Comments on: What’s Really Wrong With Standardized Tests https://www.isegoria.net/2025/04/whats-really-wrong-with-standardized-tests/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Sun, 21 Jun 2026 12:42:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Roo_ster https://www.isegoria.net/2025/04/whats-really-wrong-with-standardized-tests/comment-page-1/#comment-3757899 Roo_ster Fri, 02 May 2025 16:40:07 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=52953#comment-3757899 The humanities AP exams are globo-homo narrative-buttressing trash. They are useful primarily to keep disruptive ‘tards from bothering average & above average students in public school.

]]> By: Bill https://www.isegoria.net/2025/04/whats-really-wrong-with-standardized-tests/comment-page-1/#comment-3757824 Bill Tue, 29 Apr 2025 20:38:00 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=52953#comment-3757824 There’s a fourth line of defense in the War against Merit.

My son recently finished his math PhD [reams of parental kvelling redacted] and he and his undergrad math friends were frankly contemptuous of perfect SAT or ACT math scores, since anyone can get one after the recentering of the SAT in 1995.

In 1972 (a year I choose completely at random), perhaps 0.1% of students got an 800 on the math SAT; now it’s more like 1-2%.

The recentering benefited high scorers the most; a student scoring 500/500 (verbal/math) in 1972 would score maybe 520/530 in 2023. A student scoring 700/700 in 1972 would score about 730/790 in 2023.

I don’t think the recentering was done to benefit students or educators. As far as I can tell, it helps parents feel better that their kids get higher numbers, it obscures who the really superior students are by cutting off the top of the grading curve and it greatly rewards students who spend a lot of time grinding it out in test preparation courses.

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