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Want To Score High On The SAT? Pick Rich Parents
While money (reportedly) can't buy love, it appears, according to The WSJ, that it can buy brains.On average, based on calculations from FairTest, students in 2014 in every income bracket outscored students in a lower bracket on every section of the test. Rather stunningly, students from the wealthiest families outscored those from the poorest by just shy of 400 points. As WSJ's Josh Zumbrun so poetically notes, perhaps SAT should more appropriately stand for Student Affluence Test.
As The Wall Street Journal explains, students from the wealthiest families outscored those from the poorest by just shy of 400 points.
Given the widespread use of the SAT in college admissions, the implications are obvious: Not only are the wealthiest families best equipped to pay for college, their kids on average are more likely to post the sort of scores that make admissions easy.
Thus the SAT is just another area in American life where economic inequality results in much more than just disparate incomes. And making matters worse, some employers continue to ask for test scores years after graduation.
...
It’s tempting to believe the disparity in results arises because wealthy parents can easily afford SAT prep courses to help students game the test by learning its tricks. But some research suggests test prep has a fairly limited effect on scores. One study found that testing boosts math scores by 14-15 points and reading scores by 6-8 points.
Yet the gaps between rich and poor students are far larger than what could be produced by test prep alone. If the disparity were merely caused by test prep, that would perhaps be comforting, because an obvious solution would be: Provide everyone with test prep.
And so a vicious circle develops...
But if the phenomenon arises from a confluence of factors, that makes it all the harder to remove income gaps from standardized tests. Family wealth allows parents to locate in neighborhoods with better schools (or spring for private schools). Parents who are themselves college educated tend to make more money, and since today’s high school seniors were born in the mid-1990s, many of the wealthiest and best-educated parents themselves came of age when the tests were of crucial importance. When the SAT is crucial to college, college is crucial to income, and income is crucial to SAT scores, a mutually reinforcing cycle develops.
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Conclusion: Once again it is crucial to your realization of The American Dream that you pick your parents wisely.
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We're going to need some more government intervention to 'fix' this...
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Life is just that, people make it out to be more or less then it is.
Intelligent people fall into such easy laid traps. Thinking they are smart because everyone around them says so.
But are they as bright as they could be? If they tried harder could they see things faster, understand the angles better, or do they need someone to always spell out everything for them.
Reading finance is like reading to someone who will not think on there own and must have things read to them and charts like a picture book because they are to lazy to do the work themselves.
Calling someones paycheck their IQ is dangerous. Such people are and have never been smart they just do what they are told without thinking other than what and how they are told to think. Like a chess player that only knows one stratigy and they repeat it over and over never bothering to try anything other then what works.
Like a chess player who only knows one strategy, and repeats it over and over never bothering to try anything other than what works. This is such a remarkable statement, I had to comment on it. It's quite an amazing statement. Apparently you don't know anything about chess, but t here's no reason to hold that against you. It's an amazing statement because it shows such a complete lack of understanding of what intelligence is. It's very important to remember that insofar as there's some reality buried in this discussion, it refers to correlations between large numbers of examples. None of this discussion can ever refer to "anyone's paycheck"; that is to say, an individual. One of the smartest people I have ever met; smart enough so he can't fit in the conventional University Environment, any more than I can, drove a long distance 18 wheel truck for a living. It relieved him of having to deal with people; and he could do math problems on the inside of the windshield with a sort of made up heads-up display that he could produce with his brain. Very difficult math. problems. The people who know what IQ and test scores mean are t he University professors, but they don't talk about it t o t he public; it's a taboo subject. When I needed help designing a cam disc for a 7 cylinder radial aircraft engine I cont acted a Math. Prof. at MIT; who had put his e-mail on a web page he put up with useful calculation programs on it. I introduced myself by giving him my test scores. He answered me the next day, and went out of his way to go find another professor in the mechanical engineering dept. who went out of his way and used up his valuable time to get me a BETA t est version of a computer CAM design program, for free. Why did they do this? Because i'm a member of t he club; we have to help each other. Without the test scores he's not going to answer my e-mail or go to work to help me. We have to help each other; the public can't do anything. He's not going to answer your e-mail. But, as I say, this is taboo; they don't discuss it in public. it makes people upset or excited.
what does the sat measure? it measures the amount of academic knowledge you have been exposed to and how much of that knowledge you retained. economic success in the usa is closely related to education levels, more education more money. more education means more academic exposure for children from proper english being spoken at home using "bigger" words in a larger vocabulary to simply having more life experience from vacations to the arts.
an ebonics or spanglish language sat test would probably expose the real difference in intelligence between economic strata, hardly any.
An old, old, argument; put to sleep long ago. IQ tests that don't even use words are common now and give exactly the same results. nice try; betterluck next time.
That's kind of ugly, especially if true.
I wonder if it worked like that circa 1964?
Actually it would be interesting to see the overlapping normal curves for each segment, the max and min. Maybe rich kids just pay to have proxies do it for them. BTW, prep classes can help A LOT, don't let the bad press scare you off. I had great scores, in part because I dragged through a couple of prep books, tho I never took a prep class as such. So I guess I helped the average on one of those middle groups anyway.
If you actually do write code' you have an IQ; which is genetic; end of circular argument.
They are just taught the algorithms of smartness by parents and elite institutions .
You too can be smarter , if you could be bothered .
It's free , therefore valueless .
"You know the price of everything , and the value of nothing ."
This attitude has suddenly re-acquired the death penalty it always had .
A real Darwin-award winner .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/10/prodigies-update-ii.html
Effluence test?
Wealthy kids score better simplu because they are overwhelmingly either in private school and/or well-performing public schools and their parents can devote and do devote a lot more $$$ resources to their children outside of school.
If your born into severe poverty (below the 133% of the Federal Poverty Level) in the US, you are quite simply f@cked. The odds are overwhelmingly against you and anyone who tells you that Americans start on anything close to a remotely equally playing field is delusional and it is just getting notably worse over time.
Ignoring the 'fairness' of SAT's or any tests the basic difference is in the 'culture' of 'wealthier' families.
Many of the Uberwealthy could care less - they are trust fund kids who will NEVER work for a living. They have advisors and others managing their money and many are more than content to live this way. They can go to BocaRaton Junior College (or go to Yale like Bush II) - their education will matter little in their life. Such is the worst of inherited wealth - they didn't make the fortunes they live off and many could care less bout anything outside their bubble.
In contrast it seems that the 'wealthy' that earned their own way (those who have done well but not well enough to walk away from working - those whose lives do not include trust funds) DO care. For some it's all about connections - the 'right school' and the connections it provides, all that matter more than the education itself. But you have to do well enough to get into the 'right' school. Many are smart but more scheming than knowledgeable.
Others got where they are BECAUSE they were smart - educated or not. It seems that even if they did not go to college tehmselves, they want their kids to do so. Either way, education is important to this group - they view it as a necessity. They pay attention to their kids and schools. They EXPECT their kids to do well - and generally, their kids expect so as well. They read to their kids when they wer small, they read regularly themsleves and are well informed and educated themselves about a range of topics. They care about the schools tehir kids attend and pay attention to what's going on in them. They make a fuss when there are problems (and sometimes even when there are not).
But a good number of people really DON'T care all that much about education. They either didn't go to college or went but really didn't get all that much out of it. They got useless degrees that really didn't teach them anything really challenging, anything of value. They send their kids to college because that's what you're supposed to do but the reality is they really didn't put all that much effort into their kids or pay that much to their education when they were young.
Some could care less - they're proud to be dumb and ignorant.
A few are truly talented in some way and able to do something they are good at - something they often love - without a large amount of formal education. But I guarantee those people know anything and everything you can imagine about what they do. They are 'educated' - even if in an informal way.
Haven't they already ranked countries by Upward Mobility Potential?
US and UK unsuprisingly were first and second. Last.
We learned a lot from watching Soviet Communism fail; unfortunately t he way we choose to study it was by imitation.
Most parents, especially in the lower socio-economic bands aren't demanding (maybe they don't know better) more from theirs than was demanded of them.
The correlation between a two-parent household and 'success' is so demonstrative, that for our society to consciously reject the obvious is just another symptom of the rotting core.
Maybe so but you are going to try to get rid of no-dault divorces? Good luck with that. Even the most rabid, diehard social conservatives know that is an entirely hopeless cause.
Well I guess we're SOL
Yep.
Yep.
Not to state the obvious here, but maybe there's a correlation between wealth and intelligence, that smarter people ON AVERAGE make more money than dumber people. And if smarter people are wealthier ON AVERAGE than the kids of wealthy/smart parents would, too, be smart.
Modurn EboLonics Maff Test
a. Is it better to be Dum wiff a smart sociopath pair of Parents -
Parents/ Mentors of Obama, Dubya, Bubba- and Get Chosen to go to Harvard or Yale?
b. Or be Borned with ethical parents but POOR and Un-Connected to the PTB, and earn just enuff to get Buy?
But Choose Wisely
I never took any SAT tests but scored high on the USAF tests.
And scored 128, 135 and 202 on those IQ tests they give online.
I'd rather be poor, unknown and a wiseass, than a Clinton &, Bush Crime family member or Obama, Kerry, Pelosi, Reid or Biden.
I took an online IQ test and scored quite well, 135 I think, but when I declined to purchase the accompanying materials they emailed me back revising the score downward to 85.
The single biggest factor contributing to intelligence is genetics. I think that it's pretty obvious that intelligence and income are highly correlated. So it makes sense that rich people, on average, will score higher than people who are less intelligent. This is basic common sense and a statistic that makes complete sense. No theoretical economic system, no matter how utopian, will result in 100% equality.
I just get frustrated by the notion that inequality amongst different classes or races of people when it comes to IQ or SAT scores is indicative of a failed system. This is simply false, it's not racist, but a proven fact that can be seen across countries. Take a look at Africa for example. Despite the rich resources present on the continent, the indigineous people never built forward societies, even before European influence. It's no surprise that Africans score lower than Europeans and Jews on standardized IQ tests. Some scientists attempt to explain the score differentials by stating that the tests are culturally biased. This may be politically correct but is totally misleading. That's why Africa has a tribal system that stifles innovation and has led to numerous genocides over the centuries.
Happiness and personal satisfaction are way under-rated,
College only makes you smarter by "Degrees" but wisdom is a bit harder to acquire. People I admire have few advanced degrees, but advanced "Cojones." What I aspire to.
All My Heroes Died Broke, Broken, Not BeatenWho pays all the taxes? The high SAT suckers.
Who gets all the welfare and goes straight to the front of the line for charity & hand outs? Definitely NOT the high SAT suckers.
Who did Corzine rob? Who does the FRB-IMF-UN fleece? Who gets to go to war for this privilege?
Who bailed out whom?
Who's smarter?
Go look at Bill Gates home page. That guy is getting chumped by all the professional beggars in the world. If he ever figures it out I wouldn't judge him if he dosed them with ebola. Malaria. Polio. Smallpox. Yellow fever. Dengue fever. HIV. Anthrax. Spanish influenza. Legionaire's disease. Bubonic plague. Pneumonic plague. Scarlet fever. Organized Religion. Communism. Socialism. Facism. Rabies. Public education. Slavery, indentured or other forms of subjugation.
SAT scores are not important if you have 'diversity' in your application. You will get a free ride while the middle class pay for it with higher tuition (to cover your free ride) and with student loans - even though they had higher test scores and grandparents from Hungary instead of from Somalia, or Laos, or Fiji.
I'm Prussian and Qubecsois. Do I get any points
I don't know why this is particularly surprising - If wealth is correlated with intelligence, and if the intelligence of offspring is even partly correlated to parental intelligence, it seems reasonable that richer (therefore probably smarter) parents will have smarter kids who will do better on standardized tests. Perhaps a higher socioeconomic status helps get better scores - I don't think it hurts.
The SAT test is racist. We must stamp out racism.
And I know how to remedy this ugly situation. It's quite simple, really.
The difficulty of the questions just needs to be adjusted downward until blacks and Mexicans get the same scores as Asians and Jews. We will then all be equal.
Already in progress; the SAT test has been dumbed down twice since it's inception. What a country.
Stupid People raise stupid kids. (Generally speaking) Stupid people think that it is the schools job to teach their kids. smart Parents know its their job, not the schools.
So what we need now, is all the stupid people to have a zillion kids, all dumb and on Gov handouts. GREAT!
We;re working on it; the program is in full swing; expect "mission accomplished" banner soon.
the rich can afford to spend more time exercising their minds and use better tools to do that hence the results
and in addition the poorest have simultaniously to studies also work to earn for their living
We're talking about kids. The schools have them for breakfast, lunch, and in some cases dinner. The issue is that the liberal teachers working in these schools believe in all of the reasons why these kids can't succeed so they don't press them to succeed. It takes some effort, not a lot of effort, not effort that any kid isn't capable of, but it does require effort.
What about Billy Ray Valentine? Yeah... and what about George Bernard Shaw and that London School of Pygmalion?
Well I scored pretty high and my parents definitely weren't up in the 100k range, and that is before they dumbed down the test so everyone gets a 1600.
It's a correlation between large numbers of examples; it doesn't apply to individuals. There's no reason to assume you didn't pick up your brain formation genes, (which exist, of course), from your grandfathe r, for instance; also there are many, many very bright people working as machinists, welders, carpenters. I know a Union Carpenter who reads major Philosophers for recreational reading.
A teacher friend of mine decide to work in a low income area school, 1st grade. She said the kids come in on day 1 saying how much they hate school. Where did they learn that??? School is bad. Education is bad. Just give me EBT.
Mobility between classes is decreasing in the US and increasing in some other countries. It is not all genetic; some is organizational/societal, from a timeframe that might never occur again. But creating a society where one can move between levels, is not going to be free.
The Northern Europe ones that presently have mobility spend a lot to achieve it, plus I am not sure how that continues once their homogeneity is reduced...
Creative destruction is not a bad thing every once in a while.
This is just another example of desiring 'equal outcomes' as opposed to 'equal opportunities'.
Did the research even touch upon the idea that the reason generationally poor families are poor is because of their inability/lack of desire to study and learn? Isn't it possible that family genetics causes some families to be generally less intelligent than others?
The issue, as proposed by the writer, seems to assume up front that we should expect equality in outcomes. Why?