What is point of the SAT?

Question

I got a 1570/2400 on my SAT test in 2006 now I've just finished my freshman year in UC Riverside and 1 summer history class in Fullerton Community College I have a 3.3 GPA in college and nowhere out of all the classes I have taken so far, I've been taking 4 classes per quarter, have I seen anything that is even close to what is on the SAT. Whats the point of this test I understand that there should be some sort of test to enter college but isnt the SAT the wrong way to test people, it has nothing to do with what you will encounter in college.

Answer 1

It's pretty much an IQ test and it does correlate with success in college, though not as well as HS GPA does. The greatest correlation however is between SAT score and family income. Wealthy kids from highly educated families do best on the test.

The ACT is the test that measures what you've learned in classes. Kids who study hard but who are not as naturally smart do better on it.

Answer 2

Its not suppose to test your KNOWLEDGE, but rather your intuition and reasoning/problem solving. Though the problems you see on the test are not ones you will encounter in every day life or academia, they are a good assessment of intelligence rather than knowledge, to a certain extent.

In this way, colleges can have one standardized criteria for comparing people from completely different backgrounds or schools (because of grade inflation, etc, you need that standard).

If the test was on physics problems and chinese literature, then kids who study those specific topics would be at an advantage. Because it tests for general knowledge of math, writing and verbal, the only way to study is to simply gain awareness and general knowledge that you can acquire in any and all settings, although many kids try to short cut that approach by practicing the test itself and learning short cuts (not the intention of the exam).

Answer 3

I feel the same way about the SAT... always have, and always will. I too just finished my first year of college.

Apparently this test is supposed to be "fair." Testmakers try to make it as standard and general as possible, to not give any one student an advantage in the test material than the next. They don't want to be accused for being biased towards anyone, right.

But not all students can memorize and spit out the answer. Not all students think alike in what the more important "theme" is... after reading a passage.

There's a big difference between just memorizing something, and truly learning something.... and that is what sucks about the SAT, it doesn't acknowledge that. Everyone has to learn the same way, think the same way (their way) and it's kind of unfair, but I don't think we will see  any changes with that.