![]() Īccording to a technical report on the SAT released in 1971 called, The College Board Admissions Testing Programs, test makers in the 1960s removed a six option antonym section and remade the exam to increase the length and install, "item types that are difficult to 'coach'." In an attempt to supposedly level the candidate playing field, the test questions were also re-written to look less like questions a student might receive in one of their high school classroom exams. The SAT even had to change the weights of its test sections and alter its questions to respond to the growing presence of test prep behemoths like Kaplan. With more students taking the test than ever before and more schools making it a key determining factor in admissions, testing coaches emerged around the country to help students game the system - for a price. The SAT was originally heralded as " uncoachable," but the '60s proved that wrong. Sources: PBS, Frontline, Manhattan Review, "College Board: Its First 50 Years" He erroneously argued that increased racial mixing was degrading American education. Brigham, known as "the father of the SAT" was involved with the eugenics movement and even wrote an entire book looking at racial differences in test scores. It's worth noting that the modern criticism levied against the SAT as imbued with racist prejudices has roots dating back to the exam's founding. By 1938, every school part of the College Board signed on to use the exam for admittance. The first SAT was administered on June 23, 1926, to just over 8,000 college candidates. That exam came to be called The Scholarship Aptitude Test. The Princeton psychology professor Carl Brigham played an instrumental role in developing the test, and was approached by The College Board (the current test makers) to create a similar exam geared towards high school students applying to college. The SAT test actually originated from an IQ test for US Army recruits entering World War I called Army Alpha. ![]() Hundreds of schools around the country have already dropped the SAT, and traditionally highly esteemed schools are starting to hop on board. High school students ( and even some middle schoolers) spend restless nights studying and their families give test prep companies like Kaplan and The Princeton Review thousands of dollars every year, all with the dream of bumping up their scores by even the slightest margins.īut there's also reason to believe far fewer schools will require SAT scores in the future, if not do away with it entirely. Preparing for the SAT has turned into a lucrative business. A recent report out of Georgetown University appeared to bolster that argument, showing how if schools were to accept students based only on SAT scores, the accepted student body would be noticeably wealthier and less diverse. Since its inception, students and educators have accused the test of disproportionately favoring wealthy white students. High schools across the US vary widely in terms of resources and academic rigor and the test was meant to level the playing field. When the SAT was created, it was meant to serve as an independent predictor of how well students will perform in college. The questions asked, the test's length, and the way it's graded have all ebbed and flowed through the years, often accompanied by criticism from students and educators alike. The test has gone through numerous changes and transformations over its lengthy lifetime. Aside from a high school transcript, the scores a high schooler receives on this single three-hour test could determine where they go to school and pivot their life path. ![]() The Scholarship Aptitude Test (known by nearly everyone as simply the SAT) first emerged 93 years ago and quickly entrenched itself as a stressful but integral element of almost every student's academic portfolio. Last year, just about two million students took one of the most important tests of their lives. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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