Marci Weddle

Journal Article Review 1

Shea, C. (2004). The Boston Globe. Retrieved on September 16, 2005. From http://www.boston.com/news/eduction

What does the SAT test?

My article review was on the SAT test and is it an accurate review of a person’s IQ. The test began in 1926 but it was called the Educational Testing Service at that time. There is a new version of the SAT that will be coming out next spring called “New SAT.” They will be adding a writing portion to the test. Many psychology professors’s are converting SAT scores into IQ scores and stating that the SAT measures general intelligence. Frey and Detterman (psychologists) came to this conclusion by analyzing two data sets. In 1979 two groups of students to two different tests. One group took the SAT test and the other group took the Armed Services Vocational Battery test. The Armed Service Vocational Battery test is designed to measure a person’s IQ. The scores of these two tests were tightly correlated.

The two psychologists are also stated the people who score low on the SAT test have a low intelligence. Linking the SAT scores to IQ is a whole new study. They are also trying to bring the gaps between racial and ethnic groups when developing the New SAT test. In the past when the test was called ETS, the physiologist believed that there was not any correlation between ETS scores and IQ’s. Today many college professors are stating that the SAT is the best single predictor of performance in college. There are two sides of the study. Many professors believe the SAT is a very accurate assessment of a person’s IQ and performance in college. Other professor’s believe that it just shows how narrow a set of skills the SAT and other IQ tests assess. This is going to be an ongoing debate. They are still a lot of decisions to make about the New SAT test. Many people on the College Board believe the test should be called SAT-IQ.

I have a very strong opinion on this topic. I choose this article review because I had a very low SAT score. Fortunately for me I did not need to take the SAT to get into the community college that I went too. I took the PSAT when I was a freshman in high school. I had been evaluated and find out that I had a reading comprehension disorder. I had to get it documented by a psychologist. In doing so I re-took the SAT test and still scored very low. I was told by some of my teachers that I would never make it in college. I left Frostburg State with a 3.8 grade point average. I do not believe the SAT is an accurate predictor of college performance. I strongly disagree with this article. I did very well in college and had an extremely low SAT score. Now look at me, I am in graduate school.