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Replacing SAT with LEGOs
A reader writes "The Denver Post has a story about Colorado College, in an effort to attract minority and disadvantaged students, is dumping college-admission exams in favor of a Lego-building test, but only for a handful of applicants. 'The Lego test helps identify initiative, leadership and an ability to work in groups - qualities that hours-long ACT and SAT tests never quite get at.' " The college is working on this as a pilot program, along with eight other schools. Bet I could have gotten a better scholarship if they would have let me build a space station.
What a brilliant concept, I would have loved this when I was trying to get into college.
too bad colorado college was too expensive anyway.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
That would be more "open source"...
Considering the article says they want you to build a robot :)
You attract the poor people by basing your exam on how much practice you've had with an expensive toy, the handicapped with a test of manual dexterity and the "disadvantaged" with a complex spatial relations test.
This isn't going to go down well...
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Perhaps we should drop attendance requirements as well, since the children do not 'really want' to go to school everyday. You know, to attract more minorities. Perhaps not.
In an era when job competition is becoming more intense everyday, our schools should strive to emulate countries which are far ahead of us, and send our children into the work place with a firm foundation of knowledge. Or we can just baby them and continue the recession into stupidity.
Perhaps.
Seems to me like legos would only test a small portion of the subjects skill sets. I hope this test is augmented with others.
Why is this test being targeted at miorities? do the scool officials belive they are simply too dumb to take the standardized test?
Though i do think this would be a better way to test creative logical thinking and engineering skills.. -kalor
First, it's excellent that universities are finally, after over 100 years of this, beginning to understand standardized testing is a poor indicator of value/intelligence/leadership. It's been known for a long time that there are many varieties of intelligence - the IQ test only tests one - basically math and spatial visualization. Wuzzah. So if you know 13 different programming languages - from LISP to C++ and can pick up new ones within a few days.. well, sorry - that won't show up on the test.
It's still a nice idea - give college kids some legos and see what they build. However, if they're still bent on using tests (an ultimately doomed approach) instead of interviewing potential students, may I suggest giving potential candidates an objective (which varies from person to person) and see how they solve it? In my opinion, it's more important /how/ you solve it than /whether/ you solve it. After you give the same problem to a few hundred people you'll know what solutions are typical and be able to spot the innovative and/or unconvential people in a group. What you do with this information is up to you, as an administrator, but you all know who my money's on.
Like it hasn't been dumbed down enough already.
What's next, orgami skills as a determining factor?
Seriously, though, the problem I have with this is that there is more than one test for entrance. And you don't get to choose which test to take. One is easier than the other. Isn't this unfair?
...if only America had MORE of these kinds of tests, /they'd/ be Number One on the education charts!
The best thing EVER to happen to JonKatz's carreer
I hope people respond to it in the nice way that they should, and agree that this is a positive step, helping minorities and the disadvantaged as it is intended to. I know that Mensa certainly has 'culture fair' test which rather than requiring a good knowledge of the subtleties of English or Maths as many IQ tests require, uses spatial awareness as the basis instead - in a direct attempt not just to get the stereotyped arrogant British toffs that might be the only ones to get good scores on old style tests.
I'm all for alternate testing techniques, especially if the courses that this is being used as a requirement for are technique based rather than courses that do require prior knowledge (of literature, for example).
I really think that standards are declining if people use legos to get into college. I actually wanted to take the ACT test to get into college and I feel that it was worth it. I can't realistically believe that anyone who can build with legos can actually be on par with someone who has actually shown a knowledge of the material through a standardized test.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
So now the O'Reilly Mindstorms book is college prep material? I like how the author (can't remember how to spell his name) also hints that you can use his book on a resume as "cross compiling" fodder.
I wish I'd had something as fun as building LEGO stuff to get into school.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
i am a big black man named butch, from san francisco, and i want your skinny cracker ass.
Although the Lego test is only part of the whole process for the alternative testing procedure, it does seem out of place. It's a mechanical aptitiude test, not really teamwork. Not sure, other than architecture and possibly mechianical engineering would really need something like that. Ten minutes is not enough time, especially if you can't find those pesky Technic pieces you can never find when you're looking for 'em.
For some reason, I never got Legos when I was a kid. In fact, I bought my first Lego set every about a year ago. I would fail that test miserably.
i am a skinny white man named george, from new york, and i want your large black cock
Just wait until MIT picks up on this...
kwsNI
MAKE A MINDSTORMS ROBOT THAT GIVES YOU A HAND JOB
MAKE A MINDSTORMS ROBOT THAT GIVES YOU A BLOW JOB
MAKE A MINDSTORMS ROBOT THAT PETRIFIES NATALIE PORTMAN
I would think that minority groups would feel insulted by having tests that have lower standards then the average white kid. Doesn't just say that they are stupid? I know I would feel insulted if someone game me a test that was not as challenging as someone else. I am willing to say that all people despite ethnic or cultural background are smart enough to handle a challenging education and tests. I am going to go off on a limb here but I would bet that these lower standards are not needed. Rather keeping all students accountable to a higher standard in the class room no matter who they are.
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Hey, didn't some oragami guru find a way to fold solar panels for spacecraft in a way to take up less space than what a bunch of engineers thought was possible? I think he even out-did a computer program that had been tried.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
trollin' rulez!
It probably would be a good addition the mix of riddles, programming questions, and stress busters that we already use.
My friend spankey may be able to get into a good University now. My friend Spankey plays with Legos all of the time, instead of getting a job like my friend Spankey should(If you remember, my friend Spankey was fired from the sperm bank for drinking on the job). My friend Spankey is a silly man.
-A Friend of Spankey
When I read the first three enthusiastic comments I wondered where common sense had gone.
Lego tests, right ? Well how about a reading and writing test ? As far as I know we are supposed to learn this in school. I've never taken an SAT (at the age I was supposed to I had to struggle with admission exams - yes, you guessed I'm not american and I have known another type of school education).
I mean, graduating from a school should never be only a certificate of intelligence. This is done by IQ tests. School is supposed to teach you things more useful than building castles of LEGOs.
How about some geography, or some chemistry, or biology or anything ? Do we really need to graduate something in order to build things that a 5 year old kid can do ?
Where is the evolution then ?
If school and life was based around LEGO tests, I would have been supreme overlord when I was 10.
-lou
Now only if they could move the drivers license test to Bob's GOKart downtwon.
I am a little disappointed that colleges would only let 'disadvantaged and ethic' students participate. Are they implying that they are not as smart as others.
Truthfully, it doesn't matter who you are, some people are intelligent but can't take tests like the SAT's and such.
I hope that this will soon be available to all students and adapted by more colleges.
it was just like CHS on 4/20/99
This is great, finally someone is starting to realize that these things should be based on your intelligence, not how much you can memorize.
Even though, I believe, this isn't the perfect test... it's a start.
-- Dr. E --
blow me
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i still havent been blocked... where are you mods?
it's routine for educational and government affiliated businesses to give minorities a royal status, preference in everything from hiring to promotions.
I'd be suprised to see if these "judges" based their objective scores on the robot building on anything other than the color of the applicant's skin.
makes me sick.
trolling is so much fun!
I WANT TO EAT OUT NATALIE PORTMAN
I WANT TO EAT OUT NATALIE PORTMAN NOW
i can just hear it now...
some lady in screaming because her child didnt
have legos when he was growing up because the
family was too poor. now all of a sudden, this
test is biased against the poor minorities of
the country.
let's get serious here. the ONLY people who
complain about unfair tests are the people who
didnt do well (or the family and friends of said
person).
my parents didnt even graduate high school and
were not wealthy (the two biggest predictors) and
i got a 1350 on the SAT.
there will never be a perfect test. the only
"good" alternative is to base it on face to face
interactions with the candidates (something few
colleges could afford to do)--and then there would
still be the argument that "the interviewer was biased".
bah
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
I WANT TO EAT OUT YOUR MOM NOW
my god you mods suck ass
this will never get old
i have to take a shit
The over use of standardized test scores when it comes to colleges is really a bad thing. When at school I found that a vastly disproportionate number of the best/brightest/most interesting people on campus were actually transfer students. After a little investigation I found out that although the frosh admissions process is more or less just a numbers game, the transfer admissions people actually try to get to know who they are dealing with. Most of the people who transferred in would have been rejected in frosh admissions, but they became some of the most important people in the school community.
I currently have a friend of the family trying to get into my alma mater. She is most likely going to be rejected because her SATs aren't great, however, she would add so much to the school if she got accepted. I guess even universities follow the rule "There is never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over", which is really a sad fact.
There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies or vampires anyway.
i think we should replace the sat with a bowl of hot grits. smart students will take the bowl and pour it down their pants. thank you.
A little bit of grammer check (this really gets on my nerves) 'maths' is not necessarily proper grammer.
Ummm.... the word is spelled g-r-a-m-m-a-r.
(I'll pause now and let everyone savor the irony.)
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
I know many people who can build with legos AND have shown a knowledge of "the" material through a standardized test.
Ok I should have been a little clearer. I meant to say that if all you can do is build with legos then that is a poor indicator of intelligence. I have a younger brother who was able to play with legos in the 4th grade. Does that mean he can get into college? I didn't think so.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Based on your performance in our Lego Application Process Demonstrating Aptitudes Needed for College Entrance (LAPDANCE), [name of school] is pleased to inform you of your admission to the College of Engineering.
Due to your particularly anal-retentive use of color you were passed over by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English. However, this same aspect to your creation was considered a strength by admissions specialists for the School of Computer Science....
Yadda - yadda - yadda ...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
To say that "the standardized tests...have been a stumbling block for disadvantaged and minority students" strikes me as being a bit offensive by lumping minorities in with "disadvantaged" students. The color of one's skin certainly has nothing to do with how intelligent one is.
The fact of the matter is that unless you posess certain basic skills like reading, writing and arithmetic you will not get anything useful out of college. Having students play with toys isn't going change that.
Now granted, it's just one of a dozen activities that measure personal traits that may indicate one's ability to learn, but there's one that it's not going to measure...self discipline. Without that, you might as well study at a community college or hold off on school until you develop it. That's not even mentioning the obvious fact that classroom learning requires far different skills than analyzing and reproducing a Lego robot.
I don't see how it's likely that most of these students will be able to compete on a college level and will won't wind up dropping out by their sophomore year. The affirmative action quotas didn't help anyone and I don't see how this will either. Public schools simply have to do a better job of teaching students
Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that there are "multiple kinds of intelligence" (certainly not implausible), and that standardized tests are really testing only one or two of them.
Item 1: College, in general, is *AIMED* at those one or two kinds; these tests measure *ability to do well in college*, for the most part. Giving people a test of something else just sets them up to fail later.
Item 2: Why is it that these people are assuming that the minorities "can't" do well on standardized tests? Isn't that sort of like saying they think the minorities are "stupid"? Frankly, I don't know whether or not racial groups have differences in brain structure, or whatever - but if they do, we'd damn well better start facing it head on, or we're going to wreck a lot of people's lives trying to push them into something they aren't. (Admittedly, it's no better to assert that an entire group will behave in the same way.)
Item 3: Why don't they give *EVERYONE* the lego test, and see how it pans out? If you give it only to the students you think won't do well on the other test, you aren't learning much. Let's be fair; make *EVERYONE* take the lego test, have their results graded by people who don't know which color people did which projects, and find out what the lego test tells you.
Item 4: "Kinds of intelligence" is probably meaningless anyway. "intelligence" is supposed to refer to the generalized set of "kinds of intelligence". Sure, the tests don't measure them all, but the lego test doesn't *MEASURE* anything, it just gives you a platform to balance your prejudice on.
Honestly, I think it comes down to this: There uexist people who are not "disadvantaged" in any way, and who feel guilty about this, and who will seek out "disadvantaged" people, and try to "help" them, in a way that makes it absolutely clear that the people doing the helping are in charge, and the "disadvantaged" people oughta be grateful for the help. These people are just as racist as the overt racists, they've just found a better way to sublimate it. Better for them, anyway. Not sure it's any better to be talked down to than openly hated.
This is a joke. With any luck, they will realize it, and start trying to do something useful - for instance, if the "different kinds of intelligence" thing pans out, start building a real curriculum for them, not just excuses to shove them into a curriculum that doesn't match them.
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I think this is more useful as a poignant commentary on the uselessness of standardized tests on accurate college admissions. I tend to think it goes the other way, though: few genuinely intelligent people score relatively low (say below 1200) on the SAT, but lots of really stupid, ignorant, unengaged, and work-a-holic students score very high on the SAT even though they would not fare well at schools like MIT or the Ivies.
Once we get away from testing knowledge in the name of "aptitude," and actually try to find a way to gauge students' interest in, fervor for, and raw talent to handle college-level work, we'll be better able to admit to the elite schools those students who will be successful in an economy that now thrives on individuality, resourcefulness, and cleverness instead of on suits and connections.
Perhaps this is the final step toward the true meritocracy. I can't wait.
--
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I think that a testing situation like this produces an unfair environment for those who still have to take the traditional exams. I wholeheartedly agree with giving people who have had limited or poor exposure to the traditionally tested topics the opportunity to learn more in college, but if some people are to be tested this way, than everyone should be. Since the test is designed to be racially unbiased, it should not be any easier for the groups who are currently not taking the lego test than for those who are currently taking the lego test. This way, testing is done in a fair and even-handed manner, with no bias to people whose background gives them an unfair advantage in specific topics, and no handicap to those without such a background.
I know it may sound silly to most of you, but isn't it possible that some people really don't have access to a way to teach themselves these things? There are free libraries, but what if you are far away and do not have a car? There is the internet, but what if you cannot afford a computer and an ISP? Unbiased methods are necessary for fairness, but unbiased use of such methods is necessary also.
I think you'll need a scanning electron microsocope
Tests are imperfect at best and misplaced at worst, but reducing admissions to the level of "job" interviews is far, far worse than even the most poorly designed and executed test.
A test has at least the possibility, and if adminstered correctly, probability of giving objective results. The criteria may be misplaced or imperfect, but the results will generally stand on their own, all imperfections aside.
An interview can never even aspire to be resonably objective. Subjective prejudices in terms of personality, appearance, gender, and culture are intrinsic to any interviewing process. The result will not be some utiopian "fair deal" for those who score poorly on tests but would have made good students anyway, but a system so completely weighted by the personal opinions of admissions interviewers that fairness of any kind will not be even remotely possible. Ultimately it will no longer even be expected, or strived for.
Standardized testing, for all of its flaws, at least eliminates the worst of the cultural and personal bias of the admissions process, by stating more or less "you are required to know a modicum of the following, if you don't, learn it and come back for another try." Far more fair, even for the disadvantaged (however one defines the term) than an interviewer commenting "You really aren't State U material, sorry kid" become some arrongant jerk doesn't like your accent, your nose ring, your hair style, or your skin color. Or worse, they've simply had a bad day and just feel peaved enough that playing God with your future makes them feel better. (If you don't believe both of these happen quite often in the private sector, I suggest working for a time in the personnel department of any large firm.)
No system is perfect, but your proposal amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then chucking most of the nursery out the window as well.
As to the notion of using legos for colleges admissions, I can only cringe at the value a college education received in the United States will have fifteen or twenty years from now. All of the arrogant posturing by Europeans with respect to the American system of Higher Education will become appallingly accurate if this silliness continues.
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First, it is incredibly expensive. Look at the time and number of judges required.
Second, it is much more subjective and will consequently have a lower test-retest reliability.
Third, given the limited range of scores (and lower reliability) it is very doubtful it could ever approach the predictive validity of the SAT.
What's even weirder is that there's no evidence that minorities would do relatively better on this test than on the SAT, so the whole project is suspect.
If this is about ages 6-10, I guess, the test would be OK. Anything older than that: No way.
Next, there seems to be a really big gripe about taking standardized tests. The assertion is that interviews are better. Well I disagree.
First of all, I have sat on interview panels for bright kids before. It is not a simple task to rank the kids and say "Joan is better than Michelle." There will be lots of different opinions among interviewers. School boards are getting themselves into a mess if they ever take this route. It would be _easier_, not harder, for charges of racism, sexism, whatever-ism to stick. Standardized tests must be a component somewhere.
And the standardized tests are not really that difficult to ace. I would be deeply suspicious of students who can "talk the talk", but can't perform well on a simple straightforward test like the SAT.
The test we really need is one to filter out all the suckups who only get by through hours of studying. They throw off the curve and make the dorms boring.
University should be for people who are interested in learning *new* things, experimental stuff. If you only want to regurgitate textbooks go to a vocational school.
Something that measures adaptability and creativity instead of rote knowledge is definitely a step in the right direction.
EOF
Ouch.
We've probably all gotten a rejection letter or two when we applied to college. It sucked. Can you imagine this though?
First, to get hit with something like "You didn't score well enough on the SATs, but here are some legos. Go at it."
Second, to get another rejection letter:
"Your robot building skills do not meet Colorado College standards. Your application is rejected for the Fall 2001 term. We suggest you go back to Duplo blocks and reapply next semester."
Heh, how goofy were those Duplo blocks. They were fscking HUGE.
BilldaCat
I don't think that's what he meant. "It was worth it to take the test" is not the same as "I have worth because I took the test." Actually, the converse of the latter (I don't have worth because I can't pass the tests) is probably one source of complaints that standardized testing isn't fair, or culturally biased, or not an accurate judge of knowledge.
Using Legos for college entrance is like saying there should be an essay test to determine whether a person can make the Olympic swimming team! Unless there is some sort of standardized test, there is no standard for college entrance. It's what egalitarian ideals are all about: take everything down to the lowest possible level just to be "fair". But it really just ends up devaluing those who put forth the time and effort to reach a desired goal. The whole point of education is to learn, which means gaining in knowledge.
When I was preparing for the GRE test before graduate school, several professors told me that in order to stand out, I should strive to excel on the verbal section. Why? Every engineer would have comparable (read: high) math and analytical scores. Only the truly exceptional ones would have excellent verbal scores as well. The same was true when I was first entering college to study engineering. I knew my math scores would be high, so I worked on my verbal skills (taking classes in Latin, etymology, etc.) to ensure I wouldn't have to take a basic English class in college (beating a 650 verbal SAT exempted students from college English courses).
JimD
SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACE, UNCLE FUCKA
Ludicrous.
Look. College is many different things; I'm not going to argue that. But its primary purpose is a place of study. If a student can't perform well on a test (which requires that one exercise a reasonable amount of study skills), that student simply isn't going to do very well in most collegiate enviornments.
The bit about testing leadership and other types of intelligence is, I suppose, a valid concern. But do it in addition to the tests, not instead of them.
Personally, I always saw racial preferences as one of the more wacko ideas. A person's race doesn't determine how well they'll do in a college environment at all. Religion might, depending on the tenets of the given religion, but that's exceedingly rare and a student whose religion might affect college life is very likely to choose a place where the two won't interfere with one another anyway. Sexual orientation doesn't affect study skills, or gender, or anything else along those lines. So why even put them on a college application at all? Statistics?
Statistics and such are of interest to statisticians, but in the end they're not really indicative of very much. Personally, as I see it, if you want to make college admissions fair across races, don't make all kinds of special treatment. Make the process race-blind (and gender-blind except in the case of single-sex colleges, and such). Completely eliminate the race question on the application form; if you feel you need the statistics then send the students a survey after the admissions decisions have already been made. I don't think anyone here will argue against the assertion that race and such has no place in the decision whether or not to admit a student. So why even ask the questions until the decisions have been made?
But I'm ranting again, so back to the subject...
A college is a place of study. I fail to see how objective merit is an invalid concern. The SAT's and ACT's are meant to be a measure of the skills a student needs to succeed in a college environment, namely study and reasoning skills. I think the ACT tends to do a better job of measuring this than the SAT's (since the ACT's test a broader range of skills), but both do well in their given fields. The rest, such as leadership, are of course very nice skills to have. But they have little to no effect on how well the student does in classes, and can even hinder the student in some cases, as they get involved in more activities than they can handle and their grades suffer as a result (I've seen this happen to far too many students).
So attacking merit isn't the way to go. Replacing onjective tests with subjective ones only adds the potential for more racism and bias than the terminally insecure claim exists now. Combining the two is actually something of a good idea, so long as you're careful about how that's done.
Oh, one last thing. Someone talked about the idea of interviewing prospective students. Most colleges already do that. I went through a bunch of interviews, as did my sisters when they went off to college, as did everyone I know who went to or is currently at college. It's an important tool. But all tools are inherently flawed in some manner or another (even a simple hammer is flawed: it can miss the nail or worse, hit your finger); that's why only rarely can any one tool be used to get the job done well.
MOO FUCKAZ
Since the ACT has already went through one serious "dumbing down" about 5 years ago, it makes you wonder what is next.
I guess higher math and reasoning is too Euro-centric. That socially and racially biased math and science puts our poor inner city youth at a disadvantage.
It won't be fair until everybody that wants to get into college performs equally well on the test. If you can't take the damn test, don't go to school. If you have initiative and leadership, you will make it far anyway.
Too much emphasis is put on a college education. It is getting to the point that they don't mean anything. They mean less than a high school diploma ment 10 or 15 years ago. That shouldn't be the case.
I think the culling principles used in Russian and German schools is a great idea. Sort of a Plato's Republic sort of thing.
But I didn't get enough of the flat rectangles!
EOF
A close reading of the article reveals that the school is not "throwing out" the SAT, but allowing kids who flunk the school's SAT benchmarks to take a battery of alternative tests, including this lego test. The battery will apparently include a traditional interview. That thought, however, is too complex for us mere mortals to grasp. Watch as our friends in the media helpfully simplify the story for us over the next few days to: "SAT thrown out for Legos!" Dan
I believe that aptitude test should be devised using an "open source" methodology. Lest you think I'm just trying to drop the phrase "open source" for karma points, I'll explain:
Aptitude/intelligence tests are typically devised behind closed doors. A small committee gets together and creates questions. The questions are then tested on students. Questions with a high miss rate are considered "hard". Questions with a low miss rate are considered "easy".
This methodology has very real flaws. First of all, the elite group which gets to create the questions is too small. They are very rarely questioned. The fact is that SAT questions have been proven to contain questions which could be misunderstood. Sometimes, the "correct" answers are just wrong. Lawsuits have been filed over this and ETS (the company who creates the SAT) has been forced to change scores. This is kept quiet, of course. We can't have people questioning the almighty SAT.
Since the elite group is too small and closed to rule out the possibility of group error, we should open up the question-writing to everyone. Let educators from around the country create the questions. We have the technology to do this right now.
In fact, it should go beyond just the educators. The process should be open to students, as well. How about a pilot program where Slashdot members devise an aptitude test? I have no doubt that the combined intelligence of this site could produce a far more informative and perceptive test than anything in use today.
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
Because a brick is a terrible thing to waste.
I would have loved a test like this when I applied to college, though I didn't need it due to my rocking SATs.
I does seem like a novell way to get an impression of someone.
George
I'll be the first to say that standardized testing is bunk. While the LEGOs test may also be a bit silly on the face of it, I suggest that it's better to try new things and learn from them than it is to keep doing it the old way just because "That's the way it's always been done."
I scored a 1470 on my SATs to get into the University of Washington (not an amazing score, but good enough to overcome my crappy H.S. GPA and better than most of my peers at UW) and ended up dropping out after my freshman year because I was on acedemic probation.
There are probably a number of reasons that I ended up leaving, but I think that standardized testing is a joke. It measures nothing useful (except maybe test taking ability) and the tests are continually modified to artificially inflate lower scores.
-FP
They're on the right track... just have the applicant come prepared to program a LEGO Mindstorms robot to take their SAT!
:)
Remember, if you don't hear crummy jokes, you won't like the good ones
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You killed my father.
Prepare to die.
My name is Darth Vader.
I am your father.
Prepare to die.
Next, lets replace money with little rocks! This further advances the notion that Skool Is a Joke. A very, very expensive joke.
I can tell you for a fact that, at many larger schools (including the one I attended for undergraduate and graduate work) there were no interviews during the admissions phase (this includes colleges for which I applied and did not attend).
I had numerous interviews for various scholarship "competitions" but those typically took place after I had already been admitted (got early acceptance in Nov. of senior year of HS).
In fact, to provide a counter-example to yours, I know of no one who had interviews as part of their admissions procedure, but that may have to do with the fact that almost everyone I know went to one of two or three large, public universities.
As a side note, I don't exactly believe that outstanding performance on standardized tests is any better an indicator of future performance in college that poor performance. I know of several people who went to my high school who made outstanding scores on the SAT/HS GPA/etc. but, once at college and out from under Mommy and Daddy's control, took to too much partying and ended up failing/dropping out of college. Likewise, several "marginal" students went on to excellent college careers. However, I am not advocating the "dumbing-down" of admissions standards. As a graduate teaching assistant, I encountered far too many students lacking basic mathematical and communicative skills. I actually know of a student who wrote the following on a physics lab report: "It is would be much more actual in percent difference. And much more correct to[sic]."
Eric
One easily implemented is to allow SAT2 tests to be used as a measure of admittance. They are designed to test single subjects rather than broad based facts. The student could be required to take sub 100 level classes in other subjects to strengthen their knowledge base. This would prevent otherwise intelligent students from being denied a first rate education because there is something they didn't know. Isn't that why you go to college, because you don't know and you want to know?
Also, why not foster cross development with a Jr. College. Have the student enroll full time in a Jr. college, and allow them to register for limited classes at a University. Many students could prove their academic skill this way, and still receive a good education not normally associated with a Jr. College
You must be a skinny white cracker. If you are, then sure, I would be glad to shove my large black love sausage up your shithole.
Why the hype, the only Stan I know is a FedEx driver!!!
If this goes global, one entity that would be making load of money will be the lego corporation, since they are the sole manufacturer and distributor for legos. I wouldn't be surprised if they are the one that come up with this idea.
Hasdi
Did anyone (who read the article) notice what the required lego task actually was? I was hoping that it would involve creativity (i.e. cars with propellers, sailing ships with lasers, and all those other engineering miracles I performed years ago), but rather it involves EXACTLY COPYING a robot which is in another room. It seems as if the test is designed to indicate leadership ability, since the robot must be built by a group, under some guidelines. I suppose that's a worthy goal, but it seems that since you've already got all those multi-colored bricks, you might as well give a more creative task. Oh well, maybe there will be a "freestyle" component on next year's exam.
Matt Evans
Jon Katz will punish you for trolling!!!!!11
CNN Entertainment
Thank you.
Oh my God, what has society come to?
Oh, great. Now we can have more really bright people who haven't any basic knowledge, can not spell, can not make or understand the simplest logical arguments or analogies or balance their checkbooks. Time for that move to Canada!
did you find my watch, I lost it when Iwas fisting one of them at the morgue.
How did you like the sloppy seconds.
There is nothing like sticking your hard cock in a bullet hole.....aaah!
this would be insulting to me. "Score 1200 on your SAT whitey? OK you can come to school here. Hey black fellah, can you build a box out of Legos? Here's a scholarship." The sheepskins obtained from this school just became worthless. I'd never hire someone from there.
Aren't high school transcripts supposed to give a good indicator about these things? When I was in high school I seem to remember joining clubs, participating in events, sports, and other activities which demonstrated initiative, leadership, and the ability to work in groups.
It seems like more and more that high school counts for less and less. Seriously, why do we have high school at all? It certainly doesn't seem to count for anything. At my university (which admittedly is at the bottom of the barrel), courses exist which generally mirror every course I took in high school, and then some even looking like grade school. Classes exist for basic math, basic english (not to be confused with english as a second language), you get the picture.
To be perfectly blunt, I find this to be pathetic. It is an insult to those who take the courses and consider themselves college students, it is an insult to the real college students who walk the same corridors alongside these faux college students, and most definately it is an insult not only to the university itself, but also the entire educational system. This is a serious problem, it is time someone fixes it before it gets worse.
MOO FUCKAZ
I have blown every standardized test I've ever taken out of the water, right up through the GREs a couple of years ago. And that includes subject tests on subjects I knew I wasn't in the 99th percentile in knowledge of. I bubble test real good and I too complain about the pedestal that these tests are being placed on.
*gratuitous slam on earlier poster's SAT scores avoided*
There are huge problems with basing school entrance on test scores - the one that bugs me the most is when someone who scored 5 points higher is claiming to be "more qualified" on a test that has an internal margin of error of 40 points. But in any case, attempting to shut down the messenger with insults won't make it go away.
...will work for Chick tracts...
Actually, some of those sound almost as interesting, if not more, than the Lego test. Public speaking, in particular, strikes me as a good test, given that, in many, many surveys, people have consistently rated "speaking before a group" as their number one fear, above even death. Conflict resolution is going to be increasingly important in society as a whole, and on college campuses in particular. And other messages in this thread have suggested that personal interviews be used in place of "the Lego test"; it would seem that they're actually being used alongside it.
Some other things to note about the article:
- CC "has long been an innovator in higher education." Somebody's got to try these ideas first...
- CC is not the only college using these new tests; eight other universities are doing this, too (four other private liberal-arts schools and four state universities).
- Very few students are going to be admitted as a result of these tests, at least at first (it's a pilot program). CC and the other liberal-arts schools will be admitting four students each under this program; the four state schools will admit 20 students each.
- Researchers will be keeping track of these students; to see how well they do in relation to students admitted under "normal" policies.
- The intent of all this is to maintain racial diversity in college admissions without resorting to "affirmative action" programs (which are in the middle of a whole slew of political firestorms right now). This is important for CC, since (according to the article) "Colorado public colleges and universities are required to show continuous improvement in minority recruitment, retention and graduation."
Naturally, the "Lego test" gets the headline because it sounds outrageous. Nonetheless, the overall program sounds both interesting and worthy of investigation, and I hope that it works out. And, even if it doesn't, they'll have learned something as a result.Eric (Denver, CO)
--
"Free your code...and the rest will follow."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Everyone is terrified to speak out on this, because anyone who speaks ill of programs such as this has a high risk of being branded a "Racist" which is a death sentance in this day.
This system is, as stated, an attempt to give preferential enrollment status to minorities in a fashion which is better at hiding this fact. How much more racist can anything get than that?
And if myself, or anybody else says so, we are the ones who are branded as racists, and suffer the most severe consequences, while minorities are spoonfed jobs they aren't qualified for, and promotions rightfully deserved by others who don't get them for one reason, skin color.
As bad as racism once was in this country, it's much worse now because it's government sanctioned, and official policy of far too many organizations.
for the disadvantaged.
How else are you going to get the token minorities into colleges.
They will go into every dry cleaner, convenience store and fruit stand to find the next potential valedictorian.
On the same note, if you believe that a set of tests designed and produced by a private company are at all objective, you may wish to spend some time with the great segment of the American population which has almost 0 representation here on Slashdot-- namely African-Americans, Hispano-Americans, anyone who's Gen 0 or 1 American (i.e. a new immigrant or their child.) If you haven't taken a standardized test (like the SAT, ACT, or my personel bane, the MEAP (a test given to grade, middle and high schoolers in MI), you should maybe order a few sample copies from ETS and give them a look-see.
Look these objectify metersticks of knowledge over and ask yourself: What would this mean to me if I were born after the Cold War? What would this mean to me if I grew up to a single parent in the middle of City X and have never seen an open body of water or a forest? What would this mean to me if English were my second language (N.B., children, that the US has no national language-- we take all comers, here (in theory,) unlike snooty old European nations.)
We'd do better to release this delusion of having aquired objective judges by simply moving people farther away from the process. I'd rather sit in an interview room and know that a white man was seeing me as a black girl, then sit at my little desk and think that some machine somewhere didn't notice or care.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
My last job was in a public university admissions office. One day, while doing a query to select SAT math and verbal scores for our "disadvantaged" applicants, I noticed that my combined scores column had scores like 550, 650, 700, etc. Thinking that there was an error in my query, I checked my work. Needless to say those WERE the combined scores of people we eventually admitted. I did some research on my own and queried accepted such applicants over the past several years and plotted their graduation dates. My results? Most didn't make it through. When I innocently posed the question to the lead EO councelor, my suspicions were confirmed. Conclusion? EO only works for those who are GENUINELY qualified, yet for various reasons are blocked from the normal avenues of advancement in our society. The idea that people from a different sub-culture are, as a group, less likely to succeed on tests or school because of cultural bias is complete bullshit. In fact, in order to make are needy students appear even more needy, we started EXCLUDING Asians because they tended to as well as the traditionally "advantaged." It seemed as if cultural bias didn't apply to them. Perhaps it was because they worked harder to get ahead to overcome the culture shock instead of demanding the dumbing down of standards. Colorado can test all they like with legos, but the sad fact is that NOTHING will come of it. Stupid, unmotivated people will remain stupid and unmotivated until they are given a kick in the ass!
I can only imagine what's going to happen when a room full of teenagers, each of whom is under a *lot* of pressure, are each trying to show how good they are at leading a room full of teenagers who are also trying to lead. Will there be security guards standing nearby to suppress the inevitable fights?
Once again, slowly:
It's LEGO (as in LEGO bricks and LEGO pieces) -- not LEGOs!
(Fellow Slashdot users, I cordially invite you to demonstrate your illiteracy by arguing back or flaming me on this.)
NAT IS A PICG AND I PETRIFIED HER AND HER MASSIVE COCK.
MOO FUCKAZ
Not only can it be biased, but it also does not assess other qualities, such as creativity, problem solving, and knowledge application. I say that it can be biased because the language used in the tests are often biased. The form of language typically used is suburban U.S. I've never quite gotten the hang of certain subtle phrasings and I can sympathize with anyone who misunderstood what was intended by the question on a test and, as a result, answered the wrong question.
This isn't to say that an interview is an inherently better solution because of the pitfalls that were mentioned. It does give someone an opportunity to better assess some of those intangibles that standardized testing misses.
I consider this Lego test to be sort of like an interview, except that the candidate and the assessor aren't directly interacting. Give the person a problem to solve and see what happens. Naturally, it's best to have several observers who don't interact with each other do the assessment. This way you might cut back on some of the pitfalls of an interview.
Overall, I'd think that the more information that can be gained about a candidate, the better. I therefore feel that all means of assessment should be used when possible. Multiple forms of assessment (rather than multiple standardized tests) can show which results were anomalous and give a better picture of what this person possesses in knowledge and potential.
-Jennifer
The dk() challenge. Give it a try!
Thank you.
The Lego test helps identify initiative, leadership and an ability to work in groups
I don't remember Lego being a team game. I'm the youngest of 3 and I remember mostly playing with Lego alone. OK, sometimes I built something with my sis, but then it was more about cooperation than leadership.
Lego was/is more about creativity and engineering than group interaction. For me, anyhow ...
Regards, Ralph.
Well, I guess, after the last twenty posts or so, it should be self-evident that Adam Sandler, or some 12 year-old spineless circus freak who has seen too many of his movies has flooded the thread. I guess this is the person who will benifit from the legos...
But seriously. The point of alternative tests is to try to provide a more fair evaluation of the academic abilities of someone. Clearly not everyone had the best math instructors in primary and secondary schools. The purpose of the tests is to allow people who have the potential to stand out above the rest _WHEN_ they receive the proper instruction. Some people can score 1500 or above on the SAT, but that is not entirely a function of their intelligence. It may be quite exclusively because of their environment. Some (let me stress : SOME ) people are the equivalent of closet geniuses; they have great mental aptitude and great social skills, but have not had access to a strong learning environment for whatever reason (excusable or otherwise).
Unfortunately, some (again, stress : SOME) alternative tests are nothing but a load of politically-correct diversification agendas which don't really make any honest attempt at evaluating the individual's real academic ability. These are the tests which the urban legends that have been the inspirations for many of the previous posts regarding the "dumbing down" of tests. But I imagine that the truth is that most of the people who have been trashing alternative tests are ones who did fine on the standard ones, and find some kind of pre-pubescent, smug hubris from considering themselves elite.
Ooh AHH i stand erect at your greatness...
I am a professional programmer by trade and I have never met a college graduate that I considered anything less than a complete idiot. Who do you think has to train these dorks when they get out of school.
this is a patronizing attitude about minorities which is propagated by bleeding heart liberals, and frankly it stinks. not only it assumes the minorities are somehow less intelligent, it also propagates the notion of 'two levels of education'. PhD in bullshit, so to speak, nothing serious. Would you go to a doctor qualified via a Lego-building skills? Fly on an airplane build by engineer educated the same way? The end result is devaluation of University degrees.
At long last, illiteracy need not be a barrier to college admission.
You can compare 2 year US College degree with any
European/Australian High School diploma. Get serious people! How easy is to get a straight A in the US?! Try to do it in Europe -- there no "class curve" policy and you have to get 51% to pass a class.
And US Education is forcing Europeans/Australians to "evaluate" their diplomas???!!!
Ridiculous!
If an idiot like slashdot-terminal can do well enough on the ACT to get into any school, that is proof enough that something needs to be done about standardized testing.
What's worse are the so-called solutions to the "problem" of the SAT's supposed "cultural bias". Affirmative action programs and retooled tests are late term patches to problems that started way earlier. Instead of trying to give extra help, lowering requirements, or inventing new tests for low GPA HS grads who can't get into colleges, you should really be looking why they aren't up to snuff in the first place and go fix that. If you don't, there will be just as many problem students applying next year who will "need the program" to pass. Target the K-6 group. Fix the educational inequities where they form so that there are no problems that need special tests and special admissions rules to address. If you do that, I might support some extra help for the current batch of disadvantaged students, because I know their numbers will taper off as the youth is inproved.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a boy to fish and he'll never go hungry. It's an old saying but it applies to education in general.
As in "reading the article." Looking over comments, here are a couple of things most posters seem to have missed:
- The lego test is only one of a series of twelve workshop tests performed.
- The schools are looking for tests that are better predictors of college success. These workshop-based tests are an experiment to find such tests--they are only being used for a highly limited number of admissions, with the outcome carefully tracked. Maybe they'll work, maybe they won't.
As alluded to in the article, the dirty little secret of standardized tests is that they correlate better with socioeconomic background than they do with ultimate college success. And that's to be expected--kids from more affluent families went to better schools, got more help from their (usually) college-educated parents, and so forth. Most of us who have been through college know people who aced their SAT's but royally screwed up their coursework. These schools are looking for something better, somthing that measures ability to succeed as well as general knowledge.It's worth a try, in any case.
...toward the math portion, I presume.
ROTFLOL! Hahahaha. Ooops, there's my boss.
and mongo say this stupid. legos in place of sat. haha. hoho. heehee. mongo go now. off to use college administrator heads as drums. heads more useful that way.
One reason the group that devises the SAT questions is so small is that secrecy is paramount.
If the SAT were "open source", as you propose, how could we possibly prevent questions and answers being leaked to prospective examinees?
begin 644
Well, as some of my posts undoubtably underscore (spelling in particular), my rather high score on the ACT was NOT due to the English portion of the exam. :-)
The standardized test (and later the net, with it's emphesis on typing and not writing by hand) also enabled me to do well despite my appalling handwriting.
Standardized tests do work pretty well, albeit imperfectly. Smart people with significant failings in other areas can and do do very well, with those weaknesses hilighted by their respective scores.
As an aside, the fact that two private firms came up with two competing, national tests (the ACT and the SAT), and their subsequent success, clearly shows there was an unfulfilled need for a national standard whereby colleges could judge the relative educational level of prospective students coming from diverse backgrounds and school systems of widely varying quality. These tests may be imperfect, but they are far more functional (and useful) than building with legos.
The only real "argument" with respect to national standards tests is not whether or not they are needed, but whether or not they should be designed and maintained by private companies or by some kind of public (government or acedemic) institution. As stubborn Americans we may steadfastly refuse to learn from our European and Asian neighbors (who have had standardized testing on the national level for a long time), but we can hardly ignore our own free market, which we hold in such high, almost religious, regard, and which has very unambiguously demonstrated a need for the same kind of national standards right here in the good ol' US of A.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Out of the group of 8-10 people, three or four
extroverts will end up actively building the robot.
Perhaps badly.
The one kid in the group who has the best mental
model of the robot because he's a left-brained
thinker type will sit shyly and do nothing.
And fail.
The resulting three or four extroverts who
pass will go on to join the college football
team, which is probably all that wanted anyway.
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
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A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
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A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
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A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
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A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
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A.E. Van Vogt, NAKED AND PETRIFIED
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In a day and age when color isn't supposed to matter and everyone is the same, why is this program (and numerous other ones like it) targeted at minorities? What about the white kid who had a poor education?
Everyday I find it harder to support programs like affirmative action. Since when did a level playing field mean equal numbers? When color isn't supposed to matter, why do minorities bring it up?
provolt
Legos are not cheap toys, Legos cost money to buy. How likely is it that the disadvantaged minorities that they're trying to test wll have had a chance to play with legos when they were younger? So it seems that even as they're trying to give disadvantaged minorities a boost, the better off kids (those whose parents bought them legos) will have an advantage.
Armed with a number of pre-programmed lego mindstorm control modules, he not only duplicated the robot in the other room but activated it. Once activated the robot began attacking all of the other entries, destroying a large number of them before being turned off. Ken stated that he got the idea from watching Battlebots on pay-per-view as well as a recent SRL performance.
Although banned from Colorado College, Ken is not disturbed by the results of his actions. Both CalTech and M.I.T. are offering him full scholarships.
-----
No Zen is good zen
Test that require skills like reading, writing and the abilities to add and subtract are unfairly discriminatory to those who do not possess those skills. Tests that require one to speak and read the English language are unfairly discriminatory against those who do not speak English. But at some point, when you get your degree from a University that required no skills or knowledge of any kind (so as not to discriminate) then exactly what is that degree supposed to tell us about how you differ from someone who does not have one?
...but as always, it is subject to implementation.
:)
First, some background:
I graduated from Colorado College (henceforth CC) in '96 with a degree in chemistry. And let me tell you right now, I never once took a fill in the blank type of test while I was there. All classes are small (limit of 24 students to a prof. No TA's) and generally oriented around the question of 'do you actually know what you are doing' rather than 'there are 458 of you, can you at least repeat what I said by filling in these little circles'. The small class size guaranteed that you got a front row seat and personal interaction with the prof if you wanted it.
There is ample research to show that standardized testing favors those who learn to take the test vs. those who only learn the subject at hand. (I'll leave it up to the serious reader to provide links to the aforementioned papers...
As a personal example: During high school, I took the AP exams in Chemistry, American History and Calculus. I received a 2 (out of 5) in history and calc (sorry, kid, better luck next time). I received a 4 in the chemistry exam. The sad part was, I barely understood the chemistry at the time. I had a copy of an older AP Chemistry Exam and used that as my study guide. Therefore, by the time that I got to the actual exam, I had a very good idea of what was on the test and how the questions would be phrased. This is why there are companies that can guarantee a 200+ point increase on the SAT's: They don't teach you the material, they teach you the exam. There is a very big difference. (Ok, bonus question, all else being equal, who will attend these SAT prep courses? The kid who works after school to pay for the application fee for the college or the kid who drives a BMW to school? Now extrapolate and tell me who will do better on the exam and get into Harvard? Now remember, when you are talking about schools like CC, a score of 1000 puts you at the bottom of the pack where a 1200 will put you in the middle. )
Ask yourself this: How many times during the day are you required to take a standardized test? Ok, now how many times during the day are you required to interact with other people or solve a complicated problem that is not very well defined?
My time at CC was spent interacting with other people (profs and classmates) and solving complicated, loosely defined problems. I use those skills every day in my job as a unix systems administrator. The only time I fill in little circles is to subscribe to one of those free trade rags.
The admissions process should therefore try and identify those applicants who are able to effectively organize themselves and their thoughts around a given problem. Bonus points if they can also organize the others around them.
But anyway, my $0.02 worth
John
I'm all for alternative testing to get into college, but it's only a step in the process. Jusrt getting disadvantaged students into college does not guarantee their success. Traditional curricula also need to be adjusted.
Getting "disadvanted" folks into college is a laudable goal, as long as you aren't throwing more qualified applicants out to do so. If you are, then you are at best merely substitutied one unfairness for another. More likely you have chucked a reasonably fair and objective system for a very unfair one, which happens to favor whatever disadvantaged group you are wishing to promote at the expense of everyone else.
Indeed, if you substitute arbitrary standards (or worse still, subjective interviews) for reasonably objective standards, you eliminate any degree of fairness whatsoever from the system and replace it with an economy of favors and influence.
If there is a group of "disadvantaged" people who can't cut it in academia as it now stands (due to "test paralysis" or whatever), feel free to establish an alternative university with different standards and metrics designed for that group. But do not deny those of us who are capable of excelling at academics a good education to do so by dumming down our existing universities, or so slanting entrance standards to such a point that they become meaningless.
What is next? Getting rid of exams altogether (after all, if you can't pass an entrance exam what makes you think you can pass the first semester's mid-terms or finals)? Social promoting? ("It just isn't fair that someone with a BS makes a better living than a high school graduate, so everyone gets a BS!") Some other nebulous notion of achievement based on some administrator's completley subjective notion on how well a student did (and how do you document this "performance" to insure even a modicum of fairness?), as opposed to imperfect tests which at least strive to be fairly objective and which, for whatever other weaknesses they possess, can at least be referred to, reviewed, even regraded if necessary)? That might actually fly in areas with a great deal of subjectivity anyway (e.g. some of the Arts and Humanities), but in areas of hard science such an approach would be absurd in the extreme.
As for objectivity being a myth, or unattainable, as another poster suggested, that is simply hogwash. Perfect objectivity may be unattainable, just as a perfectly (i.e. 100%) effecient engine isn't possible to build, but high degrees of objectivity and fairness are achievable (just as highly effecient motors which run quite well, if not "perfectly", are). The effort to achieve objectivity is certainly not something to be discarded in favor of selection methods which are fundamentally subjective and completely unfair altogether (as the proposed "interview" approach would be), or simply so off-target as to be meaningless (as the "Lego" approach is).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Just for background,
/.
I graduated from The Colorado College in 1994.
The article does not mention some very important facts.
#1 CC is a private school which consistently ranks in the top 25 liberal arts schools in the nation.
#2 CC likes to try new things and prides itself on being on the cutting edge of education.
As has been pointed out by others, this program is not replacing SAT's with Legos. Yet again the media is misrepresenting something because it looks good in a byline. One small part of the battery of tests includes lego's, but most people would ignore an article titled "CC tries alternative to SAT's", whereas "CC replaces SAT's with Legos" will cause a frenzy such as we see here at
Minorities play an important role at CC, and the administration appreciates the diversity and is always attempting to promote that diversity. (Even if many of the minoritys constantly protest that not enough is being done.)
All I can say is that at least CC is trying to do something to give underprivileged kids a chance. This may not work, but it is an attempt.
I juss bilt uh crak house outta lego!
Now I too can make millions off of a book: LEGOS FOR DUMMIES!
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
You seem to assume that standardized tests are perfectly objective, which is not necessarily true. When a test is designed, it will invariably reflect the cultural biases of those who design it.
I still haven't figured out exactly how you can bias a standardized test. Nobody has offered an actual example yet. I've heard this claim many times in articles or on the radio, but have never heard of even a single example.
Aren't the tests based on what the students are supposed to be taught in school? If they are being taught these things in school, then shouldn't they be able to pass the tests?
It seems like if there is a problem with students passing the tests, then that problem is probably with the schools, not the tests. Are the tests unreasonably difficult or what? I'm just looking for some actual examples here.
Here's a bit of my background, just in case it gives any insight into why I can't seem to understand this. I went to public schools in Texas from 3rd grade to graduation. They weren't very good schools. The classes were too big. Discipline was spotty at best. Real teaching was eschewed in favor of the teacher writing notes on the board, copied straight from the book, which the class was supposed to copy for themselves. Why we sat around re-writing the textbook instead of just reading, discussing, and using the knowledge, I'll never understand. I still managed to pass the standardized tests (and actually did quite well on them).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I liked that post. Please dump a couple of points on it. Thank you.
I was so proud of my SAT score when I received it. But I got to college and found that my awesome SAT scores meant absolutely nothing. I almost failed out during my freshman year in college. I don't understand why colleges still require these antiquated, useless scores. When I went to an info session at West Point, they said that SAT scores are the only common denominator among people across the country so that was what they used. SATs I guess are meant as a way to judge a student against the rest of the nation, since High Schools differ so greatly in quality, but what good is measuring a student against the rest of the nation if the measuring tool itself is broken? Really, I know people who got in the 1100s who are doing much better than I am.
SATs are simply another way for the College board to rip high schoolers off. That and the $75-per-exam AP tests -- which most colleges don't even care about anyway.
My first reaction to this Lego thing was scorn, but after thinking about it, almost anything would be better than the SATs. Then again, why doesn't the college just prepare its own comprehensive entrance exam? How do you rate a Lego creation?
With this Lego test, I probably would have gotten into college when I was 12!
___________________
rooooar
In real life. What's next? Better interest
rates? Valuation of spending dollars based
on race?
Sounds absurd doesn't it? This issue isn't
governed by sanity anymore. Expect anything.
If you didn't read the article do so, it makes more sense than many of the comments I've read here do. Moving right along.
Anyone who claims that standardized test are anything like fair or who gives some sort of credibility to the idea that they measures how well you will do in collage is ignorant of the facts. Check out Frontlines special on the SAT. To paraphrase the CEO of Kaplan (the number one provider of SAT tutoring), "For $400 I can raise any kids score 200 points in a week. Did I make them smarter? No, I just taught him the tricks to do well on a standardized test. So what does it mean then. It means money not intelligence will get you into college". Or from the vice president of the company that puts out the SAT (EM?, I forget), "We know that these test don't measure intelligence, but its a metric that is now the de facto standard". No one, not even the people most intimately involved with the test, believes standardized measures anything credible.
And when did disadvantaged and minority become synonymous. Poverty is the most significant disadvantage. If you live in a poor neighborhood, you pay less in property taxes which means local schools get less money and in turn, you get less than desirable teachers, text books you probably are NOT allowed to take home, etc, etc. So now you want to take a $50 test (hope you can afford it) with no other preparation. I will bet you $1000 to $1 that anyone whose parents make over $100,000 a year will do better than anyone who's parent (notice the singular) makes less than $15,000 a year. And I will win 99 times out of 100. Poverty is cyclical. The barriers to the world we live in (yes us, reading this on our computers), are extremely difficult to surmount and it isn't just will or effort that is required. You need a family infrastructure, you need money and you need a whole hell of a lot of guts.
At least these people at Colorado College are trying to make a more fair way. This may not be the answer but it's an effort to find a solution to a system that obviously doesn't work.
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Without spell check I'd be extinct by now.
Do you ever feel like there are people watching you? You're not alone.
Colorado College is not exactly the finest academic institution in my home town (or the world). If you can't meet their standards for SAT or ACT scores, you probably should be working at McDonald's, regardless of skin color.
At last, the equality for all movement reaches the desired height: baby blocks on the college entrance exam. Them homies can't read nuthin, can't rite nuthin, but damn, can they bust it out with the blox. This is what happens when stupid people spend time playing hoops and selling crack rather than learning (hey, I'm not knocking hoops or crack, just the idea that learning is unecessary for entry into college).
As remedial programs continue to engulf the university freshman (due to lack of preparation by his high school), "exams" like this will grow in popularity. Can't spell? Try oragami. Can't add? That's ok, as long as you can tie your shoes. It tests manual dexterity, leadership, and organization skills. No good at history? Here, take this tic-tac-toe test.
You geek boys amuse me. It's so kewl when it employs legos. Even if it means the examinees are rock-fucking-stupid. Want to play with legos? Do it on your own time (and dime). Don't sabotage my education because you're too lazy or stupid to learn.
Then this will be great. Until then, it shouldn't be used as a standard for admission. Standardized tests are flawed, but most of the coursework that one has to do in school is grounded in the stuff tested by the SAT/ACT/etc.
Efforts to come up with a broader admission standard are good, but only in combination with standards that reflect one's ability to do the coursework and are applied objectively. Otherwise the standards are unfair to the people who do work hard to do well on the tests, and patronizing to those who don't.
I'm not sure how great I'd feel to fail a few core courses after being accepted into a school on the basis of my LEGO abilities. Learning institutions are responsible for screening out those applicants who don't have a good chance of making it at the institution. Maybe if the finals in all of the courses were either a 125 question exam or a LEGO project....
Yours truly,
Mr. X
I am not sure how valid it is to use what people build with Legos for admissions purposes, but it is very important to realize that there are other ways of determining to admit a student other than test scores.
Such an opportunity should be given to all students - each student would have the possibility of including some other additional material with the college application, something they felt would speak to their advantage. A student who chose not to include additional material, be it a computer program, a work of art, or whatever, would not be penalized, but it would just be a way for certain students to display abilities that normally do not show up on standardized tests.
This reminds me of something that one of my Teachers told us about when he worked for UNESCO.
Lego (and not Legos) is generally regarded as a good educational toy, and it doesn't take long for most children to understand it. So, he decided to send a huge lorry full of Lego to a small village to see if this would help their development. After a few months, they visited and found that none of the children were playing with Lego. Even after showing them how to use it, the children still didn't quite get the hang of it.
The problem was that the society they were in didn't use bricks.
So, people from different backgrounds will could be unfairly disadvantaged by Lego.
Now, how do they plan to teach them?
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No Zen is good zen
But not for the reason you might think. Sure, the predictive value of the exams is pretty poor (although for psych measures, it's pretty high). The test is used, not so much to evaluate intellect, as it is for a filter. Dennet in _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_ gives a decent explanation. Say you have 1000 applicants and 100 slots. Who do you pick? Well, you want the ones with money, and skill (so they stay in, and keep paying). IQ and SAT scores may not be 100% reliable, nor are grade points, interveiw responses, or entrance essays. The point is, you need an arbitrary cutoff. If you only accept the top 10% of a given test group, it's arbitrary. How esle can it be done?
/how/ you solve it than /whether/ you solve it," I can only say that you lack understanding of the real world. In the fuzzy belly of kindergarten class, results are not important. On the job or at home, how hard you tried is irrelevant. Besides, taking only "the most creative" at solving problem X is just as arbitrary (how do you judge creativity?) as taking only people who scoree more than 1200 on the SAT.
As for your comment, "it's more important
Cruel? Perhaps. But that is reality.
My cock is hard right now, i had better go beat it...
I disagree even more strongly with white people designing tests that don't take into account the way non-white people think - a way which, while equally effective in the real world, does not add up to success on those particular tests.
People keep saying that minorities think differently or that the questions are biased based on quirks of language or some such thing. I'm just asking for an example or two to back these statements up. Right now, as near as I can tell, the fault lies in the schools for their poor teaching, and the government for its poor support of the schools. Education should be #1 in this country, but it seems that we just don't want to make the investment.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
For all this talk of what sort of test is the best predictor of success in higher education, I have never seen any sort of real analysis of what exactly should be done in college/what the point of higher education is. It's hard to design a test if we don't know what results we're trying to accomplish
I have my own opinions about what college was good for, and they don't involve massive amounts of class time and book learning.
Question:
Is there any free resource on the internet that provides test prep help? I would think that the test prep tactics that the Princeton review hoards for the rich can and should be made freely (FAIB*) available to everyone via the Internet. This is a perfect example of how the Internet can benefit the disadvantaged. We talk about information wanting to be free, and this is the kind of information that should be free.
*FAIB = free as in beer.
It gets used enough to warrant an acronym, IMHO.
There MUST be other people that actually read the article... So far, I've read at least two dozen posts complaining that "Legos can't replace SATs!!", posts by people who obviously haven't even read the whole blurb, let alone the article.
I thought it was just funny to see posts accusing others of not reading; turns out, it's just the sad truth... Jeezly crow, folks!! You might as well stick your feet in your mouth from an educated viewpoint, instead of posting without reading and looking like an idiot!!
</RANT>
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It's not the rambling I object to, so much as the mumbled incoherancies...
For what it's worth, the University of Michigan is another one of the 8 schools trying this out.
It was an interesting experience because it definitely did separate the leaders from the followers. (a leader being the type of person they were looking for). More importantly, it separated the bullies from the good leaders. In other words, the guy who was so convinced we should build a gun and ignored everyone else's opinions looked pretty foolish, even though he was being authoritative.
While I'm not sure this is the best way to pick college students, it does seem to be a logical way to pick people who would be in a position of authority. I don't necessarily agree that a good student is the one who organizes the study group, but they would likely make a good drill sergeant!
I still haven't figured out exactly how you can bias a standardized test. Nobody has offered an actual example yet. I've heard this claim many times in articles or on the radio, but have never heard of even a single example.
Aren't the tests based on what the students are supposed to be taught in school? If they are being taught these things in school, then shouldn't they be able to pass the tests?
Everything you do, everything you think, every action you perform is done with some sort of bias. Somebody had to pick the school curriculum; that person was biased because of his environment. You learn what has been biased-ly (can you say that?) chosen; you have just been influenced by someone else's biases; you are now biased.
There is no way to avoid outside influences, and if you're influences don't happen to be similar to the influences of the people writing the tests, you are automatically placed at some disadvantage.
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It's not the rambling I object to, so much as the mumbled incoherancies...
Face it, there is a major industry dedicated to making the public weep for them po' minority students. They get money for research, management, etc. And they get power, publicity, and prestige. Our system ALREADY gets all the students who are worthy and shuttles them to the top. There is no need for assistance (try giving a beggar a job, he'll refuse).
And the Asian example blows the "racist" questions out of the water. It's ambition, stupid. If the exams are biased, why do Asians do better THAN THE WHITE MAN? Do I smell a pork barrel on the fire?
There is no hope for those who refuse to achieve. The nellies who want us to help them should jump in a lake.
Maybe so, but if you cant MEMORIZE the bunch of bullshit, how are you going to program? Are you going to research every function you need to use, every time you need to use it? You going to research proper typing, program creation, HTML codes, etc. etc. etc. every time you need to use them? It would take you forever to get anything done, and noone would ever hire you. "Yes sir, I have no idea how to code in HTML, but every time you need me to use it, I'd be happy to research it." This is a crutch for people too lazy to study. End of story.
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
State run schools are heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Private schools have to pay nearly everything out of student tuition. So of course you don't "get" more out of that extra $20,000/year you're forking over. You're just paying at a private school what the state otherwise picks up at a public U.
the test is quite simple really. anyone that calls them "legos" fails.
That test grew into the classic Stanford-Binet test, which is still in use. That's a one-on-one test, usually given by psychologists. It has more range than the more popular paper-and-pencil tests, which lack resolution for the bottom and top 5% of the population. It's expensive to give, since it takes hours of psychologist time. It does test non paper-and-pencil skills, like this proposed new test. But the Stanford-Binet test is individual.
Scoring an individual acting as part of a group, as that new test tries to do, has reliability and bias problems. But it's a concept that's been made to work by the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines have a scheme called the Crucible for testing recruit group problem-solving skills. The Marines do it the hard way; they get the troops hungry and exhausted, then test them. It works for them.
A recent book on the measurement of intelligence, The G Factor, is worth reading. The big "g" controversy revolves around whether it's meaningful to have a single measure of "intelligence". The answer from research in the field seems to be yes, in that different measures of "intelligence" are strongly correlated, but the results are so politically incorrect that desperate attempts are made to avoid accepting this fact. Here's the problem, as a reviewer on Amazon writes:
Indeed, much of the opposition to IQ testing and heritability would probably disappear if it were not for the stubborn and unwelcome fact that, despite extensive well funded programs of intervention, the Black-White difference refuses to go quietly into the night. Chapter 11 of The g Factor fully documents that, on average, the American Black population scores below the White population by about 1.2 standard deviations, equivalent to 18 IQ points. (This magnitude of difference gives a median overlap of less than 15 percent, meaning that less than 15 percent of the Black population exceeds the White average of 50 percent). The difference between Blacks and Whites in average IQ scores has scarcely changed over the past 80 years (despite some claims that the gap is narrowing) and can be observed as early as three years of age. Controlling for overall socioeconomic level only reduces the mean difference by 4 IQ points.
That's the basis of the controversy.
Maybe I'm a bit different than most people in thinking this, but what is it about leadership that it is supposed to be a universal good? I'm not knocking leadership; I'm questioning why they are selecting for it. The dichotomy that is implicit here is that leadership is good, and following is bad. Not everyone can be a good leader. Not being a good leader doesn't mean that a person can't be an excellent follower. Without followers, there can be no leaders. If everyone is a leader, that creates chaos.
As an aside, has anyone found it funny that US Army commercials make a point to say that leadership is something taught in the armed forces? Then, just as soon as you get to boot camp, they yell at you and make you good at following orders... heh heh...
In companies that I've worked for that made it a point to hire only people with leadership qualities we had a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but dinner was always late. Now I'm a contractor and I am expected to write the programs that I am told to write, not set business policy. I prefer to do it that way, not because I am deficient, but because it's more of my natural style. Leadership sometimes demands a lot of arguing and confrontation in order to forge a path for those you are trying to lead. People who are not naturally willing to push their ideas might not be as effective as those who are more agressive that way. I doubt that leadership is an effective predictor of your final GPA at college. It might be more useful in predicting who will become a fraternity or sorority president.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I don't know about "thinking differently", but certainly there are differences in vocabulary and usage between socioeconomic groups, and these groups correspond strongly to race.
One example that I saw in (IIRC) a study guide based on old SAT tests was something like "Regatta is to boat as..." That's one's not just culturally biased, it's geographically biased - how many people living in landlocked Iowa, compared to costal Maryland, know what a regatta is?
Another one, that I read about in an article on standardized tests, involved the word "buttercup". Imagine that you live in the ol' concrete jungle, where wildflowers are not exactly common. You might just think that a buttercup was perhaps some sort of a kitchen implement, whereas suburban kids like myself used to pick buttercups for our moms.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I agree. Retention, I think, is one of the most important aspects of learning. The more stuff you remember, the more likely you are to make non-immediate connections.
nick
The book had some absolutely jaw-dropping assertions regarding intelligence, intelligence testing, college admissions, social ills, and most of all, race and intelligence. The series in the book went something like this:
There is a single measurable core of intelligence, known as g (as first proposed by a man named Spearman, near the turn of the century)
This g (g == general intelligence) factor is substantially inheiritable, and there are differences found along racial lines in it
g substantially effects how people succeed in life. The authors assert it is a better predictor of adult earnings, college admissions, and so on, than is any other measure (once the subject is 10+ yrs of age, where measuring g stabilizes).
It is a fascinating and controversional book, with a hefty bearing on the subject at hand. Some of the statistics in the book point out the enormous SAT differences in some of the top colleges in the US of students of different races. The Black vs White SAT scores for the top 13 schools varied as much as ~170 points. (this is freshman admission scores) That in itself is not particularly controversial -- you can't argue against a number. But Murray and Herrnstein assert that this difference is caused by inheiritable intelligence differences -- i.e., whites are smarter than blacks, as groups. In fact, they basically state that whites are a full standard deviation smarter -- that the intelligence of the average white person places them in the 86th percentile of the black population. The more PC and traditional way of explaining this is the effects of socio-economic status on the test-takers in question.
With such assertions, its easy to see both why the book sold 500,000 copies, and why it spawned off a half dozen books, a hundred articles, and a storm of discussion. But how does it pertain to Legos? Well, one of Herrnstein and Murray's social policy recommendations was the strong change or removal of affirmative action. They claimed that permitting the disparity in scores gave a view on campuses of blacks and latinos (the "lower intelligence" groups their statistics showed) as incapable, and that it deprived "more capable" students of their chances.
Critics of the book and its science and policy have stated that the statistics methods used (specifically, multiple-regression analysis on the effects of Socio-economic status and iq scores and other factors) were prone to inaccuracy and misinterpretation. Critics also favored an attack against g as a concept -- that is, stating that a single intellectual ability does not exist, preferring measurements by other theories, including 3 or 7 "intelligences". When all was said and done, more people clearly came out against the book that for its premises and conclusions. Some parts met with more controversy than others. (Some of the less mentioned parts mention how, since people of intelligence levels tended to associate due to work, etc, and therefore have children in those circles, that if intelligence is genetic then the smart are getting smarter and the dumb are getting dumber, basically-- compounded by the fact that people of high intelligence (correlated with high education) have less children, and later in life.)
Two viewpoints on the book, for those interested, can be found at this link. For anyone interested in admissions testing, intelligence and its relationship to affirmative action, this is a must read, as are its equally well written and well argued counterarguments.
Note: the views expressed by the Bell Curve are not necessarily MY views, per se. I only recently read the book and a couple of the books with counterarguments or collections of them, and have not formed any solid conclusions yet. But the controversy was large, and the documentation copious, so investigation is worthy regardless of your political or social predisposition. I'm all about comments, but given the inflammatory nature of the material, please keep in mind that I'm not endorsing either side, so leave the flamethrowers at home.
The article clearly states that only 14% of the people in the program were "American ethnic minorites." This is for people who teachers/counselors/whoever know are smart enough to contribute but don't do well on tests. I for one would welcome a lot more people in college who are not as "book smart" but have leadership capabilities or think at right angles to other people (to steal a phrase from a former teacher). Just because somebody doesn't do well on the SATs doesn't mean they should be dropped from society or unable to continue their education. This test recognizes that there is more to being intelligent than just being able to fill in bubbles correctly on a scantron sheet.
slashdot-terminal is a well-known idiot. He is also a karma-whore. Check out the other drivel he has posted.
The problem with standardized testing (in my experience) is that schools teach to the test. I remember in middle school my English and science teachers abruptly stopped what we were studying in class and taught only what the test was going to cover. Did this help us? Maybe we did a bit better on the tests, but we also lost several weeks out of our education.
As for these "alternative" tests with legos and such, it seems that you must work well as a leader of a group in order to do well. Leadership abilities count for something, but in college most profs aren't going to say "Okay everyone, get in groups for your exam." You have to have some sort of competence in something to contribute to a group effort and merely being able to tell people what to do doesn't always cut it in the long run.
I seem to have lost track of my point here. Basically, standardized tests- bad, lego alternative tests- also bad. But, until we come up with a magic wand that we could wave over the applicant's head and use to predict how they'll do in college or life (success in college doesn't always mean success in life) I don't see that it matters which type of testing is used. Some people are going to be denied admission because they don't test well and others who bubble test will be admitted.
The MEAP is just like most other standardized tests, useful perhaps in some situations, but with way too much importance placed on it.
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I agree that quality primary and secondary education is the larger issue - which, given current funding models boils down to a class/ecomomic issue.
But since you've asked here are a few examples of race/class/gender/regional bias in the SAT:
In the vocabulary tests, like analogies, there are often words that have a distinct social class bias, such as regatta. Now, crew is a very expensive sport so poor kids are far less likely to know what a regatta is, even if they are extremely well read. But even the dumbest kids at my prep school knew about regattas. I think I've seen saling examples as well. I remember reading about one for castleing, and guys are far more likly to play chess, yet playing chess isn't a great college admissions standard. There have also been arguments about words w/ a regional bias, some kids never experience a snow drift or a breakhead.
To take it to an extreme, think about what would happen if football, hockey, stockmarket, basketball or sewing vocabulary, or words related to different music genres were on the tests. (guitar is to pedal as:)
- bridgette
OK, for starters:
What's worse are the so-called solutions to the "problem" of the SAT's supposed "cultural bias".
Oh, cultural bias does shave a few points here and there, but not as much as economic bias. I used to run a non-profit test prep service where we charged 5 bucks and the book at our cost. We mainly wanted to help disadvantaged kids. We saw modest improvements, it's been a long time but I remember something like 15-20 points on each side being typical. If you walked into the SAT and I gave you a chit saying that we were going to take 40 points off your combined score because of the school you came from, you'd howl like a stuck pig, because unless your combined score was north of 1450 or so this would put you out of the running somewhere. That's essentially what happens to poor kids who are stuck in a dead end school, unless they can find people who are willing to tutor them for practically free like we used to. And remember -- we did nothing to improve the chance of the kid's success in college -- only his chance of getting in. We didn't make them smarter, only better test takers.
There are genius an dolts among us.
Yep, and there are genius-dolts too. I knew quite a few people who had 1600 combined and, you know what? They weren't always as successful as people with combined scores in the 1400 range. Intelligence tests like the SAT measure very narrow capabilities, and not necessarily every capability you need to succeed in life, or even as a student.
Intelligence tests are inherently imprecise, in that unlike measures of distance, mass and time they cannot be corroborated by anything but other intelligence tests. As such, they are engineered to confirm our personal biases. SAT scores went through a long period of decline because they were engineered to do so -- the test is checked and recalibrated every year. This is justifiable, because it should have declined over the last several decades because of demographic changes in college bound seniors -- but it's good to remember this when reading breathless media accounts of the dumbing down of our student population. Great story, from Steve Chorover's book From Genesis to Genocide: When the Stanford-Binet test was first translated from French, it has a peculiar quirk: women on average scored five or ten points higher than men. The "researchers" then recalibrated the test, throwing out questions that women did good on and adding more of the sort men did good on until the test was gender-neutral. If the initial results had gone the other way, how much do you want to bet it would have stood?
IQ tests DO have their place, but they aren't enough. Getting to know a student by watching him in action is a great idea, and a great way to find the kids who have the balls to succeed even if they're starting from behind. Not mention to weed out the people who look good just on paper. I recently fired somebody with an engineering master's degree, because while he said he could adapt to our technology, he didn't have the drive to learn and succeed when things weren't handed to him on a platter.
Instead of trying to give extra help, lowering requirements, or inventing new tests for low GPA HS grads who can't get into colleges, you should really be looking why they aren't up to snuff in the first place and go fix that.
Changing the requirements to measure poise, leadership, ability to cooperate with others is not lowering standards, it is changing them. For some people, these changes would represent considerably more stringent requirements. Combined with standard IQ testing, this will give a better picture.
Fix the educational inequities where they form so that there are no problems that need special tests and special admissions rules to address.
How is a college admissions officer supposed to accomplish that? His job is to do a fair a job as possible at finding kids who will succeed at his school -- not to fix the world. For that matter, how do you propose we as a society are going to give every child equal educational opportunity? Improving education is like self-improvement. There's no magic formula, just a long, hard road with lots of failure and disappointment at the outset but hopefully leading someplace better.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Answer: He'll tell the man that he sold only 10 grams and the following evening hell break into the record store and steal the album and the boombox and be left with 900$.
Here's an interesting fact that might be a little less off topic:
Studies recently reported in Science News suggest that students at charter schools do not do any better than at their counterparts at public schools on standard measures of acheivement. Parents, however, express much higher degrees of satisfaction with charter schools.
It isn't clear whether charter schools really are better and the tests don't show it, or whether they aren't really better but parents are somehow bamboozled.
What remains clear is that the time tested formula for producing higher test scores: select the best students (or population of students) and spend a lot of money on them.
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No, the SAT's aren't the be-all, end-all of admissions, but I'd hate to be the kid who worked really hard in school to get the grades I did, just to get a rejection letter from my school of choice because I was passed over for someone who didn't have any academic requirements to speak of (at least not as good as mine) but he/she could play with Lego really well!
Ouch. It's bad enough that things get watered down to admit people solely on the basis of being able to play sports well, even though in many sports-oriented schools less than half will eventually graduate, but if you're going to ditch the SAT's, shouldn't it be in favor of some metric of academic achievement?
My new mantra: stop rewarding stupidity. It's the only way to prevent the next Dark Ages from taking more control than it already has.
Was it Carnegie who funded the creation of a private company to test college-bound students? Unfortunately, he wedded test scores with social/material mobility by creating these gatekeepers. These tests are generally a corrupted measure.
Go watch the olympics and see that the records are in the various events where there are mens and womens competitons (100m sprint, weightlifting, etc.). Also, go to your local school and look at the list ph physical fitness requirements (i.e., how many pull-ups boys have to do to pass vs. for girls). If society can accept (as inferred from how it currently judges us), why can we not accept that there are inherent differences between other groups of people (by sex or by race) in mental areas? And, duh, there will always be exceptions.
Go watch the olympics and see that the records are in the various events where there are mens and womens competitons (100m sprint, weightlifting, etc.). Also, go to your local school and look at the list ph physical fitness requirements (i.e., how many pull-ups boys have to do to pass vs. for girls).
Go to the maternity ward and watch women and men attempting to give birth.
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CC has just said blacks can't learn to read, so we've got to make up other tests. But playing with blocks? Hell, even William Shockley gave them more credit than that.
Don't you know how to turn on your brain? This has got to be the most stupid idea ever. Watch for the rebuttal by Thomas Sowell, a black who is a much better thinker than you.
For any student that is even marginally literate, niether of the examples should pose a problem regardless of the test-taker's "socioeconomic background"!
Ths simple fact is that *anyone* applying to enter *college* should be well read enough to know the trivial facts that a regatta is a (sail)boat race, and a buttercup is some kind of flower. There's no cultural bias at all here - most of us have never participated in a regatta, yet it is quite reasonable to expect that we should at least know what one is. There is, on the other hand, an entirely appropriate bias toward literacy in the examples you cite.
In fact, it seems that it's your comment that contains the subtle racial bias, by implying that somehow, certain races can't be expected to measure up, so we'll have to cut them some slack. This is surely the most vile and corrosive form of racism possible!
The answer isn't to dumb down the tests, the answer is to make sure that our children can escape having their lives ruined by educrats who are more interested in hoovering dollars from Washington and making illiterate kids feel good about it (they call this "self-esteem") than they are in graduating literate, functional, citizens. (We actually graduate a non-trivial number of people in this country every year that can't read their diploma - There is no excuse for this! With any kind of proper teaching, children (with very few exceptions) can and should exhibit survival-level reading ability as they leave *first* grade!)
If you're interested in actually fixing the problem, I highly recommend the following two books to become somewhat more literate on the educational problems we face: Doug Wilson's "Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning" (which includes mystery novelist and solid thinker Dorothy Sayers' excellent essay on "The Lost Tools of Learning"), and Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's "For the Children's Sake".
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
It looked sort of like this:
a b c
b c a
c a -
You were supposed to figure out the last - from the matrix. Of course, this is a really easy one. The test started out really easy, and then turned pretty hellish in a matter of minutes. 3x3 turns into 5x5, the shapes change until the answer can be a shape you've never seen before, the location of the - changes, etc. Most of my friends who were applying with me spent ages cursing this test, but I enjoyed it. The reason? I had a video game which had a puzzle like this on every level, called "Secrets of the Ancient Empire" or something like that by the Learning Company. So I was used to it.
My point is, I think this was the best test for gauging someone's "intelligence" that I have ever run across. Or rather, the best test for gauging someone's logical and reasoning skills. It doesn't require math, it doesn't require english, all it requires is the ability to spot patterns, and predict the outcome - skills which are usefull no matter what field you go into.
Besides, it was fun. ;) I think it was called a raven matrix, but I'm not sure anymore. No matter what they're called, this test has my vote for replacing the SAT.
Tepp
- When the group is assembled:
- Be the first person to speak up so the other students automatically associate you as the group leader.
- Say "What do you guys think?"
- Nod your head, but ignore whatever they are saying. This is an especially useful skill for those pursuing a career in management or administration.
- Apply Divide + Conquer method. Suggest that "we" group "ourselves" so that "we" can "maximize" "our" "resources". I.e., figure out who had the best recollection of the head, the arms, etc. and have them built the parts separately.
- Congratulations, you probably just got accepted into a bogus liberal arts school when you could've gone to engineering school to build bigger and more kickass robots.
Remark: Do not employ the assembly line method to construct the robot, lest you get sued by the heirs of Henry Ford for violating intellectual property rights.For those of you not lucky enough to face the Lego challenge when applying for college...
Here's the Algorithm To Beat the Standardized Tests (ACT):
Humor aside; I honestly don't know whether or not this admissions policy idea would be a good idea. It's not the effectiveness of the program that I doubt. I am just not convinced that it is fair to all personality types. Perhaps it would be worth testing to see if perhaps one of the Meyer-Briggs personality types is favored by the tests.
I did a little bit of research on the person mentioned in the article who innovated the program-- Deborah Bial. Apparently she previously worked on a program called "Posse" to help disadvantaged youths get into college and succeed (Click here for story). Now, a program called "Posse" reeks of liberal reform; the name alone makes me groan. But hey, if these programs work to help nurture students who will turn out to be more productive employees and community leaders, it's a good for our society and economy.
But again, I'm not convinced that the tests in an admissions environment are fair for all. Personally, I avoid "Let's get into groups and reach out to each other!" fluff like the plague. I'm fairly certain that's due to my more introverted personality and not a lack of ambition or initiative to succeed.
Swiss Pope read h0e!@# anarchy t-file releases!
Ths simple fact is that *anyone* applying to enter *college* should be well read enough to know the trivial facts that a regatta is a (sail)boat race
- ----------
Actually, whether the boats in the race have sails or not has no bearing on whether or not a race is called a regatta. The Head of the Charles in Cambridge MA is also referred to as 'The Regatta' and none of the boats in it have sails.
-----------------------------------------------
That's why I put "sail" in the parentheses. Although a regatta does not necessarily imply sail-powered craft, the word seems to be most frequently used in that context, at least in my experience.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
hmmm....time for your medication, correct?
perhaps they give you a bucket of legos, and say, "you have one hour, build an acurate scale model of Notre Dame cathedral"
Here's the problem:
... when preparing for the SATs, high school students from solidly middle-class to upper-middle class families with white-collar, college educated parents have a HUGE advantage. Make that several:
First of all, race makes a handy metaphor for class in the U.S. since anyone talking about the "lower class" must be a dirty Commie (everyone's middle class, and all the children are above average, blahblahblah). So enough with the racism complaints (not directed at the previous poster, but at the thread in general). "Non-white" seems to be the only way to describe "dirt-poor" that will make it into public discourse.
This, of course, creates a problem. Namely, the rich non-whites are getting into college just fine, and poor kids (white and otherwise) are left to rot.
Next problem: As others on this thread have already pointed out, the SAT questions are biased towards the upper-middle-class suburban life. Someone from Appalachia or from the "concrete jungle" is going to have a serious problem with those questions. One example that's always stuck with me (not an SAT, but another standardized test for younger kids) that I saw back in my days of work-study work for an educational consultant was this:
You were playing with your friend's ball and lost it. What do you do?
1. Buy him a new one and pay for it (answer worth 2 points)
2. Look all over for it, try to find it (answer worth 1 point)
3. I'd just cry; say I'm sorry; apologize (answer worth 0 points)
Um, do we see a slight problem here? The damn test is using "throw money at the problem" as the right answer! That's NOT going to work for kids that have no money.
Speaking of throwing money at the problem
1. The parents have probably had to go through the standardized testing process at some point, and can sit down with their little wannabe college students and grill them.
2. They can also afford SAT prep courses.
3. They can also (sometimes) afford private schools, and/or to live in places where the public schools are good.
4. In some cases, there's a difference between merely getting into a specific college and getting into said college with enough money to go there. The kids who got (at most) 1200 on their SATS and come from rich families are a "level playing field" for the kids who got 1500 and are on full (or nearly full) scholarship.
I know a lot of this from personal experience. I was homeschooled from 3rd-6th grade, and every year I went to take the Iowa tests with the kids in school. The first year, I ran into a severe crisis on the math section that can best be summed up as "lots of problems really fast." All my other scores were in at least the 75th percentile (most were in the 95th plus), but this one was somewhere around 38th percentile. Mom thought something was strange about this and asked me what was going on. I explained, and she started drilling me on fast-paced timed arithmetic tests. I think I jumped up to 97th percentile on that same section the following year.
And as for the concept of the SATs et al testing "what you need to know to succeed in college," they do no such thing. Again from personal experience. I was in Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth program. A prerequisite for admission to said program was scoring at least 430 on the old Verbal and 500 on the old Math SAT at the time I participated. Some of us did fabulously well in life. Some of us who were big fish in small ponds in high school got to college and realized that we might be intelligent, we might be brilliant standardized-test takers, but we didn't know how to study! I was screwed the first time I had to write a research paper in college. Didn't know what in the H-E-double hockey sticks I was doing. I also tested out of (or nearly so) classes that I really should have taken, and the holes in my mathematical, scientific, and music theory background came back to haunt me again and again in college.
One of my friends from CTY summer camp? She got a 1500 on the SAT when she was 12 years old. She received early admission to the same college program I did, then transferred to Alfred -- and flunked out. Last time I talked to her, she was working fast-food. So much for high SAT scores predicting success, huh? She wasn't the only one in a similar situation, just the most drastic example I can think of to show how completely the SAT doesn't predict success on a damn thing other than taking standardized tests.
And yes, I know that a poor and hard-working kid can beat the odds, study on his/her own, and make it into a good college. (I went to school with quite a lot of them.) I also know that, again, the playing field isn't level. They worked a lot harder to get where they are than those of us who had money and/or parents in an educational field.
This issue is so incredibly complex that writing off any one approach as "laughable" is, itself, laughable.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I attended a BM course in the UK in 1988 where they use Lego to teach leadership and group dynamics.
We were told that we were going to look at a model of a house for a maximum of five minutes, then we had to build one as close to the original as possible. Marks awarded to the most accurate.
The smart thing was to ask to see the model in one minute intervals, take notes of the bottom of the model first, build it, then return for another minute comparing what you built and then making notes on the next stage.
We were split into various groups and told that each person must have certain tasks to do, like build the roof, put in windows etc.
It was a lot of fun, and we scammed a stay in a five star hotel for the weekend!
Task Mangler
I hate to offend people, but vocab questions like "Regatta is to boat as..." or one involing buttercup, can be solved by any idiot who HAS A GOOD VOLCABULARY! honestly, in my everyday life, regattas tend not to come up, but I know what it is, because I pay attention in class and I study my vocab.
Now, a question like "All bears in the north are white. My friend from up north saw a bear, what color was it?" would be unfair to some nomadic asian people, because they DON't think like that. But vocab is vocab. You want to do good, you STUDY THE DAMN VOCAB. And thats that. Meanwhile, I think its more likely the "ghetto" attitude of "I Don't care, because everybody wants me to fail" that leads minorities to do worse than the majority. They don't study and then do bad.
Or then there is the possibility that the majorities have an advantage due only to their larger sample group.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
There is an obvious bias in the way this lego test is set up. In the article, it was stated that the candidates are being evaluated on their leadership ability while building the lego robot, which begs the question, if everyone is leading, who's doing the building?
For every leader, you need followers. There is no progress if everyone tells everyone else what to do; I hope these students, students which are so disadvantaged in their situation that this might be their only shot at getting into a good school and getting a college level education, are being fairly evaluated. You can be intelligent without being a leader. Sometimes the brighter kid is the one that shuts up and follows the directions of those that took charge before him/her. Why? Because the brighter kid realizes that the project is in capable hands and that in order to complete the project, someone needs to follow along and do the work. The brighter kid nows that sometimes its better to work within the confines of a system than to take charge him/herself and create schism in the group. Pissing contests, while great fun, don't serve any productive purpose.
I guess it all depends on the intelligence of those people evaluating these kids. Cross your fingers.
And really, who thinks the SAT reflects intelligence anyway?
I'm from equally landlocked South Dakota and I sure as hell knew what a regatta was when I was in high school. I suppose you may have a point if all ones knowledge was just based on the immediate surroundings. But guess what? That's why we had vocabulary and spelling tests, required to READ books from the library and write reports on them, watch documentaries, etc. I guess that's not done anymore. One might even pick up a few things off the boob tube, but only if it's not on a channel like MTV.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I think Heisenberg answered this question best. Ultimately, simply designing a test effects it's outcome. If a University wants to design a test to allow more of a given group in, they will do so. Likewise, if they want to design a test to prohibit a certain group they can just as easily do so.
One has to wonder if the application of a universal test (such as the SAT) to a group of diverse individuals with diverse goals is wise. It sounds like a single standard in a world full of varibles. For example, suppose an individual wanted to get a degree in programming and he got an 1150 on the SAT. How many would say he was qualified? Not many, right? Now supose he got that 1150 with a score of 750 in math and 400 in English. Suddenly, it takes on new meaning. His math/logic skills are certainly there, and even his lacking English abilities, can serve to an advantage in a world where normal English grammer doesnt apply.
In the end, the world is created to our design and we will continue to perform test to prove so.
"I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
I dare you to post your REAL IP ;o)
It looks like academic excellence isn't the number 1 priority anymore. It appears that having a 'diverse' (however you define it) college student body is more important. Are they going to water down the curricullum or change the tests so these students can take equally subjective tests for all their subjects? Which is more racist or insulting:
This sort of crap has already been done to the primary and secondary schools in this country and the resulting product is worse than before. The HS diploma is worthless, but the person with one has high self esteem. Do we want all educational institutions in this country equally shitty? To be fair, colleges should set high academic standards and apply them to everyone. If some groups don't do as well as others, then it is up to the educational institutions serving those groups to buckle down and work harder so that those individuals improve so that they can meet those standards, not change the standards. Not only does that send the message that they can't meet the standard, it diminishes the achievement of others.
I know this isn't entirely new at the college level. The president of my engineering college had the entrance requirements and the freshman level classes loosened up in order to attract and keep more female students (a common gripe was the 3:1 male:female ratio). The school brought in more people (and more tuition $$$) and kept more students. However, once they got to the sophomore and junior level classes which weren't made easier, they dropped out or transferred in droves. Colleges have also had exemptions if the student was in the top X% of their HS class or had been out of high school for a certain number of years. The former reminds me of a girl from a high school in PA that was admitted to a state college because she was #1 in her class even though she scored a 400 on the SAT (that's including the 200 pts given nowdays just for showing up). Other examples are the bending of the rules so that the athletic department can bring in the star athletes. I used to think that colleges and universities are for those that have proven that they can succeed academically and that community colleges, vo-techs, trade schools were for those that still want an education but couldn't make the higher standard. It must be a numbers game anymore with bean counters making sure there are a variety of warm bodies in the chairs.
* - This is bascially the text of a letter an inlaw said was sent home to his parents when his school was integrated in the 60s. He went from a C student to an A student overnight. It's sad to know that there was a chance to try to have everyone meet the same high standard, but instead the standards were lowered to insure that everyone would pass and feel good about it. No wonder why the US scores so low in achievement tests compared to other countries.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I for one would welcome a lot more people in college who are not as "book smart" but have leadership capabilities
Yeah, well, unfortunately college is ABOUT "book smarts" last time I checked, not about leadership training. So it seems appropriate to test for "book smarts".
You can't force people to get along with one another. Look at nature, do you see the crows hanging out with the pigeons? No. You can't force me to like black people. Ever notice when a white guy kills a black guy, its called a hate crime. When a black guy kills a white guy its not a hate crime. The black guy gets his free government public defender and claims it was "black rage". Hey I didn't force you to kill that guy. That was all you.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
"Wow, that guy got the wishbone out on his first try. Nobody's ever done that before. He's on the fast track to the top."
You need to get involved with distance education.
Just make a point of proving your worth and abilities to people with major amounts of cash or access to a lot of cash. What you do isn't really that important in the long run -- because we are going to be dead eventually. Intellectuals are rather arrogant so if it fits your personality, do what makes a lot of money and gives you some self-respect at the end of the day.
I am not sure any kid ever experiences a "breakhead." Maybe a "breakwater," though. A "breakhead" would probably be a exceptionally large cudgel wielded by an exceptionally large cave man.
Now this is more like it ! SAT prove nothing more than your brain can store information. This proves you can do more !
Commonly quoted, but not as accurate as they like to make it sound. SAT's, etc., have fairly strong correlation to college performance. They *also* have correlation to your "socioeconomic background".
This doesn't mean "ah-hah, they're really measuring your background". It might mean "your background and your chances in college are related".
If you were a social darwinist, you'd claim that poor people are poor because they're stupid.
If you believe in nurture over nature, you might argue that the majority of poor kids were *ALREADY* denied a good education when their parents didn't read to them enough.
Either way, the tests *do* correlate to your chances of doing well in school. Someone's gonna try to offer a "counterexample".
That's not how correlation works. Correlation measures *tendencies*. Not absolute causal relationships.
SAT scores are a pretty good indicator for future college performance. Doesn't matter if they're measuring intelligence, or amount of exposure to books in the home, or what - they measure how well you are likely to do in a specific, relevant real world situation, and that's the end of the story.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Ummm, if you really don't want to offend anyone, you might want to back off of attributing a "ghetto" attiude to minorities. There are white, non-white, homogonous and diverse ghettos and there are bad attitudes in every economic class.
:)
The study in the article was looking for ways to provide opportunities to disadvantaged and minority kids. One's economic class and parental education level are the greatest indicators of one's success on the SATs. There are many reasons for this, but the greatest infuence is quality of your schooling. Generally this is determined by the neighborhood you live in (schools are funded by property tax), mom and dad's ability to pay for private school and/or the education level of your parents (figure out how to get you into a better school against the odds, or homeschool you).
Moreover, in a really good school, the teachers and advisors tell you how important the SAT's are and how you should prepare, college educated parents would also inform their kids. In lesser schools and with uneducated parents, kids often have no clue about college or the college admissions process. Some kids know to explicitly study for the SATs and others don't.
But the big issue isn't the really smart kids with a good vocabulary who study really hard . They will get very high scores anyway, even if they do miss a few biased questions. Kids with 1400+ SAT's and high GPA's probably won't suffer from 20 points here or there. It's the kids in the 900-1200 range who could miss out on something if they miss a few extra questions.
Are you joking about the advantage of a larger sample group? It's not like only 5 black kids take the SAT on any given year
- bridgette
Maybe this college is trying something different and attempting to give their students a more well rounded experience? You're not going to deal exclusively with people who did well in school once you leave college and knowing that different people have different skills in life that are aren't all learned in university studies is very important.
i remember when i was in the 1st grade, and went to take the test for the "gifted program", an advanced placement system of my public school district. one of the tests that was not written, but rather one on one involved the usage and organization of legos. here is something about it so, some people have some faith in legos. although... it is an aol site...
I didn't say that there was no correlation between SAT's and college performance. What I implied was that there is room for improvement.
I'm old enough to be well along in my career, and I've been fairly successful at it. The challenges I've faced have had little to do with what's tested in the SAT. Granted, the challenges I had in college were more like the SAT--specifically, the multiple-choice exams I had to take. But those wound up being less that half of my grades, and an even smaller--much smaller--part of what I now find valuable from my college experience.
Standardized tests are a multi-billion-dollar industry, an industry with a lot of political clout and a large marketing budget. I won't deny that such tests have a useful correlation with future success (though I think there is at least some element of self-fulfilling prophecy in that fact). At this point in time trying to come up with something better is a courageous act, in my opinion. I wish them luck.
this site says that 89.4% of the 241 children "gifted children" tested "have facility with puzzles and legos"
maybe this is off-topic (okay, definitely off-topic), but i would like the /. people to add the username if the moderator to the comments so, if bad, we can kill them, err.. politely speak with them...
But that's beside the point. If one person has to be marginally well-read to have encountered a word, while for the other it is part of ordinary experience, that's bias. Any person trying to get into college now should know what RAM, gigabyte, or microprocessor means, but a test with many questions along those lines would be biased towards geeks.
Horseshit, and insulting horseshit at that. I was clearly speaking of cultural, social, and economic factors.Read what I wrote: "there are differences in vocabulary and usage between socioeconomic groups, and these groups correspond strongly to race." Do you disagree that the typical vocabulary and usage differ between poor urban people and rich country-clubbers? I think a few minutes casual observation will demonstrate this.
Do you disagree that people of African, Hispanic, or American Indian ancestry are more likely to be amoung the urban poor in this nation than are people of European ancestry? I think the stats are pretty clear.
Do I therefore think that people should receive some sort of preferential treatment based on race? No. If we want to "right the wrongs", we need to look at the real causes, at the socioeconomic and cultural factors that put some students at a disadvanteage. If we are to apply some remedial preference to college admissions, it should be based on factors like the parents' educational level and income, the availability or lack thereof of good schools and libraries, and so on. We should imagine a world of, say, 50 years hence, where race is no longer an issue, and ask if our policy would still be helping disadvantaged students.
The process should not be "Student A and Student B both ran the course in the same time, but Student A has darker skin so we'll prefer him." It should be "Student A and Student B both ran the course in the same time, but Student A was dragging a ten-pound chain behind him. If we invest a little extra effort into breaking that chain, he'll be damn fast. We'll take Student A for our team."
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Standardized Testing always meant to me, everyone goes into a room fills in a bunch of dots which reveals nothing about who you are (except for the lovel question on your ethnicity, and how many of us are guilty of filling in the alaska indian for a day?), then filling out an extraordinary number of oddball questions and being told how stupid or intelligent you are 8 months later(true you would think the intelligent people who made the system could find the solution called computers to making the system faster).
Not being told ok your a dumb negro... go play with legos, ahh your a chicano go take the test in
spanish with mexican standards of testing applied, oh your a white boy with middle class parents well shit get in this line and take 4000 questions, miss one and your life is over but all these other people can miss all the questions including their name and still get that 80,000 house with 16kids that you will work to support for the rest of your life.
If God told me to fix the problems of the world I would do the following:
1. Remove all the colors from the world
2. Remove all the sexes from the world
3. Remove all the mental and any remaining physical differences from the world
4. Educate all the exact same way
5. Give everyone the exact same upbringing.
Question 6: What do you get when these items are applied? A bunch of faceless hunks of grey walking around spitting 2+2 is 4 and my uncle did bad things to me and I'm going to go cry with my counselor in group help now.
Frankly if you keep whining we might as well just not be people anymore and start stamping out the next generation at the Pepsi cola plants.
Life with live, cause life is a bitch.
You need to understand that you must compete in life and it's not a fair playing field, but why were u dumb enough to believe it should be fair? The smart person is the one who sold u the admission ticket to life for $300.
And as for the concept of the SATs et al testing "what you need to know to succeed in college," they do no such thing. Again from personal experience. I was in Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth program. A prerequisite for admission to said program was scoring at least 430 on the old Verbal and 500 on the old Math SAT at the time I participated. Some of us did fabulously well in life. Some of us who were big fish in small ponds in high school got to college and realized that we might be intelligent, we might be brilliant standardized-test takers, but we didn't know how to study! I was screwed the first time I had to write a research paper in college. Didn't know what in the H-E-double hockey sticks I was doing. I also tested out of (or nearly so) classes that I really should have taken, and the holes in my mathematical, scientific, and music theory background came back to haunt me again and again in college.
I was also in the Johns Hopkins CTY program. I had the highest math score in my state (NH: 720) but couldn't really afford the actual summer camp, so I didn't go. I did well on my actual SAT scores a few years later, and got accepted to WPI. Your big-fish comment certainly holds water (forgive the pun): I'm typically acing my CS and technical classes, but often the tests are hard because I can't study too well. Also, now I have a huge research paper to do and I feel horribly lost.
Our education system is a tad screwy, I'd say.
-ryan
(Apologies if this is a duplicate; browser's acting funny.)
I don't know about "thinking differently", but certainly there are differences in vocabulary and usage between socioeconomic groups, and these groups correspond strongly to race.
One example that I saw in (IIRC) a study guide based on old SAT tests was something like "Regatta is to boat as..." That's one's not just culturally biased, it's geographically biased - how many people living in landlocked Iowa, compared to costal Maryland, know what a regatta is?
Another one, that I read about in an article on standardized tests, involved the word "buttercup". Imagine that you live in the ol' concrete jungle, where wildflowers are not exactly common. You might just think that a buttercup was perhaps some sort of a kitchen implement, whereas suburban kids like myself used to pick buttercups for our moms.
Ummm, I have never heard of a Regatta before, but I'm 90% sure it's a subclass of boat, and I would figure it out for sure if I were given the rest of the question. I couldn't tell you one flower from another, but I've READ enough to know that a buttercup IS a flower. Are these inner city kids all illiterate? Do the people in Iowa not have libraries?
There is no excuse for ignornace.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
There aren't any countries far ahead of us in post-secondary education.
The rest of the system may be a mess, but our colleges and universities are among the best.
I agree that the Lego test sounds like a bad idea. A creative challenge would be one thing, but copying an existing model from memory just doesn't demonstrate any personal trait that is of value in college or would be enhanced by college.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
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We apologize for the inconvenience.
We lived on the road.
But I had SAT scores that got me admitted to college on the promise that I'd take a GED when I got around to it.
Homeschooled back when it was the liberal thing.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
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We apologize for the inconvenience.
No kidding!
People don't stay in dangerous areas just because they never thought of moving.
Last year, I moved out of a neighborhood that was becoming dangerous. I moved to a kind of nice, but nowhere near elite or even fancy area. And my house payments, for a smaller house, are triple what they were. I make a pretty good living, so I could (with some fairly major financial sacrifice) do that. My neighbors, solid hard-working and frugal, couldn't.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
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We apologize for the inconvenience.
I find it interesting that the reviewer that argued the "pro" side used exerpts and citations to support the book. However, the reviewer that took the "con" side generally used personal attacks to denigrate the authors. I would think that it would be generally accepted in the scientific community that there are differences among the races just as there are among races of other species. Why is it that we readily accept sub-speciation of other species based soley on color but we can't accept it for humans?
rodent...
rodent...
Tactical nuclear weapons are a viable alternative!
But they're not as good as all that. It's possible, even EASY, to be a good test-taker who has no motivation.
In my completely unscientific experience, the correlation between (old) SAT scores and college success falls apart at about 1300 or thereabouts (at least for those I knew who took them in 11th-12th grade rather than 7th or 8th; the correlation falls apart a bit sooner for those of us who took them young). And it wasn't just lack of success, it was crashing and burning in a BIG and spectacular way in more than one case.
As it is, I'm trying to go on to grad school with less-than-stellar grades and only a minor in my chosen field, and I'm hoping that my excellent showing on the GRE general test and what I hope will be a considerable improvement from 62nd percentile on the subject test will be enough to make up for my "nontraditional background."
I could also mention (from my experiences taking the GED) that standardized tests tend to be biased toward mainstream matters of opinion. "The United States has a nearly classless society" was the "right", factual answer on the GED test I happened to take. Not even an SAT or GRE, a GED of all things! Most folks who are taking that test aren't smartass teenagers like I was who are trying to go to college a little early rather than sit around in high school
I know, nobody's come up with anything better yet, and I'm shooting myself in the foot by complaining (since I am a highly skilled standardized test-taker), but the standardized testing system is horribly broken.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
This is fucking ridiculous! THis guy is clearly, directl responding to the point brought up in the parent-post (he even fucking QUOTES the point he's arguin against!!!) and some nimrod has slammed him with OFFTOPIC! What's the fuckiong deal with that! That's NUTS!
BTW, my senior year in HS, I worked 20 hours a week, plus did the debate team, plus got a 3.7 GPA and did a senior project which included 50 hours of community service, a ten page paper on a subject relating to the service, and a ten minute speech on what I did for my community service.
Now, if anyone tells me that they don't have enough time to do work in HS, then they are just lazy or something. HS is cake and if someone can't survive there then there is no way in hell they are going to survive college