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Lowest Raw Score Ever on the SAT
An anonymous reader writes "Lowest Raw Score Ever on the SAT. Relax! You are practically guaranteed to have done better on the SAT than this guy! But the competition for most extreme negative raw score is just beginning..."
Is 1250 really a top 2%? There's something really disturbing about that...
(That's only about 2.5\sigma from the mean...)
Taral
WARN_(accel)("msg null; should hang here to be win compatible\n");
-- WINE source code
at least he's got a bright future in politics or with Microsoft's QA department
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
As I can only assume that this page is going to be slashdotted in the next few minutes, I feel its important to share with everyone the best part of the page...
Premise -- dude tries really hard to do really bad on the exam, ends up by accident getting 2 questions right, and scores a 400 on the exam.
"This experiment grew on me as time passed by, and now I am thinking of other
funny angles, like asking Princeton Review or Kaplan if they would be interested
in being able to make the claim that a person who participated in their SAT
preparation course improved his test score by 1200 points!"
--------
I would like to see what the real, honestly trying, low score is. I bet that nobody has all that low of a score...
more people do this,the percentile score of the real test takers will increase.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
George W. Bush got a verbal score of 566 and a math score of 640, for a combined score of 1206. According to this site, this means he has an IQ of approximately 129. This places him in the 97th percentile, assuming a normal gaussian distribution with mean 100 standard deviation of 15, or the 96th percentile, assuming a standard deviation of 16.
I must be very smarty with my 1350. A friggin jeenius. 100 points more than 1250, so 132 + 100 = 232 IQ. Very jeeniousy of me.
Its the Scotty syndrome: It will take a long time, I dont know enough about it! I will try hard to get it done in a week. Then you get it done in 3 days, and everyone loves you. Look stupid, be smart.
Scoring well on the SAT, or any other standardized test does little more than to prove that you can do well on standardized tests.
I'm in college now, and did relatively well on my SAT, but I'm a slacker... especially when it comes to academics. Just a plain lazy bastard.
The thing is that I had alot of friends who didn't do so well on the SAT, but they got into their undergrad school and worked their butt off and are now on their way to Med school. Now granted, in order to get into a good one, you still have to go through a nasty little M-CAT, something I know nothing about.
It seems though that something like the SAT shows little more than how you prepare for a very specific test and how you perform on a very specific day. What it shows to a lesser degree is your level of persistence, self discipline and perhaps most notably, your common sense. I have alot of friends who are going to be sucessful at what they do someday, but just don't do well sitting in a room answering multiple choice questions for three hours.
Perhaps this is why its a blessing that your standardized test scores are not the only critieria for admitance into higher learning institutions.
Damn this is funny. It makes me want to go and take the test just for the hell of it. I never actually took it because I changed high-schools and the timing was weird. I rocked that ACT test though and I was sweating it. Anyway, the point is now that I'm older, calmer and have more practical knowledge, I could probably rock that test hard and get into Yale. Oh yeah I forgot, Yale is a Bush party school.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Give me a break, people -- standardized tests measure *something* well, but we're not sure what.
Standardized tests measure very well the ability to solve standardized tests. The question is - can they measure anything else?
Personally, for my choice as president, I'll rather have a man with an IQ of 129 that has excellent intrapersonal/leadership skills and the abillity (and humillity) to suround himself with advisors smarter than him over an egotistical "I'll do it all myself" type with an IQ of 180.
My friend goes to UC Santa Cruz and is always trying to convince me to quit my job and go to school. I'm reluctant, and a little discouraged. Do I even have a chance at getting accepted, considering my fairly crappy SAT score and mediocre grades in HS? I've been working full time in IT since I got out of HS (about 4 years). I like having a job more than I ever liked school, but after so long working at tedious jobs, and with the IT market looking so grim, I'm starting to consider it. Still, I read stories in the SF Chronicle about tougher entrance requirements, more competition, etc. Plus it's been so long since I was in a classroom, I don't know if I could ajust. Could I even get accepted? Any advice for a stagnating geek?
On standardized testing being a joke: According to the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System for those of you outside of the state, a test that aims to determine graduation eligibility and falls...short.) I'm supposed to be *barely* average in math and below standard in english. SAT I Verbal : 800 (99%) SAT I Math : 790 (99%) SAT II Lit. : 770 (97%) SAT II Math IIC: 760 (81%) SAT II Math IC : 730 (93%) Currently, a rather frightening percentage of Mass. high school students are being denied their diplomas because of MCAS scores...and I picked up a total of some $100,000 per year in academic scholarships from six different colleges...and I'm currently getting $26,000/year from the one I chose to attend. The class one year before me had to pass the MCAS in order to graduate. Were it not for that one year...I might still be a high school senior. Standardized tests are a joke...and aren't really that funny.
Does anyone else find the idea of essay questions on the SAT at least, idiotic?
I mean, without a keyboard and a spellchecker I'm nothing! My handwriting is absolutely terrible. But none of that matters in collage, since papers will be turned in after being typed on a computer. And even if a grader isn't going to look at those things specifically, they'll still be affected by them, as well as whether or not they agree with the essay. Not to mention the fact that it's going to be insanely expensive to grade these things. They'll need about 1,500 graders each grading 1,500 papers. Can you imagine grading that many boring essays about random subjects? My brain would just go numb. The only fair way to do it would be to have each essay graded by a diverse group of graders, and then average the score. But that would cost even more per test. Or perhaps they could figure out some way to grade essays by a computer. Teach a neural net the properties of a good essay and see what it comes up with.
Or they could just not do it...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I think the thing that pisses me off the most is the amount of preparation people can do for the tests. I mean, if these tests are supposed to measure (whatever they think it measures).. is it really that accurate when taking a Kaplan course guarantees to improve your score by 300 points? (I'm making up numbers, sorry, but you get the point) So far, I've seen it good for 3 things.
1. The tutors who get the money for test preps
2. Annoying egos (the same people who "failed" a test because they got a 96% and not a 99%)
3. Distinguishing people with high gpas without any other significant experience in h.s.
I think that was one of the things I hated most about high school.
The test proctor, a Geometry teacher, didn't like this very much and sent me to the principal's office. I gladly took my test answer sheet up to the principal's office and told them the story I wrote here. The principal took the answer sheet and showed it to a couple of people around the office, presumably to get second and third (reinforcing) opinions, and then returned the test sheet to me and told me to get back to class, finish the test, "and if she has any further problem with this, send her to me."
My first reaction was, whoa, "send her to you"?! I don't have that authority. She made me understand that I had done nothing wrong and should definitely not be punished for it. (To be honest, I do not remember if my main purpose was to be a smartass or to promote social colorblind-ness, but it shouldn't matter if anyone reads it properly.)
Anyway, the moral of this story is: if you let them get used to you simply falling into line and always doing the expected thing, you get locked into it. On the other hand, if you let them know you're just less than predictable, and perhaps even a bit crazy or eccentric, then you can get away with much more and even get them to think harder about things. I succeeded that day, and my ego swelled from that of a skinny, nerdy white boy into that of a taller, more confident, skinny, nerdy white boy. :-)
Yeah, I feel that ALL the time. Marching to the beat of a different drum is liberating, but self-liberation is viewed as insanity until it catches on...p.s.-- my favorite line from Colin Fahey's site:
"This is a key time in the college admission process. Stay organized, keep your grades up, and before you know it you'll be checking your mailbox for fat envelopes."
Yeah, the Dell guy's gonna send him mail saying "Dude, you're going to college!"
Seriously, though - if this isn't a troll, this guy will make one hell of a sociologist - he already has Wittgenstinian relativism down pat.
And if he doesn't get tenure, at least he'll be able to assume that I'd like fries with that...
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
The MCAS shouldnt even exist. They only create these things to keep poor people from going to college.
The MCAS is setup so that if you fail it, you can NEVER go to college, you can NEVER get a diploma, and all you get is some stupid certificate.
Alot of kids who went to shitty schools have to either become very mature at a young age and take matters into their own hands and teach themselves, or they are going to fail that test and never go to college.
Seems like class Warfare to me.
I'm from MA as well AC, and the MCAS sucks. Its just class warfare.
A kid could get all As in their shitty school and fail the MCAS because their school has books from the 1970s and 1980s while the richer more upper class schools have the newest books, best teaching materials
Thank god for the internet, kids who have no money might have a chance.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I did my undergraduate education in India, where we didn't have the SAT -- but I did take the GRE for graduate study in the USA, and I understand the format of the GRE is like that of the SAT, just harder and with a extra "analytic" section.
The SAT verbal section is for the most part, a test of vocabulary word memorization. In India, we aspiring graduate students spent marathon sessions memorizing vocabulary words that we never used again after taking the test. It was quite a joke, really. It favors those with the wherewithal to engage in this mindless brain-stuffing, and disadvantages those who do have the skills to read critically and find meaning, but don't memorize all those esoteric (= a good example itself!) words.
While the math section seems relevant, the verbal section needs much overhaul to not rely so much on pure memorization.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Plymouth University just did a study on this. Put monkeys in a room with typewriters and they simply make a mess.
Another role the SATs fulfil goes beyond an aptitude test. Yes, for the most people that's what it does - measures as best it can scholastic aptitude, for better or worse. But it's also just one more hurdle in the path to college. If you think you're better than the test then you obviously don't HAVE to take it. But myself and many of my friends who thought that the test wasn't worth our time took it anyway. Why? Because if we didn't, then we limited ourselves in terms of a college education. Sure, we could have gone to a local community college instead and transfered - but even most State Universities offer higher quality education that community colleges.
In this case, the SAT measured our desire to get into college - not our aptitude for college. Its obvious that we would succeed in college based on our GPA, college essays, and other parts of our application. But by taking the SATs we showed the admissions board that we were willing to jump through a few hoops to get to college. We were willing to make a time commitment to school and a test that was meaningless and the admission boards at the various schools we are attending now took that into account. Obviously, if we lacked the fortitude just to take one more standardized test then any college would be justified in rejecting us.
Huh, weird dude.
I know someone that filled in the dots to form pacman-type characters, and he got the second highest score in his school class. His class was of 3 or 4 hundred, and not in the ghetto or anything - it was actually a pretty good high school in suburbia. Not sure what the actual score was, though.
I'd agree, the SAT is a farce. From what I've seen, the ACT is a fair degree better at being consistent, although it definately seems to favor logically minded folks over creative folks.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Between grade inflation and the ever-shifting meaning of an SAT score I think te system is very self correcting. Both "scores" are absolutely meaningless.
I'll know I've done my job as a parent if my kid tells me: "Dad, I want to be a Carpenter", or a plumber, or an electrician. Every one of those guys has a house on the shore. No student loans. Steady work. They still use their brains. Most of them gross more a year than I do.
To me it would be a kick in the teeth to have a kid who wants to be a angst ridden kiss ass. I remember being one. I hated it. I deliberately wear sandels and wrinkled shirts to work to try to balance out my preppy past.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Of course they can!
I always score near the top of these tests, 1480 sat, similar top scores in ASVAB, PSATs, MENSA test, etc.
This doesn't mean that i'm "smarter" than most others (my spelling is horrible and degrading rapidly), but I must point out that it is always people who test average or below (or, in general, are unsatisfied with the results of thier own tests) who make these statements, or say that it only tests "test taking" ability, or "book smarts".
I am "sorry" to say this (*), but there is really something fundamental about people that these tests do differentiate. I agree that exactly what that fundamental property is may be hard to determine and exactly define, but it is there, and it is far more than the ability to take a standardized test. I see it in my own life everyday.
-dave-
(*)Sorry as in, sorry that nature and evolution are cruel. I, however, am not cruel, so don't get too upset by this post. =)
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
No I'm not bitter...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
as opposed to what, grades? high school GPAs are based on your ability to do acedimic work, not to learn (these days, anyways). theres really very little based on testing anymore; most teachers will let you make up poor tests with extra homework, but not let you make up missing homework by proving you know the material. i found that at least half of the people who complained about tests were the ones that didnt actually know the information. if it wasnt for tests, i wouldnt be going to college in the fall. i had a horrible GPA, but my test scores on the ACT and SAT was able to get me into one of the lesser colleges in my state. it always depressed me that i could get straight As on my tests and still fail a class, yet others could fail almost all the tests and still pass with at least a C grade.
I went through high school hardly doing a thing, and got an appropriate grade for it. I took the SAT, and scored better than just about everyone. Now I'm in college with a high GPA. I should be the college board's poster child.
The next time you speak about Indians, do a favour, don't generalise, okay?
I'm an Indian, and five years back, I did give the SAT's, that's SAT I and SAT II. My preparation for SAT II- Writing (which, IMHO, is the toughest it can get for verbal tests at pre-UG levels, although, admittedly, it doesn't test verbal reasoning, but writing skills) was as follows:-
a) Read up on a test prep book,
b) Practise with a couple of old papers,
c)That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Actually, no, that's a lie. I did something else.
Heck, it's been five years now, the world was much younger then; yes, I spent two hours doing something else that evening before the test. You see, I couldnt bear the excitement and, when no one was around, decided to check out this new-fangled 'internet' thing that my dad and I somehow installed on our family PC.
It was a fascinating experience; there were many new things to learn. I learnt that, for instance, a certain low-profile website, offered email for virtually nothing! That, you could get all the news you want, based on your preferences, delivered to your very own inbox, again, free of cost!. I even learnt that a certain lady could adorn my wallpaper and that, it might start getting itchy in your pants if you stare at her picture for a while....
Let's just say that I think I did well for my 770 in SAT II Writing.
More than mere navel gazing.
Sadly, one of the defining characteristics of such a person would be that they would not be egotistical enough to enter a nation-wide popularity contest. I generally regard anyone who chooses to stand for election to be unelectable on those grounds. This makes voting difficult.
The only exception to this I have seen was an independent candidate who stood in the UK elections a few years back. The incumbent had been accused of corruption, and the independent stated that he would run against him, but would not run against another candidate that the Conservative party selected. They didn't back down, and the independent candidate won.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
near the bottom of the page there is an overexposed photo of the test taker with this caption:
FIGURE: "Could my future get any brighter?!"
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
I worked with this guy last year. He liked to work on all the tangential problems on our project... things like how to integrate Samba protocol with our proprietary API... fun stuff with actual real results...
He went on hiatus and never really came back. I heard about this particular stunt this morning from a coworker, best ten minutes of the day...
My thoughts were that this would be fun to gamble on... say put together pools or spread objectives for various test takers and bet money on how close they will come to their goals. Say you've got a guy who says he can get the absolute average... well you bet on him getting within 20 points or you say noway and take the smaller gain, whatever.. gambling on people's ability to read the test and perform how ever they want to sounds quite interesting to me...
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I don't want to piss in anyone's cornflakes, but I know someone who I went to HS with who scored around 400 (I don't remember exactly what, but I know it wasn't over 500) in 1983.
Now, yes, it was back in the day when the score meant a little more....so many changes to try to "even it out" for a number of reason's have probably made my friends score != Colin's score (i.e. for instance, we had no verbal stuff at all.....lots and lots of questions on paper).
My friend was not really expected to go to College, he did go(cooking school). It's really too bad because he was not a dumb kid. Well....OK, in book smarts he was. And I guess it was proven.
I should laugh....I got a 1070 (29 ACT though). I was the butt of many jokes in my school. It was a small class (83 graduating) from a college town in NY. The problem was, it was alot of college professors kids in there (mixed in with farmers and other locals) who were braniacs and skewed the test scores through the roof. Not that that's a bad thing, it makes you strive to keep up.
WTF? Over?
I am "sorry" to say this (*), but there is really something fundamental about people that these tests do differentiate.
Agreed. But what is it, exactly? Is it your ability to achieve high social status? Definitely not, just look at some Fortune 500 executives or - as someone correctly pointed - George Dubya. Is it your ability to be a True Rocket Scientist Like The Eggheads From Old Sci-Fi Flicks? Neither, many famous inventors and scientific geniuses failed miserably in standardized tests.
Tests like SAT usually fail to measure the ability of thinking "out of the box", finding uncommon solutions (when you find an uncommon solution to a SAT question your answer is still wrong, even if you can well argue on that), transcending stereotypes etc.
Learn Homeric and Attic Greek; and translate portions of Homer, Aristotle, the New Testament
Learn French and translate various writers -- Montaigne, for example
Read almost all of these books, in whole or in part -- a list which includes everything from Plato to Shakespeare to Heidegger to Smith to Austen to Marx
Study mathematics all four years, working from Euclid's Elements, through Newton and Leibniz's invention of the Calculus, and on through non-Euclidean geometry, Cantor, and others
Study music for one year; including history, theory, composition, and limited performance
Study laboratory science for three years; reading primary works and recapitulating experimentation spanning, for example, Lavoisier to Dalton to Miliken, Galen to Darwin, Newton to Einstein, and others
A partial semester of painting and sculpture
This is not just a gloss on the the so-called "Great Books"; and it's certainly not purely humanities or an impoverished "history or science" curriculum, either. It's heavy on both the math/science and on literature/philosophy -- not to mention that the year of music is the equivalent in some ways to more than a year at conservatory. Finally, it's really a lot of very difficult work.
Of course, it's not called a "university", it's called a "college" since it's integral and singular. This is what higher education was like in the past, and it indeed does live on in the US. St. John's is in fact the third oldest college in the US (behind William & Mary and Harvard); but the "New Program" has only existed since 1929.
Young SAT takers...the only advice I have to give concerning this test is take it over and over and over and over. Dot it so much that you memorize the spoken instructions. Take the PSATs as often as you can. Then take the SAT as often as your budget will let you.
I went to a magnet high school that seemed to be little more than a college-entry factory and we prepped for the SAT from the first day of my freshman year. The more familiar you become with it, the better you'll be at it.
Also, from what I understand, your score is variable on how everyone else did as well (kind of like a curve in a class of many thousands). So depending on when you take it, your score could go up. My 4 PSAT/SAT scores were: 1240, 1260, 1340, 1420. Screw people who say you can't jump up like that - just keep taking the thing and you have a good chance of at least marginally increasing your score.
Oh, and get there on time too. Flying around town at 90mph to go back and get your ticket was^H^H^His not fun.
The GI bill ruined any chance we had at getting an honest-to-god "University" on our blessid soil.
:)
Sorry, guess I'm a little lost here, but what does the GI bill have to do with a quality of eduacation and the traditional "University" system. Stupid GI's lowering the bar or did the government make some deal with the colleges to let GI's pass the system?
I'll agree that schools have changed, and perhaps our recient graduates are missing some of the finer things in an education, but I do fail to see where that is linked to the GI Bill. Really not trying to troll here, but rather asking for something to back up your statement.
Oh look, it's light outside, I think that means I can go home from work
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
This doesn't mean that i'm "smarter" than most others (my spelling is horrible and degrading rapidly), but I must point out that it is always people who test average or below (or, in general, are unsatisfied with the results of thier own tests) who make these statements, or say that it only tests "test taking" ability, or "book smarts".
Nope, not true. I scored a 1450. I think I'm in the top (some low number) percent of the population as far as intelligence and knowledge goes. I do not believe that the general SAT is valid test of anything other than SAT-taking ability.
I think I'm pretty qualified to say that too, given that I'm 2 weeks after from my degree.
I don't think the test is properly designed. I think I've taken much better tests that guaged general ablities, especially math.
The SAT only tests really basic math skills. I don't think this is a valid measure of someone's abilities.
Put simply, I don't think the spread between the easy and the hard questions is wide enough. I took the test as a junior, and I still hadn't been in any of the courses it is designed to test in two years. Yeah, I did fine, but how are those who are truly ahead of the curve supposed to show their abilities?
This isn't a problem limited to just the SATs either. In NYS we have state-wide Regents test for various subjects. I got a perfect score on all three tests. (I'm not saying this to brag, but I need to prove a point.) I used to think this was cool. Know what I realize now? That those tests were a waste. I should have been taking harder tests and harder courses.
Looking back now, I bet I could've taken my first two collesge math courses in high school and done allright. I'm not counting the AP Calc I did take in HS, either.
There is something wrong with putting everyone in the same class, or having them take the same test. People have different levels of abilities at different things. They should be taking a test which recognizes that. We should have been taking a different test. The number or questions that seperates a 1500 from a 1600 is just not statisically significant. When you start talking about this guy missing 2 questions out of several hundred and that guy missing 1, it's idiotic to separate those two people's scores by 1/14th of the total availible score range. Then admissions people go ahead and treat the 1600 as if it was a much better score than the 1500, even though scores that far off the norm aren't well enough determined for them to have that information. (And you can't call this bitterness either, I got into every school I applied to, and I'm about to graduate from a top school in my field.)
The questions I had to answer on the SAT just didn't really relate to anything I did in college. Yeah, they tested some basic skills that I needed in college, but they we not testing my potential. They weren't even testing if I had the skillset necessary to succeed.
If I had gone to college with only the math skills tested by the SAT I, I would have been fucked. No doubt about it. If it had really taken those extra years to learn those basic skills, and been that far behind, there's no way I could have kept up with the pace of my college courses.
(*)Sorry as in, sorry that nature and evolution are cruel. I, however, am not cruel, so don't get too upset by this post. =)
That's a pretty messed up thing to say. "Evolution" is not the reason most people do poorly on tests. There are plently of people out there with the same or greater potential than you, who never get a chance to fullfill it, through no fault of their own. Maybe their school was shitty. Maybe their homelife was shitty. Maybe they were just flat out homeless.
I friend of mine dropped out of school in 10th grade. He was living on his own, supporting himself completely at age 16. He scored a 1400 on his SAT. He's a smart guy, Imagine how well he would have done given a better
Life is too short to proofread.
I'd love to know what schools have sent him a prospectus on attending. Who are the bottom feeders?
Ok, I hear you, but consider for a second - the alternative to a TV license is commercial funding. We have an abundance of commercial channels on digital transmission now. Is it really desirable that every media stream should be commercially funded? Is there not still a place channels whose content does not depend on attracting mainstream advertisers?
Dave
> Now granted, in order to get into a good (medical school), you still have to go through a nasty little M-CAT, something I know nothing about.
No, in order to get into any American or Caribbean medical school you need to take the MCAT. Hopkins used to take ACT scores but changed over a few years ago, and a few BS/MD programs will still do that, but most of those only admit high school students for a 6-year ride (Brown, Kansas City-Missouri, etc.; Miami-FL rolls theirs such that FL residents can apply in high school or after first year)
I'm in medical school now, having got a 32 on the MCAT. If you want an SAT equivalent of the MCAT, look at the ACT: I think that the MCAT and ACT are made by the same folks. On both tests you are tested on what you know instead of your ability to prepare for the specific test. There were people in my class who cracked 1500 on the SAT but did not get better than 30 on the ACT, and lots of folks got much higher ACT scores than SAT. Colleges are starting to figure this out, especially given that the SAT (and IMO GRE) are basically assinine exams designed to see who can think in the same way as the test-takers.
The penalties for guessing on the SAT will hamper bright students and IMO artificially deflate scores. Most of the Verbal section of the SAT is, again, a matter of test-taking: skip the hardest sections and get back to them later (use this strategy for the MCAT too) The ACT seemed to be more comprehensive and much more straight-forward, maybe that is due to my own bias and scores. Most schools take both now, if you want to answer every question then take the ACT. Note that the MCAT does not penalize you for guessing, they know that the scores will be low since the test is bell-curved nationally anyway. Averages run around 8.5 / category, 3 numerically graded categories and a writing section with a letter attached (J-T, avg = O or so), good score = 30+.
BTW, if you're getting ready to take the MCAT, remember 3 things:
1) take a prep course. I swear by Kaplan and will use them for step I, others think Princeton Review is the key.
2) leave the semester before the exam (take it in april and if need be again in august) open to a fairly light load. I took 18 hours that semester and would have done 12 in retrospect.
3) Study constantly, even over spring break. If you can do well in april it saves you a summer of grief, not to mention that everyone taking it in april has a class load to deal with.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
I would prefer an honest President to either. No IQ score that is above the mean has much significance and if you go more than an SD above the mean there is NO significance. IQ tests were developed to measure the progress of mental patients under various therapies. They were never designed as general purpose tests.
Stephen Jay Gould gives the definitive debunking of IQ tests in The Mismeasure of Man. There is a big history of junk science, mostly in the service of racist theories of eugenics. Lots of untested facts being repeated for decades etc.
One of the many IQ myths is that you can't improve your score with practice. That is absolute rubbish. I had to practice IQ tests every week when I was 10 to take the exam for the senior school. I ended up with perfect scores on the multiple choice questions for several weeks in a row.
Getting back to his fraudulency, the guy has no character and no honesty. He lied to sell his tax cut and he lied to get his war. He promised not to bust the budget and then did exactly that, he even lied about the alleged 'trifecta' of exclusions to his promise. He never told the US people that there were exceptions, it never appeared in any press release of speech. Not only is he a liar, it is a character issue, he is in effect saying 'I had my fingers crossed behind my back'.
Before Bush's war the justification given was scary weapons of mass destruction. After the 'proof' that nuclear material had been bought from Niger was shown to be a fraud he invades anyway (or at least orders the army to). Then afterwards the story changes 'oh it was just regime change all along'. I wonder what the story is going to be once the funddies elect an ayatollah.
I suspect that after he looses the 2004 election the aircraft carrier antics are going to be seen in a different light. He is campaigning on his national guard stint - risky at best when daddy pulled strings to get the place and especially so when you then went AWOL for a year.
It is really difficult after being lied to to believe anything the man says.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Simple, you do the right work.
For example when you have a 5 point essay question, don't write a book. Write a paragraph, with 5 points in it. If the teacher is a biggie for structure, add an intro and summary sentence. Make sure you spell it mostly right, and write neatly.
Also don't make run on sentences.
When you do projects, make them the appropriate size for the mark value and your position. Then make sure it is done well. Target the requirements.
If the teacher/prof/TA wants a 10 page report, doing a good 10 page report will get you a higher mark then an even better 20 page report.
I took the SAT in 1968 or 1969. You had to pay for tests in groups of three, there were 5 I wanted, so I threw in Math II just to get my money's worth. There were a bunch of questions I didn't answer, and one I took a wild guess at but remember very well. I asked my math teacher about it the next day, he showed me how to figure it out, and I had guessed wrong. Months later, I was called in to the counselor's office, I had gotten 800 (perfect) on Math II. I laughed and told him no way, he said way, I told him why, he asked them to double check, some time later they called me back in, said hand scoring had confirmed it.
:-)
Haven't had a lot of respect for SAT or tests in general every since. Maybe that's why I'm such a cynical bastard
Infuriate left and right
My 13 year-old son spends an inordinate amount of time in school studying and practicing for a thing called a TAKS test here in Texas. You have to pass it or you don't graduate to the next grade (that's the intention, anyway). What skill, exactly, is he learning? As far as I can tell, the skill is "how to take the TAKS test" -- something very useful in the post-school world, I'm sure.
Very frustrating, at times.
Lots and lots of people are in the top 2% of humanity.
Judging from a quick mental run-through of the SAT scores and IQs of people I know, I'd say about 1/3 of everybody fits in the 98th percentile.
And about 2/3 of everybody has at least one shoebox full of blue ribbons.
We're one spart pack of motherfuckers, I tell ya.
The truth is, SAT scores fall on a range of 400-1600 because they are calculated by rolling 4d4.
I just read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that discusses the fact that the correlation between SAT scores and college GPA is about 10%.
I breezed through it in less than the allotted time thinking how easy it was. To my surprise I actually got two questions wrong! That equated to an IQ of 158 (max was 160).
I'm smart enough to know that I am not a genious, so my curious mind went to work.
My conclusion was that my job actually trained me for the test. At the time I was writing assembly language code for realtime control system. The use of or, nor, and, nand, xor on the lowest computer language had honed my skills at the deductive reasoning process. I had studied the test!
Years later, after my career took me away from hacker coding, I came across an IQ test at BN. I bought it, took it, and scored a reasonable score.
Conclusion: If you want to scrore big on the IQ test, try assembly level programming for 18 months.
Great. An excuse for thousands of nerds to brag about their SAT scores :)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
After a night of excess myself and four friends realized we had our SAT's that morning at 8:00am (it was about 5 or 6 when we realized this). I purchased a sixpack of Josta Cola (mmm... Josta, the real oldschool geek drink) and we headed off for the testing.
I had to wake one friend up twice during the testing, and he still was staggering during breaks, his final score: 1580. Another friend landed into what I would consider the lowest score of all time with a 580 COMBINED! I managed to do OK with a 1260.
The moral of the story, do a number of odd substances, don't sleep, do not study, and get a few naps in DURING the testing and you too can score like a true Ivy Leaguer. =)
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
I studied Philosophy at Cambridge University, and the last exam you took every year was called "Essay". You were expected to pontificate for three hours on one of a number of topics. So, the question paper would be:
...
1) Justice
2) Truth
20) Happiness
Generally it was a great opportunity to blather on. Anyway, when I arrived there was this great fuss. Apparently, in the previous year one of the questions had been simply "Courage", to which one student had written "This is." The story - true or not - is that he was given perfect marks for the essay, and got to doodle for the remaining two hours and 59 minutes...
--- My dad's political betting
I find having a snailmail address qualifies a person for Mensa.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Last time I had an IQ test (in the twightlight of my HS years), I believe I fell within the top .1% of the population. (I can really be an ass and say
that the score was probably a tad lower then what my real IQ was at the time -
since I went for speed in taking the test.)
So, I'm a smart person. Yah! A very super-duper intelligent person. Am I doing better in life because of it? Nope.
Intelligence does influence how successful you'll be in life, but it is not the only factor. Social skills (which I'm lacking), confidence (lacking again), and an extroverted nature also plays a huge factor in your success in life.
I'm currently sitting back at a crappy job, watching the world go by at the age of 24, while I try to figure what the hell I want. My former classmates, some with more drive then me, are probably pulling down 5x what I make in a year.
Intelligence is overrated...
> given the one-dot-per-line restriction,
> how do you make "pacman-type characters?"
This story actually was part of "Parker Lewis Can't Lose". Kubiac (always dump and always hungry) punches "EAT NOW" into the form and scores perfect. No details on the test are known. The pattern just shows when the paper is hold against back light.
Post tenebras lux. Post fenestras tux.
If enough people took the test with the goal of making a negative score, the resulting nose dive of the average should throw the entire academic community into a state of shock from which it might not emerge.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Surely you can just keep sending them on their way when they turn up at your door. Just keep on refusing them entrance (they do need a warrant without your express permission).
:)
You can also fail to fill in any declaration, stating that you do not have a colour receiver. And as I see it, the ball is in their court.
Either they have to monitor you and see if you are secretly watching a TV with their little vans (easily evaded with a Faraday Cage in the living room!), or get a warrent to search the premises.
Should be hilarious if they get a warrent and then fail to find anything. I Wonder what your legal recourse would be then, given their spurious assertion that you had a TV, with no facts to back them up?
I had this problem several years ago, I bought a small TV as a Christmas present for use at a friend's house (with their kid's N64). Of course I gave my details at the shop as they where required for a warranty, What I didn't realise is that the shop is legally required to inform the Licensing Authority of your purchase (Something which I might add was not made clear, and something I had words with the shop about).
Shortly after Xmas I started receiving the letters, telling me I wasn't licensed and I may have to pay a fine of £1000, or I could just fill in the declaration.
I'm afraid I just ignored the letters, it was their assumption that was wrong, and I wasn't going to waste my time correcting them.
A few months later, a guy turned up on my doorstep and we had the following (paraphrased) conversation:
Him: "Hello, I'm MR X from the Licensing Authority, Can I see your TV license please?"
Me: "No"
Him: "Do you have a license?"
Me: "You know I don't or we wouldn't be stood on my doorstep having this conversation."
Him: "Can I inspect your property to prove you don't have a TV?"
Me: "No"
Him: "I can have a warrent issued, and we can come back and inspect then. Or you can just let me look around the property now, and this whole problem goes away. Can I come in please?"
Me: "No"
Him: "I'll have to go and get a warrant then."
Me: "Yes you will won't you"
That was the last I heard of it...
Although It should be said that I did dismantle my Faraday Cage that evening and sold the TV on e-bay
If nature abhors a vacuum, why isn't there more dust in the world?
It seems like you need to drink more often. Kill the slow and lazy brain cells.... :)
This is all besides the point though. All I care about is his job performance. I, for one, think he has performed very well, even if not perfectly. I voted for him in 2000 and I will vote for him again in 2004. Academic performance is not the same thing as intelligence and even (allegedly) high intelligence is not sufficient to succeed as a leader. There are many other factors to consider. Case in point: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, two smart people that failed in most important respects as President for different reasons.
Come on! how hard is it to find the right
answer and then shooting for the wrong answer?
He has enough training and knowledge to master
that, so it wouldn't have been difficult to
score that 1600 (and the analogous fat 0) -
and even easier with the recentering crap
the college board is doing now a days.
The challenge would have been to shoot for
a very specific score. Try that!
As someone who's tutored plenty of students in SAT's, I can say this: The SAT's may gauge intelligence, problem-solving ability, and test-taking skills, but just as much, if not moreso, it tests that student's resources. I've had students who are extremely bright, but due to their poverty, just don't have the resources to compete with students who have the resources of, say, a George W. Bush. Their public schooling is atrocious, they don't have the money for lots of tutoring and several retests, they don't have access to information like free tutoring, free practice tests, and resources online. The fact that so many people will take the SAT's as a cut and dry measure of one's smarts is disturbing to say the least. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the education is dependent on the child's wealth as well.
I'll rather have a man with an IQ of 129 that has excellent intrapersonal/leadership skills
I would appreciate that also. Any idea when such a person could be convinced to run for office?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
It's just you idiots who scored less than 1500 who think otherwise ;)
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
but it rounds up to like 540 canadian.
back in middle school, I had a teacher who would give lots of extra credit questions on tests, but would subtract points if you got the extra credit wrong. I ended up with a -120 on a test. F for the semester too, but middle school doesnt matter.
This reminds me of the time I was at some social gathering, and the topic of IQ came up. We all volunteered our IQs. Mine was 130 at the time based on a test I took in 7th grade. It later shot up to 150 based on a test with a psychologist, taken for the purpose of determining why I was having difficulty in college. If it makes any difference, my SAT was 1320 and I took it in 1985, before they dumbed it down.
Anyhow, the girl volunteered that her IQ was 105. That was the lowest that anybody fessed up to that evening. I thought since 100 was supposed to be average, either the IQ tests are bogus, or there are a lot of institutes for the retarded hidden away in the woods. I mean, this girl was dumb. The thought of more than 50% of the world being dumber than her was terrifying to me. Of course now I realize that intelligence isn't everything.
The girl was not bad looking. I wouldn't be surprised if she did just fine. I dropped out of college for two years shortly after that last test. I still consider myself to be "in recovery".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?