"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 08:22:47 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


BTW, you may want to look at the sample tests given for SATs today,
particularly the SAT II's, which used to be called SAT Achievement Tests
in
our day. They'll give you a chill, wondering how we got so dumb. g

Is it true they dumbed down the Sats several times in the last 15 yrs?

What happened is that they normalized scores upward sometime in the '70s,
for arguable reasons. They said it was to "vernier" the middle range, to
give them a better spread for better discrimination. I don't know if that's
true, or if they were just pressured to raise scores.

Scores allegedly were raised once more, I think in the '80s. That was tied
to a revamping of the questions, partly to remove gender biases. I don't
know much about that one either. And I've asked these questions of Dr.
Charles Krietzberg, former VP of ETS, who I used to know. Charlie gave me
answers but I'm not sure I understood them. He's quite a complex fellow. g

Meantime, the content of advanced courses has improved enormously, and the
SAT tests, particularly the SAT II's, have toughened up to test the new
content. My son's AP and Honors classes, for example, would have scared me
out of my socks when I was his age.

What effect this has had on scores is problematic. But it does mean that we
old farts wouldn't do very well on the tests. I scored 795 on the Physics
SAT Achievement Test in 1965. I've seen the sample questions for the current
SAT II/Physics. I couldn't answer more than 2/3 of them today.

Ed Huntress