"Bryan Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" wrote: > What in the world is the deal with the press on rising SAT scores? Last > thing I heard, the SAT grading system switched from an absolute score to > a periodically re-normed curved score. So the comparisons with previous > years' scores make no sense. I believe that the SAT and the general GRE have been on a normal distribution from the beginning. Other tests are a bit trickier, since they deign to measure absolute competence as well ... > Is this a gross deception? Or are these reports (?!) carefully adjusted > to account for this problem? Both possibilities shock me, but the first > seems more plausible than the second. I believe ETS only renormalizes scores every few years, longer for tests that are taken by more people. This migh seem idiosyncratic, but I believe it is for the precise purpose of allowing schools to benchmark themselves, as this recent report benchmarks the whole nation. This would not be possible with, say, the physics GRE subject test, since the score distributions change drastically from test to test, let alone from year to year. I'm sure they will "recenter" the SAT soon. Sourav Mandal ------------------------------------------------------------ Sourav K. Mandal [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/ "In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse." -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Poetic Principle"
