... fulfill their aspirations. While the test was successful in creating an upper-class, it also effectuated disaccord and hostility, especially pertaining to issues of class and race. This test, though it was intended to create a NEW aristocracy, it merely created a "meritocracy" that is "neither natural nor inevitable, and it does not apportion opportunity equally or fairly" (www.the-big-test.com). When the test ... of an opportunity to excel on the test, which, in turn limits your college opportunities because SAT scores a major factor in the admissions process. On the other hand, if you...

• Word Count: 1650
• Approx Pages: 7

... . It is true that the gap shrinks only a little when blacks and whites families in all the same amount of schooling, income, and some wealth. The best-known test that claims to measure academic aptitude is the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The SAT was developed in the 1930s to help selective colleges identify talented students from mediocre high schools who performed poorly on traditional ... Scales of Children's Abilities. Correlations ranging from .16 to .78 have been obtained from studies examining the relationship between the PPVT-R standard score equivalents and various "g factor" score...

• Word Count: 2753
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... shown in charts showing the performance groups of students who have taken the test. Norms show the comparison of the performance of new groups of test takers with the samples of students on whom the test was standardized. Goodwin and Driscoll (59-60) note that standardized tests have the following qualities: They provide a "systematic procedure for describing behaviors, whether in terms ... predictor of a student's intellectuality and future. "Standardized tests generally have questionable ability to predict one's academic success" (Sacks). Not all high school seniors are required to ta...

• Word Count: 1382
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... us how kids are learning? There is a great improvement of students with their scores but there is still a big barrier between minority student such as Latinos and blacks with white students. According to a journal in Student Test Scores, a Wider Gap, African-Americans score increased to 6 points in the SAT verbal and 7 points higher in math in the past 10 years. In comparison, white student ... a test that was supposedly designed to even the playing field. Well-off students win thousands of scholarship dollars, despite their financial readiness to attend the most prestigious colleges and...

• Word Count: 1161
• Approx Pages: 5

... escape from the life they had always known was possible. Peter Sacks notes some encouraging trends in the educational system, namely the growing number of colleges and universities who no longer require prospective students to take the SAT. Also, he discusses the notion of "authentic achievement," which assesses a child's performance rather than measuring it against a national average or comparing one child's performance ... state governments, where in California, a teacher whose students performed the best on a certain test received a cash bonus of twenty-five thousand dollars, while o...

• Word Count: 1692
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate