A Flawed Way to Test

The SAT I college admissions examination has deservedly been criticized for a wide variety of reasons—it is socioeconomically and racially biased, relies on a bunch of constantly recycled tricks and allows high scores to be bought with expensive preparatory classes. Unfortunately, the College Board’s proposed changes, while well-intentioned, would not actually improve the test.

The recently unveiled plan would overhaul both the verbal and math sections of the test, replacing analogies with an essay-writing section and adding questions in more advanced topics of mathematics. The goal of these changes, ostensibly, is to make the test more relevant as an objective test of aptitude in the college admissions process. Unfortunately, this attempt to amend the SAT and restore its flagging credibility with institutions of higher learning does nothing to address its most crucial problems.

In the verbal section of the exam, doing away with the analogies in favor of a writing sample destroys the possibility for objective grading. Analogies allow for objective comparison of students and require critical analysis of words’ linkage to one another. Furthermore, the SAT II writing test already measures writing ability.

The math section of the exam, as it stands, tests only material that virtually all high school students are guaranteed to have covered by their junior year. Adding questions in more advanced topics, such as trigonometry or calculus, would only widen the disparity between students of different educational opportunities. At present, students with knowledge of geometry and algebra can take the exam with an emphasis more on problem solving than mastery of multiple disciplines of mathematics, which some may never have learned. Instead, to widen the the distribution of math scores, questions should be more complex—without requiring mastery of any new material.

In light of the SAT’s failure to adequately address its own shortcomings, the University of California schools should be applauded for their decision to seek a new, alternative test. Although there is a need for a standardized aptitude test in the college admissions process, the SAT is far from the ideal exam. Some admissions offices have more resources than others, but to the extent possible, college admissions staff should de-emphasize the influence of the SAT and instead focus on more enlightening, individualized means of evaluation.