This time on SATs…
Teenagers are getting bogus ADHD diagnoses to score extra time in standardized testing exams — and numbers are surging after the tests were reintroduced by elite Ivy League colleges.
Parents are taking their children to doctors and psychologists for letters saying they have the condition or other mental disabilities, then getting as much as 50% more time to take the tests.
It can mean a 200-point boost to an SAT score, one expert said.
Full article, HERE from the NY Post.
What happened to just studying???
And with the crap being taught in the Ivy League schools, why would one want to go there?
I know I’m old, but I don’t remember either study guides or faked up medical diagnosis back when we took them. We were expected to study (on our on at home, no less) and it was one shot and done. No retakes that I can remember.
I guess the participation trophy crowd can’t stand to not get that one more participation ‘trophy’ of a high SAT score.
And pay way too much for a substandard education, qualifying them to ask if you want fries with your meal, unless you’re in California, where there won’t be any jobs for kids or recent grads because restaurants can’t afford to pay them $20/hr to show up when they want to work (if they bother to get up)…
But this administration is determined to ‘waive’ all those students loans, so ‘we’ can pay for them to get that edumacation… sigh…
I seem to recall when I took the SAT, PSAT, et.al. I was told you couldn’t really study for them, so I just went in and took them. If I recall correctly, I did pretty well.
ADHD has the ability to hyperfocus. It has struck me as odd we drug kids out of ADHD and give them extra time; we don’t teach them how to access or use their superpower. OBTW, 30% of kids are ADHD. It’s a NORMAL condition (abnormal is >2sigma deviation).
uke – You can study for any test, or at least learn test taking techniques. My dad taught me how to pass any multiple choice test 55 years ago. Multiple choice is really a very poor means of testing. My opinion from taking a class in test design back when I did adult training. Too many people whine about how essay tests are graded, so multiple choice avoids whining which makes it preferred by management.
“ADHD has the ability to hyperfocus.”
I think that is more likely an attribute of Asperger’s. The drugs are intended to help the ADHD kids slow down their mind so they can focus, and not be so scatterbrained.
I think that the kids should avoid adhd drugs until maybe mid teens. The way it is done now, to make the classroom more tolerable to the FEMALE teachers, makes it difficult for the kids to function without the meds at all. This becomes a major problem as they get older, and have to deal with life as an adult. It shouldn’t be used as a crutch, as it is currently, since the availability of any drug is always potentially iffy.
FWIW, the highest concentration of people with ADHD that I have encountered is the autobody and vehicle towing industries. Close to 100% cover by my observation, and comments by others.
What attracts them is that the job tends not to be a cookiecutter day. Lots of variation in what you do, near instant feedback during the work, interact with lots of people during the day, and meet new people.
I guess on the flip side they are destigmatizing mental impairment because they use those same excuses to get more time for tests once they are in school too. It’s a part of the cause of the victimhood mentality as well-they trade off of disability—makes them ‘special’. Which used to mean something different.
Hey Old NFO,
And the tradeoff is that our “kids” will be going up against the kids from China and India who don’t deal with that petty crap and we are going to get our clocks cleaned by “Their kids” because they ain’t dealing with all the bullcrap we are dealing with. I keep trying to stay positive but I see how I grew up and I see now and I think I am glad I have more years behind me than in front of me, but I fear for my son who is 21 and will have to deal with the repercussions of all the short sited crap for the next several generations if we can ever recover.
I went to a test prep center (Kaplan’s) for my SAT.
I don’t remember a study guide for the SAT either. I took the LSAT once and there was a small study guide for it. I missed the cutoff by 20 points and decided to stay with the cops. Less debt that way.
I took the PSAT and SAT as a junior and did well enough to get into any school I could afford.
A good friend was an all American athlete who was offered a number of scholarships in his sport. One was to the University of Pennsylvania but they wanted a minimum score on an SAT of 1000. The best he ever did was 850. They said close enough and admitted him. He graduated with a “Gentleman’s B ” average.
A colleague tutored students for the SAT test. He took the test every year well into his 70’s and his lowest score was 1580. Brilliant guy and former submariner
This reminds me of the time when I was a senior in High School and some of the wealthier guys were paying a doctor to write up a statement about physical problems they had in order to evade being drafted. I did not have the money and my upbringing did not allow me to try that even if I had the money. Instead I enlisted into the Air Force before I graduated and went to basic two weeks after graduating High School.
If you need extra time and studying for the SAT, you are doing it wrong – and you had a really poor upbringing.
I took it 3 times, the first in 7th grade was 1100, the last was 1520. I knew 3 people who got 1600s.
I went to public school.
I took mine in ’75. You could retake it, it is just most kids took it late (with feelings of dread) and wouldn’t have had the time to get results back, improve themselves, take another test and get results back in time to apply for college.
I don’t remember study guides or prep tutoring. You read widely to develop understanding of man and the world, and do your school work because knowledge isn’t free – you have to pay attention.
As far as jobs for kids go, Australia has a useful experience we can look back at. Young employees were being fired as fast as they were hired. So the government decided that businesses should mentor young hires more. And to motivate that, a company would be responsible for a full year of wages even if they fired the youth. Amazingly, there were second order effects to raising the price to hire a employee. For most was that nobody would hire them. Exemptions like your dad worked there for 15 years and was well respected, or you are a family friend of the owner, otherwise NO.
This will affect more than fast food and retail. Now add in the loss of side gigs like Uber and it is time to give up on California. One hot job might be as a Welfare coach. Tutoring white people who used to work on how to get welfare.
My career demanded material tests. Our goal was to guarantee the materials met the minimum requirements for structural integrity. Failing the test meant corrective measures were needed and implemented. That should be the same criteria for SAT tests. If you don’t meet the minimum requirements, corrective measures are required and implemented. Cheating should be regarded as egregious as falsifying material tests. In the end, the human component is as important as the materials. The results of substandard allowances always leads to failure.
Never took any of those test. First exposure was Army induction. Failed utterly the foreign language test (what the h*ll is Esperanto?, got something like 143 out of 150 on the general knowledge test.
I think my SAT was somewhere in the 1400s if I remember correctly… sigh… And yes, different strokes for different folks.
The purpose behind college/university attendance now is indoctrination, not education. In order to indoctrinate as many gullible youth as possible you need to get them all into the indoctrination centers at an early age. Everything related to the system is geared to that fact. Academic ability and achievements are irrelevant. Waiting till these victims are older makes it much more difficult to successfully indoctrinate them.
My wife teaches university statistics. An “hour-long” test lasts as long as the student asks for.
When I took the SAT (back in the Jurassic Era of mid-70s) you could get “practice tests”- SAT tests from previous years.
It was recommended that you take one at home (with the same time limits and restrictions as the real test) to familiarize yourself with the process and to highlight any weak areas, then spend a week or two reviewing before taking it again, a day or so before going in for the real test.
It seemed to work – I did OK on the first test (~1500, better on the second, and about the same (1530) as the second one when I took the official, proctored, test.
Learning how to pace myself when taking the test probably accounted for most if the improvement, I think. The same strategies helped when I took the armed forces assessment (ASVAB?) and the GRE general and subject tests years later.
Simple multiple choices are fairly easy – answer all the questions that you are certain up as fast as you can, then go back to the ones you’re unsure of. And if you can narrow it down to just two of the four or five answers, guess! You’ll only be wrong half the time if you make an educated guess, but an unanswered question is wrong every time. Even if you’re taking a test like the some of the GRE subject tests, where they take a quarter point off the score for every wrong answer, you’re better off guessing if you can narrow it down to just two choices.
All- Thanks and yes, times have changed… no question!