCAT is going to make your application stand out a lot.
 
Theres no comparing the two or even trying to assume.

I never studied for the SAT, is that indicative of my success on the MCAT?

Absolutely not.
 
Aerus said:
If you scored a 2360 without studying, then you either come from an affluent background, was educated very well growing up (good schools), or grew up with people who spoke very correct English or a combination of these factors.

Most people who study for the SAT do so because they probably don't have any of the above. Ability to think critically, like you said, does help, but it cannot overcome the weaknesses stated above without studying.

I would say that it's almost (if not is) impossible for a poor person from an immigrant family (one who is non English speaking or speaks very very colloquial English) who grew up in a poor neighborhood (and thus went to a poor school) to score a 2360 without studying.

The SAT is very biased against people who weren't exposed to proper English grammar and poor people.
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Nice try, but I started out in a trailer park and went to public school my whole life. That being said, education was very important to me and my family, and I loved to read. I was the 'multiple-books-per-day' kid whose most feared punishment was having their novels taken away.

Socioeconomic status is certainly a factor, but I personally believe that the culture and attitude associated with low-income communities is the biggest driving force for that. Resources are certainly available...if you are lucky enough to grow up in a family which recognizes the value and accessibility of education. Even when my mom was using food stamps to supplement her crappy salary (she was supporting 4 people on less than minimum wage), she kept looking forwards - and to her, that meant deciding which kind of education would be the most productive. Money was certainly a barrier, but it seems to me that the rest of my family faced a much bigger obstacle - their own expectations. When you aim to just scrape by, or believe that education is beyond your reach/ability, or if you simply don't recognize the value it can have (chosen wisely - it's still an investment), it won't be important to you.

So no, I wasn't the rich kid, or the kid from the best neighborhood, etc...but I loved learning, I loved thinking, and my mom always prioritized the quality of the school system when choosing a neighborhood. Those were advantages. I also had an advantage in that test-taking has always been a strength of mine, and comparing my scores to those of my classmates (who were affluent and from highly educated families), I would consider that skill to have had a greater influence than the rest put together.

None of this was ever the point. The point was simply that the SAT is primarily a test on test-taking, while the MCAT is an entirely different ballgame and requires content knowledge before those skills will start to come into play. Sure, the SAT requires some content knowledge such as algebra and english grammar, but the uber-competitive college applicants are generally comfortable with the language to begin with - and they're the ones we're discussing in terms of studying.

Also, I'm not certain I'd consider a test 'biased' for causing the people who lack the knowledge they're being tested on to score poorly. That's like considering the MCAT to be 'biased against people who don't know any chemistry'. :laugh:
 
One pretty big difference no one's spoken of is the fact that you lose points for guessing on the SAT. Otherwise intelligent kids could get an answer wrong that they thought was correct and lose more points than if they had left it blank. Just saying
 
ijustwantsun said:
I got a 2090 on the SAT. Went to a public ivy anyway, graduated magna cum laude, got a 38 on the MCAT. You should probably chill out with judging people based on a test people took when they were 16.
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Not to mention there are alot of good test takers who never even took the SAT or ACT, because they transferred from CC to 4-yr and rocked the MCAT.
 
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OldGrandDad said:
Googled this for you.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8466617
Not the highest impact factor, but it is likely that there is some predictive value.

That being said, I was an outlier. ~1750 SAT, 36 MCAT.
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Just read the abstract..the GPA:MCAT correlation is dubious since they didn't control for average courseload per semester, extracurricular time, if the MCAT was taken during the year or in the summer, etc.
 
mehc012 said:
Nice try, but I started out in a trailer park and went to public school my whole life. That being said, education was very important to me and my family, and I loved to read. I was the 'multiple-books-per-day' kid whose most feared punishment was having their novels taken away.

Socioeconomic status is certainly a factor, but I personally believe that the culture and attitude associated with low-income communities is the biggest driving force for that. Resources are certainly available...if you are lucky enough to grow up in a family which recognizes the value and accessibility of education. Even when my mom was using food stamps to supplement her crappy salary (she was supporting 4 people on less than minimum wage), she kept looking forwards - and to her, that meant deciding which kind of education would be the most productive. Money was certainly a barrier, but it seems to me that the rest of my family faced a much bigger obstacle - their own expectations. When you aim to just scrape by, or believe that education is beyond your reach/ability, or if you simply don't recognize the value it can have (chosen wisely - it's still an investment), it won't be important to you.

So no, I wasn't the rich kid, or the kid from the best neighborhood, etc...but I loved learning, I loved thinking, and my mom always prioritized the quality of the school system when choosing a neighborhood. Those were advantages. I also had an advantage in that test-taking has always been a strength of mine, and comparing my scores to those of my classmates (who were affluent and from highly educated families), I would consider that skill to have had a greater influence than the rest put together.

None of this was ever the point. The point was simply that the SAT is primarily a test on test-taking, while the MCAT is an entirely different ballgame and requires content knowledge before those skills will start to come into play. Sure, the SAT requires some content knowledge such as algebra and english grammar, but the uber-competitive college applicants are generally comfortable with the language to begin with - and they're the ones we're discussing in terms of studying.

Also, I'm not certain I'd consider a test 'biased' for causing the people who lack the knowledge they're being tested on to score poorly. That's like considering the MCAT to be 'biased against people who don't know any chemistry'. :laugh:
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I'm not trying to make the SAT "the point". What I'm trying to say is that it IS a content test. It, like the MCAT, does require studying if one does not have the resources to access the content, although to a lesser extent than the MCAT.

Having enough books to read accessible to you, in order to answer all the vocabulary questions and develop a sense of perfect grammar meant you at the very minimum lived close to a government funded public library with books to offer. Possibly, your parents also spoke proper English, which allowed you to develop an intrinsic sense of proper grammar. What about those who grow up in towns that lack even libraries? What if they come from a marginalized town which only colloquial English is spoken? What if their household did not speak English at all and they don't have the best foundation on the language?

The MCAT, I agree is definitely content AND critical thinking based, which means of COURSE you need to be good at chemistry. But to suggest that the SAT isn't a "study-able" test is incorrect. The SAT very much has content one must "know" in order to do well. If a person can do well without studying, they have been instilled with the content knowledge beforehand already.
 
Aerus said:
I'm not trying to make the SAT "the point". What I'm trying to say is that it IS a content test. It, like the MCAT, does require studying if one does not have the resources to access the content, although to a lesser extent than the MCAT.

Having enough books to read accessible to you, in order to answer all the vocabulary questions and develop a sense of perfect grammar meant you at the very minimum lived close to a government funded public library with books to offer. Possibly, your parents also spoke proper English, which allowed you to develop an intrinsic sense of proper grammar. What about those who grow up in towns that lack even libraries? What if they come from a marginalized town which only colloquial English is spoken? What if their household did not speak English at all and they don't have the best foundation on the language?

The MCAT, I agree is definitely content AND critical thinking based, which means of COURSE you need to be good at chemistry. But to suggest that the SAT isn't a "study-able" test is incorrect. The SAT very much has content one must "know" in order to do well. If a person can do well without studying, they have been instilled with the content knowledge beforehand already.
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At some point, this discussion has morphed from the SAT behavior expected from very competitive, college-bound high school students into the SAT experience of the least prepared and/or motivated applicants. That's fine, but I must confess that I didn't jump on that bridge very quickly. I would still contend that once you overcome the initial knowledge base (proper english, basic algebra), it very quickly becomes an evaluation of test-taking aptitude (as it was pretty much intended to be.) Several people in this thread have implied or stated that students (who have already mastered the content) must study in order to perform exceedingly well on the test. I am still not really sure what there is to be studied by applicants without extenuating circumstances such as the ones you pointed out. :shrug:

Sorry for engaging in the tangent about socioeconomic disadvantage, I just don't particularly like having it implied that I come from money and privilege and don't understand how difficult it can be starting from a different perspective; I have lived in pretty much every socioeconomic class from food stamps to upper middle class, attended a school which was overwhelmingly upper class, etc...this is the one area where I feel as if I do have at least a modicum of perspective and I didn't particularly feel like playing the "but SOMEone has it worse than you, stop being so privilege-centric!" game when it wasn't even really relevant.
 
I got 1800+ on the SAT, so I don't know what score I would get on the MCAT based on the correlation. A lot of my high school classmates got 2000+ on their SATs, mainly because they paid ~$2000 for SAT prep classes that just taught test-taking tricks (my high school attracted many people from the upper middle class because of the AP/IB/Tech programs). My parents wanted me to go to those prep classes, but they couldn't afford it, so I went to a cheap Asian tutoring center and I didn't learn anything useful.

I feel like the SAT just measures how well you can perform on tests, not your knowledge. I am much stronger in math and science, so I think that I might do better on the MCAT.

To add to the socioeconomic discussion, I think that it depends on the person, not the background, even though it plays an important factor. My parents and their siblings came to the US in their teens/early 20s with little to no English. Most of them went to colleges here, with the exception of my uncle and his wife. My uncle owns a business and my aunt is a homemaker who doesn't speak much English. Their eldest daughter has problems understanding the material that she is taught at school. She has trouble with basic algebra and English, but her parents could not afford a tutor for her. However, her younger sister is incredibly intelligent. She was also the top student (as in #1) in her high school freshman class last year, without any outside help.
 
YoungProdigy said:
It's impossible to score a 2350+ without any studying, and more often than not, almost everybody serious about studying and education in general, study for the SAT's.
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I personally know two good friends of mine from high school who both did not study at all for the ACT's and both received a 36 out of a possible 36 (scaled to a 2400 SAT). i'm pretty sure they were both serious about education in general, considering that they were both national champions in Latin and computer science competitions.
 
Took the SATs and got a 1730 (72% percentile). I didn't study much.

I studied a lot for the MCAT and got a 33 (92% percentile)


There is also a scientific study showing that relationship between SAT scores and success in undergrad had a correlation of 0.1

Vastly different when looking at the MCAT. The correlation between MCAT scores and passing the USMLE on the first try is like 0.7.

The SAT is a horrible gauge of determining applicants intelligence and ability to succeed in college. However the MCAT is pretty good. Not a perfect 0.9 or 0.99, but definitely WAY better than the SAT.
 
mehc012 said:
At some point, this discussion has morphed from the SAT behavior expected from very competitive, college-bound high school students into the SAT experience of the least prepared and/or motivated applicants. That's fine, but I must confess that I didn't jump on that bridge very quickly. I would still contend that once you overcome the initial knowledge base (proper english, basic algebra), it very quickly becomes an evaluation of test-taking aptitude (as it was pretty much intended to be.) Several people in this thread have implied or stated that students (who have already mastered the content) must study in order to perform exceedingly well on the test. I am still not really sure what there is to be studied by applicants without extenuating circumstances such as the ones you pointed out. :shrug:

Sorry for engaging in the tangent about socioeconomic disadvantage, I just don't particularly like having it implied that I come from money and privilege and don't understand how difficult it can be starting from a different perspective; I have lived in pretty much every socioeconomic class from food stamps to upper middle class, attended a school which was overwhelmingly upper class, etc...this is the one area where I feel as if I do have at least a modicum of perspective and I didn't particularly feel like playing the "but SOMEone has it worse than you, stop being so privilege-centric!" game when it wasn't even really relevant.
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But that's the point I was trying to argue: the SAT, once you master the content, becomes a pretty simple test. People who study haven't truly mastered the content yet, whether it was the vocabulary, the reading comprehension, the grammar, or the math.

My friend, for example, told me that she breezed through the Writing section simply by saying the sentence in her head and seeing if it "sounded right". Proper grammar had been so instilled in her since childhood that she did not need to know the name of any grammar rules or why something was correct or not.
 
Aerus said:
But that's the point I was trying to argue: the SAT, once you master the content, becomes a pretty simple test. People who study haven't truly mastered the content yet, whether it was the vocabulary, the reading comprehension, the grammar, or the math.

My friend, for example, told me that she breezed through the Writing section simply by saying the sentence in her head and seeing if it "sounded right". Proper grammar had been so instilled in her since childhood that she did not need to know the name of any grammar rules or why something was correct or not.
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So...we're agreeing? I honestly can't keep up with which direction your argument is coming from anymore.

I think I mostly agree, with the caveat that there is still a fair amount of variation among people with similarly favorable (proper grammar, good school, affluence) backgrounds, and that this variation seems to be due to an aptitude for standardized testing.
 
I got a 1690 on the SAT and a 35 on the MCAT. Didn't study for the former though.
 
mehc012 said:
So...we're agreeing? I honestly can't keep up with which direction your argument is coming from anymore.

I think I mostly agree, with the caveat that there is still a fair amount of variation among people with similarly favorable (proper grammar, good school, affluence) backgrounds, and that this variation seems to be due to an aptitude for standardized testing.
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We've always agreed in the sense that the SAT is easier than the MCAT.

What we're disagreeing (or at least I thought we were) was the notion that you cannot study for the SAT. The SAT IS a test people must study for because not everyone comes into the test automatically knowing all the content on it. It's unfairly content biased, as I said, against people who did not have the opportunity to learn this material thoroughly or did not have the opportunity to be even exposed to it.
 
Aerus said:
We've always agreed in the sense that the SAT is easier than the MCAT.

What we're disagreeing (or at least I thought we were) was the notion that you cannot study for the SAT. The SAT IS a test people must study for because not everyone comes into the test automatically knowing all the content on it. It's unfairly content biased, as I said, against people who did not have the opportunity to learn this material thoroughly or did not have the opportunity to be even exposed to it.
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Lol, no, I wasn't saying you couldn't study for the SAT...I was saying that you can score very highly without studying for it (assuming no overwhelming disadvantages). As a corollary, I really don't understand what's to be studied if you already have a firm understanding of basic grammar and algebra.

And I'm still objecting to the idea that it's unfairly content biased...yes, if you have a poor grasp of the knowledge and skills required for the exam, you are guaranteed to score poorly, but that's just what a test is meant to do. That's not bias, that's testing.
 
mehc012 said:
Lol, no, I wasn't saying you couldn't study for the SAT...I was saying that you can score very highly without studying for it (assuming no overwhelming disadvantages). As a corollary, I really don't understand what's to be studied if you already have a firm understanding of basic grammar and algebra.

And I'm still objecting to the idea that it's unfairly content biased...yes, if you have a poor grasp of the knowledge and skills required for the exam, you are guaranteed to score poorly, but that's just what a test is meant to do. That's not bias, that's testing.
Click to expand...

The SAT is supposed to be a test on critical thinking. Am I incorrect? Questions that require rote memorization of arbitrary vocabulary words and roots don't seem to test much on critical thinking. What if a person didn't grow up with a strong foundation on English grammar (grew up in a poor rural community), but nonetheless had a great capacity for critical thinking?
 
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