Practice SATs vs the real thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the supposed adaptive aspect of the test introduces an element of unfairness and calls into question the quality of standardization.

I took the digital GMAT during the first year it was released and there was a lot more official paper and digital study material available for that test.

I feel the College Board is being deliberately opaque.

I distrust the mechanisms for passing to the harder questions. That seems like a real opportunity for screwing up your score.

[Anonymous]

My dd’s practice test scores were typically higher than her actual test scores over the past year. She tests well and performs under pressure, so I don’t think it was due to nerves. With superscoring, she ended up just shy of 1500, but she was cracking 1500 on individual practice tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the supposed adaptive aspect of the test introduces an element of unfairness and calls into question the quality of standardization.

I took the digital GMAT during the first year it was released and there was a lot more official paper and digital study material available for that test.

I feel the College Board is being deliberately opaque.

I distrust the mechanisms for passing to the harder questions. That seems like a real opportunity for screwing up your score.

I agree, given that this is for college admissions I don't really much benefit of steering the kids who struggle with the harder questions to the easier/capped lower score modules. The SAT hardly seems the place for participation trophies and theoretically nerves could cause poorer performance on the first module, but that student doesn't have the chance to recover because they have already been shunted off to the easier module.

[Anonymous]

I have a more "regular" kid than the super high scorers who like to post on DCUM. She took her first SAT this past September and had taken one practice SAT on College Board's site before that. She scored exactly the same on both: 1290.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a more "regular" kid than the super high scorers who like to post on DCUM. She took her first SAT this past September and had taken one practice SAT on College Board's site before that. She scored exactly the same on both: 1290.

That’s a better than “regular” score,
especially with limited practice and she should be proud of it.

My son took a practice test the summer before his junior year and scored somewhere in the high 1200s. 14 months later, tons of studying and four actual SAT tests taken, and he got to a superscore 1500. Some kids (and parents) want to push beyond and others do not. I won’t say my kid’s way was better than someone else’s. For him, getting there was a miserable grind. There’s more to life than a test score and his approach is not for everyone. But I know my son and he would have been more miserable in the end if he hadn’t put in the work.

My guess is your daughter is very bright and could get whatever score she wants and it just depends on what she wants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the supposed adaptive aspect of the test introduces an element of unfairness and calls into question the quality of standardization.

I took the digital GMAT during the first year it was released and there was a lot more official paper and digital study material available for that test.

I feel the College Board is being deliberately opaque.

I distrust the mechanisms for passing to the harder questions. That seems like a real opportunity for screwing up your score.

+1

[Anonymous]

DD scores higher in the blue book practice tests than the real test
Practice - 1460, 1500, 1530, 1510
Real - 1470

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d love to know whether August really was scored harshly.

My kid took a diagnostic test with a national company over the summer and scored a 1550. He then did a month of 1v1 tutoring and took August. Scored a 1480.

He’s a senior and is just done with the test and is letting the chips fall where they may.

There is no way to answer anything about your situation based on the one diagnostic test your kid took that none of us know about.

[Anonymous]

For whatever reason, my ds did much better taking the practice tests published by the college board on paper, rather than the digital for real. Scored 1590 and 1600 on 4 practice tests. Scored 1500, 1480 and 1530 (1540 superscore) on the real test (digital). It's not a huge difference but it was interesting it was so different test to test.

[Anonymous]

My kid took both August and September. She said August math was soo. soo. hard compared with the practice tests. And I went online for a reality check and ALL kids were saying that. She came out saying September math was soo. soo. easy compared with the practice tests except the last couple of questions.

She ended up getting 10 points higher in math in September vs August (due to the curve).

So the test seems valid in that way. One test may be way more difficult, but the curve accommodates it.

Her math scores were roughly what she was getting on practice tests, I think. (I think she was disappointed by about 20 points.)

Her verbal score (which she struggles with and didn't notice a big difference between sept and august) went down 40 points in the sept test. But since she didn't talk much about that one, I don't have any insight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the supposed adaptive aspect of the test introduces an element of unfairness and calls into question the quality of standardization.

I took the digital GMAT during the first year it was released and there was a lot more official paper and digital study material available for that test.

I feel the College Board is being deliberately opaque.

I distrust the mechanisms for passing to the harder questions. That seems like a real opportunity for screwing up your score.

I agree, given that this is for college admissions I don't really much benefit of steering the kids who struggle with the harder questions to the easier/capped lower score modules. The SAT hardly seems the place for participation trophies and theoretically nerves could cause poorer performance on the first module, but that student doesn't have the chance to recover because they have already been shunted off to the easier module.

It's not about participation trophies. This is how they are differentiating relatively small differences in students' capabilities *with a shorter test.*. The old test was a good deal longer and had more easy questions and more hard questions. The many easy questions didn't do anything to differentiate a 700 from an 800 because both 700 and 800 scoring kids got them 100% correct. Same for low scoring kids-- they got 75% of the hard questions incorrect (since they got 25% of their guesses correct).

By having the two paths, they can give the 450-550 kids more easy questions to differentiate the 450 from the 480 from the 520 from the 550. And can give the higher scoring kids more hard questions to differentiate the 700 from 730 from 760 from 800.

[Anonymous]

My kid says the more difficult Bluebook practice tests were pretty close to the real tests in terms of difficulty. Scored mostly1600, with all tests 1580+, on the practice tests, then 1560 on the real deal in the spring, 1600 in August (we picked the same testing location to reduce stress). No other prep than the practice tests provided by College Board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid says the more difficult Bluebook practice tests were pretty close to the real tests in terms of difficulty. Scored mostly1600, with all tests 1580+, on the practice tests, then 1560 on the real deal in the spring, 1600 in August (we picked the same testing location to reduce stress). No other prep than the practice tests provided by College Board.

Which one are the more difficult blue book tests?

[Anonymous]

It is a lot like sports where performance in practice and games can differ. Some people are gamers and handle pressure very well. Others don't and will almost always score lower than their practice tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid says the more difficult Bluebook practice tests were pretty close to the real tests in terms of difficulty. Scored mostly1600, with all tests 1580+, on the practice tests, then 1560 on the real deal in the spring, 1600 in August (we picked the same testing location to reduce stress). No other prep than the practice tests provided by College Board.

Was this during digital testing?