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08-23-2014 , 04:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
The average math score for MIT undergrads was about 710.
In 2013, 75% of enrolling undergrads at MIT scored 750 or higher in math, with 25% scoring 800.

http://collegeapps.about.com/od/coll...IT_Profile.htm
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08-23-2014 , 04:28 PM
As for some second tier schools, Harvard had 710/800 for the 25th and 75th percentiles for undergrad, and U. Penn. had 690/780.

http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/...ide_x_side.htm
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08-24-2014 , 12:23 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
I think they dumbed down the SAT big time from when I took it. And I read multiple times that the 800 gender ratio was 13 to one. But that was back then. The average math score for MIT undergrads was about 710. So maybe now you would have the best of the bet. Certainly I overestimated the smartness of Physics majors. They can't be that smart as this forum proves.
I think you old guys were just not very smart, as this forum also proves.
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08-24-2014 , 02:30 AM
All kidding aside the test is probably easier and the scoring almost definitely is. A few wrong is now, I am almost sure, still 800. I wouldn't be surprised if this was done to close the gender gap.
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08-24-2014 , 09:22 AM
Don't think so. It's really rare to be able to miss 1 and get an 800 on math. No idea if the test is easier today, way more people take it today but the top 10% are prob way smarter than in your day.
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08-25-2014 , 02:22 AM
X number of standard deviations above the mean has been X number of standard deviations above the mean. That is how these are scored, and the definition of standard deviation hasn't change over time, guys.
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08-25-2014 , 03:42 AM
The relationship between the number you get right and wrong and the scaled score isn't fixed, and the distribution of scaled scores changes over time. It doesn't depend at all on test takers taking the same test. They have an unscored section that tells them how to adjust scores so that they can be compared across different versions of the test which may have different levels of difficulty. In 1995, they had to rescale everything because average scores had dropped, a perfect score would have no longer corresponded to 800, and the distribution wasn't normal.

http://sat.collegeboard.org/scores/how-sat-is-scored

Quote:
Originally Posted by wiki
By the early 1990s, average total SAT scores were around 900 (typically, 425 on the verbal and 475 on the math). The average scores on the 1994 modification of the SAT I were similar: 428 on the verbal and 482 on the math.[39] SAT scores for admitted applicants to highly selective colleges in the United States were typically much higher. For example, the score ranges of the middle 50% of admitted applicants to Princeton University in 1985 were 600 to 720 (verbal) and 660 to 750 (math).[40] Similarly, median scores on the modified 1994 SAT for freshmen entering Yale University in the fall of 1995 were 670 (verbal) and 720 (math).[41] For the majority of SAT test takers, however, verbal and math scores were below 500: In 1992, half of the college-bound seniors taking the SAT were scoring between 340 and 500 on the verbal section and between 380 and 560 on the math section, with corresponding median scores of 420 and 470, respectively.[42]

The drop in SAT verbal scores, in particular, meant that the usefulness of the SAT score scale (200 to 800) had become degraded. At the top end of the verbal scale, significant gaps were occurring between raw scores and uncorrected scaled scores: a perfect raw score no longer corresponded to an 800, and a single omission out of 85 questions could lead to a drop of 30 or 40 points in the scaled score. Corrections to scores above 700 had been necessary to reduce the size of the gaps and to make a perfect raw score result in an 800. At the other end of the scale, about 1.5 percent of test takers would have scored below 200 on the verbal section if that had not been the reported minimum score. Although the math score averages were closer to the center of the scale (500) than the verbal scores, the distribution of math scores was no longer well approximated by a normal distribution. These problems, among others, suggested that the original score scale and its reference group of about 10,000 students taking the SAT in 1941 needed to be replaced.[33]

Beginning with the test administered in April, 1995, the SAT score scale was recentered to return the average math and verbal scores close to 500. Although only 25 students had received perfect scores of 1600 in all of 1994, 137 students taking the April test scored a 1600.[43] The new scale used a reference group of about one million seniors in the class of 1990: the scale was designed so that the SAT scores of this cohort would have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 110. Because the new scale would not be directly comparable to the old scale, scores awarded on April 1995 and later were officially reported with an "R" (for example, "560R") to reflect the change in scale, a practice that was continued until 2001.[33] Scores awarded before April 1995 may be compared to the those on the recentered scale by using official College Board tables. For example, verbal and math scores of 500 received before 1995 correspond to scores of 580 and 520, respectively, on the 1995 scale.[44]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#199...back_to_500.29
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08-25-2014 , 07:40 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
All kidding aside the test is probably easier and the scoring almost definitely is. A few wrong is now, I am almost sure, still 800. I wouldn't be surprised if this was done to close the gender gap.
And fwiw all my posts were written with 800 being equivalent to getting every problem correct.
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08-25-2014 , 04:06 PM
Getting back to the original question. I would be flabbergasted if more than a third of Harvard Law Students could get 85 out of 90 on the math SAT if they had to take it tomorrow. Easy as it is. Five years after graduation I'd put it at 10%. But I can't bet since the statistics are out there and I would only get called if beat.
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08-25-2014 , 04:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTheMick2
X number of standard deviations above the mean has been X number of standard deviations above the mean. That is how these are scored, and the definition of standard deviation hasn't change over time, guys.
I'm not sure who you are talking to. But if 100 is the SD, then if students got dumber it would mean that 800 allowed more wrong answers.
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09-04-2014 , 01:08 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
Getting back to the original question. I would be flabbergasted if more than a third of Harvard Law Students could get 85 out of 90 on the math SAT if they had to take it tomorrow. Easy as it is. Five years after graduation I'd put it at 10%. But I can't bet since the statistics are out there and I would only get called if beat.
I would be surprised if either of those came in under.
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