Posted on 08/28/2007 9:53:35 AM PDT by Teacher317
Average SAT scores at lowest since 1999 By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer
The class of 2007 averaged the lowest math and reading SAT scores since 1999, the College Board reported Tuesday.
Last spring's high school seniors scored on average 502, out of a possible 800 points, on the critical reading section of the country's most popular college entrance exam, down from 503 for the class of 2006. Math scores fell three points from 518 to 515.
The declines follow a seven-point drop last year for the first class to take a lengthened and redesigned SAT, which included higher-level math questions and eliminated analogies. The College Board, which owns the exam, insisted the new exam wasn't harder and attributed last year's drop to fewer students taking it a second time. Students typically fare about 30 points better when they take the exam again.
The College Board's report Tuesday noted that a record number of students — just short of 1.5 million — took the test. The cohort of test-takers also was the most diverse ever, with minority students accounting for 39 percent: There has been a persistent gap between the scores of whites and the two largest U.S. minority groups, Hispanics and blacks.
In New York, 89 percent of students took the exam, up from 88 percent last year. Maine recently became the first state to use the SAT to meet its Grade 11 assessment requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and 100 percent of students took the exam there, compared to about three-quarters in the class of 2006.
"They have taken a very progressive stand in trying to get more and more students to go to college," College Board President Gaston Caperton said of Maine at a news conference Tuesday morning. "The larger the population you get to take an examination, it obviously knocks down the scores."
The number of black students taking the SAT rose 6 percent, and the number of test-takers calling themselves "Other Hispanic, Latino or Latin American" (a group that does not include Puerto Ricans or Mexican Americans) rose more than 25 percent.
Average scores also slipped from 497 to 494 on the writing portion of the SAT, which debuted with the class of 2006. Many colleges are waiting to see results from the first few years of data on the writing exam before determining how to use it.
Figures released earlier this month on the rival ACT exam showed a slight increase — from 21.1 last year to 21.2, on a scale of 1 to 36 — for the class of 2007.
The SAT has historically been more popular on the East and West coasts, while the ACT has been more popular in the Midwest and inland western states. But more and more students are taking both exams to try to improve their college resumes.
Has Miss Teen South Carolina taken any of these tests?
But didn’t they change the test? You can’t really compare if the test has significantly changed.
Wow, since 1999! That’s hugh and very series.
Please explain to me the disconnect between the SAT scoring/test of older times, i.e, the 60s and 70s, and the ones of today. - Apparently, there is one.
1100 board scores were pretty good results back then, and 1300 was damn near genius.
LOL! I almost spit my pretzels out.
Miss Teen South Carolina is a doooooooooooooope. I heard a recording of her speaking, and I said to myself, “How can somebody be so dull?”
Didn’t they double the score for the SAT? Top score is now 2600? Or did they do away with that?
Yes, you can compare; that’s what they do, make comparisons, and they have correlated for those changes.
Unfortunately, I *think* what they’ve done is to try to make it easier...
Frankly, I blame global warming.
Miss Teen South Carolina doesn’t need to take a test, she passes in my book.
Yet, Miss Teen scored above average on the new diversity SAT
It musts be Bush’s fault. /sarc
If the tests have changed they’re usually
skewed upward. This was done with the ACT exams.
It’s a different test, isn’t it? If it is, why would the scores be the same?
“Average” is for liberal demagogues.
The median tells a much more truthful story... which - oh look! The author completely left that out of the article.
Shocking.
I thought it was the ‘Electronics of 2007 Exam’.
Strange how results of the Asian minority are conspicuously left out of this article. Maybe they won’t fit the agenda.
OK, here’s a simple explanation for dropping average scores:
The “average score” is simply the average of all those taking the test.
If in years past only those who know for sure they’re going to a 4-year college take the test, you’d very likely have a considerably higher average score than if today, for example, almost everyone takes the test.
Looked at another way, if you have group that typically scores much lower, and now a greater percent of test-takers come from that group, what do you suppose this will do to the average score?
(No, that question is not on the SAT)
OOOPS! What happened to my brain? Vouchers and school choice have not been implemented... Uh, must be lack of funding to public education... We need to outlaw private schools and home-schooling now before any more children are harmed by learning reading writing and arithmetic.
That's my sarcasm and I'm stickin to it!
Too many illegal immigrants are taking the test.
You're right. The test was "recentered" I believe sometime in the mid to late nineties. Today's combined Math and reading (excluding the new writing section which most Universities have yet to include in their selections) are inflated about 100 points vs the test of the 60's and 70's. eg: today's 1300 is comparable to previous decade's 1200.
If I am not mistaken the changes had to do with adding writing skills to the test. Before they had a multiple choice assesment of writing on the PSAT but not on the SAT. Now I think they actually write an essay.
What REALLY burned my biscuits is that there is a WHOLE section that takes about 30-40 minutes to take that doesn't count! These are trial balloon type questions. What a waste of time for those kids. And no, they had no idea which was the test section so they had to give equal effort to all sections.
Good choice of sarcasm.
bump
How is it that Osama and Al Qaeda can find America on the map? So can the Iranians... Can't be lack of maps...except in South Africa and Iraq.
the number of test-takers calling themselves “Other Hispanic, Latino or Latin American” (a group that does not include Puerto Ricans or Mexican Americans) rose more than 25 percent.
Correlation? No, you must be racist. (sarc intended)
Let us know how those MCAT's work out for ya baby
I believe the proper usage is "South Africa and the Iraq".
Faced with evidence that students were learning less and less in high school, the College Board folks revised and renormed the test in the mid-90's so that it would be impossible to compare performance today with performance in the past. As a result, parents are much happier with their stupid kids and the worthless schools their tax dollars support.
I hope she can find her patient's organs on the map.
Average scores also slipped from 497 to 494 on the writing portion of the SAT, which debuted with the class of 2006. Many colleges are waiting to see results from the first few years of data on the writing exam before determining how to use it.
I don't think you can make much of a case about the scores slipping when the writing portion started in 2006. The difference between 497 and 494 is not that significant.
Section by section a comparison can be made, though I know they made some changes to the other sections as well. I just think it is a bit too soon after the significant test changes to draw any major conclusions.
Yes I don’t like that test section thing either. Maybe it serves a valid purpose but it is frustrating to the test taker.
I know they changed the test a few years back. They will probably change it again to get those higher test results back!
My kid recently took the GMAT, and ordered the preparation books...plus downloaded the software available in order to prepare. He did just fine on the test, and at $250 test fee...it was a good thing. Who wants to shell out $250 everytime you take a test. I think when he took the ACT or SAT, the fee was something like $25, so he took it two times (first time he didn't prepare at all, just took it to see what it was like.) If they raised the fee would the kids study harder because it wouldn't be as "affordable" to retake it? I wonder.
The AVERAGE scores are in the 500s? My God, I thought the SATs were ridiculously easy (I took them in March).
To answer some questions posed by other FReepers, the top score is 2400 (800 Math, 800 Reading, 800 Writing), but most people only look at your Math and Reading (top score of 1600). You do have to write an essay, which really bugs me, because I feel that I could have written a much better essay if the question had been more demanding than “Does peer pressure exist?”. The SAT essay questions are terrible, and the rest of the test isn’t much better.
time to lower the bar for the SAT scoring yet again?
I assume people taking the test from 20 years ago, with rules from the same time, would on average score lower?
The implication to this story is that No Child Left Behind did not, in fact, fix public schools.
That is correct. NCLB did not fix public school.
Now, I’m not surprised because I think nothing less than a fundamental reshaping of public school will fix them, if that is even possible.
But people will say that President Bush’s plan is a failure.
In the 1960’s a 1300 SAT score would get you into MENSA (which required an IQ or standardized test score indicating you were in the top 2% of the population.
With all the excess CO2 being emitted, that obviously means less oxygen to the brain.
She wants to be a doctor for Halloween?
I rather liked the GMAT, I took it as a warm of the the LSAT back in the day.... All of those tests were of a piece in the ‘60s and ‘70s. And consistent: my scores on the NMSQT, ACT, SAT, GMAT, LSAT and GRE all yielded overall percentile ranks (though different in various components) within about 1/2%.
I thought it was 1400, but that was in 1977.
Global warming no doubt.
All students are above average so why bother to test. People have to feel good about themselves so just ask questions about music or American Idol. You know, important things.
SAT or CEEB prior to 9/30/74: 1300
from 9/30/74 to 1/1/94: 1250
after 1/1/94 N/A
Gee, and I thought they were discriminating, but it looks like they’d let any idiot in :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.