America's elites strike with their tsunami-like stupidity again — consider the new SAT's discriminatory flavor

© 2016 Peter Free

 

23 September 2016

 

 

Reuters uncovered this glowing example of American exceptionalism

 

Apparently the makers of the SAT (a prominent U.S. college admissions exam) decided they should make the test fairer to educationally disadvantaged students.

 

So what did they do?

 

They loaded up its math section with extensive and complicated verbal problem descriptions that aggravated the discrimination that they were pretending to reduce:

 

 

Reuters counted the number of words in each of the contextualized math questions on the six exams. At least 45 percent of the math word problems in each exam exceeded the “heavy” threshold of 60 words.

 

That means none of tests met the College Board’s revised target specifying that just 10 percent of the questions be heavy . . . .

 

In fact, the math sections of all six exams were consistent with the [previously problematic] prototype – the test that, according to the 2014 study, fewer than half of students could finish.

 

© 2016 Renee Dudley, Despite warnings, College Board redesigned SAT in way that may hurt neediest students, Reuters Investigates (21 September 2016) (extracts)

 

 

The "duh" factor

 

Math is a universal language.

 

You do not need truck-loads of annoying words to test students' math skills.

 

 

The moral? — With dopes like these in charge of the United States, it is no wonder that demagogues like Donald Trump profit

 

When the public feels helpless in holding influential people accountable, its evolutionarily useful "smash" instinct begins to surface.

 

As Roger Harris cleverly observed — and I paraphrase — Mr. Trump is only a symptom of the disease that Secretary Hillary Clinton represents.