Word: mathes
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...scores are out, and buried in them is a sign of hope for American education. True, the scores are actually a bit lower than last year's; the combined average for the SAT's math and reading sections fell 7 points, to 1021, the biggest single-year decrease since 1975, when the score dropped 16 points, to 1010. But statistically speaking, a 7-point decline (out of a possible 1600 on those two sections) isn't much. It's less than the value of a single question, which is about 10 points. Also, the SAT was radically changed last year...
...constructing essays, so the addition of a third SAT section, on writing, was almost certain to shrink the male-female score gap. It did. Girls trounced boys on the new writing section, 502 to 491. Boys still outscored girls overall, thanks largely to boys' 536 average on the math section, compared with girls' 502. But boys now lead on the reading section by just 3 points, 505 to 502; the gap was 8 points last year. What changed? The new test has no analogies ("bird is to nest" as "dog is to doghouse"), and boys usually clobbered girls on analogies...
...damage the SAT's reliability. Reliability is a measure of how similar a test's results are from one sitting to the next. The pre-2005 SAT had a standard error of measurement of about 30 points per section. In other words, if you got a 500 on the math section, your "true" score was anywhere between 470 and 530. But the new writing section, which includes not only a multiple-choice grammar segment but also the subjective essay, has a standard error of measurement of 40 points. That means a kid who gets a 760 in writing may actually...
What explains those wonderfully unpredictable findings? The College Board has no firm answers, but its top researcher, Wayne Camara, suggests a (somewhat self-serving) theory: the new SAT is less coachable. When designing the new test, the board banned analogies and "quantitative comparisons" (flummoxing math questions that asked you to compare two complex quantities). "I think those items disadvantaged students who did not have the resources, the motivation, the awareness to figure out how to approach them," says Camara. "By eliminating those, the test becomes much less about strategy." Because it focuses more on what high schools teach and less...
...measurement of 0 points, you would score exactly the same each time you took it. But no test is that good. The pre-2005 SAT had a standard error of measurement of about 30 points for each section. In other words, if you got a 500 on the math section, your ?true? score was anywhere between 470 and 530. But the new writing section, which includes not only a multiple-choice grammar segment but the subjective essay, has a standard error of measurement of 40 points, meaning a kid who gets a 760 on the section may actually...