Feeling testy

There was this kid I went to high school with who got a perfect 1600 on his SAT exam. Everybody hated him for about a week.

 

The brains hated him ‘cause he outshone them at their own game, storming his way to the top score en route to becoming King of the Teacher’s’ Pets. Everyone else hated him because it briefly made him a pseudo-celebrity. I remember stopping by my locker one afternoon, probably to ditch my pre-calculus text in exchange for a gruesome zombie novel, and seeing a TV station’s camera crew following him through the halls – as though he were a hard-luck Hollywood actor called to task for drunkenly driving his Bentley through the dining room of a Chinese restaurant. It was like going to school with Lindsay Lohan, except Lindsay Lohan couldn’t get a perfect 1600 if she was three-months’ sober and coached by physicist Stephen Hawking. 

 

I belonged to neither of these camps. Frankly, I never cared that much, since his score had about as much impact on my life as a donkey fart in Siberia. But I remember being impressed. The SATs were hard.

 

Well now, not so much. In a recent article, AP Education Writer Kimberley Hefling reported that the iconic test will soon undergo some revisions, which, judging from their nature, should make it an easy, breezy affair, the stuff of pasta collages and spelling tests with words like “crayon” and “ham.” 

 

One of the changes is actually positive: It restores 1600 as the test’s top score, which has been out of vogue since the last series of updates were made in 2005. Now granted, since the requirements of the SAT periodically change, this is less important than it could be. Contrasting a current class’ test scores to that of previous generations sounds helpful, until you realize it’s akin to comparing an NFL quarterback’s stats to those of somebody who played in the 1940’s, when helmets were leather and guys played with broken bones and polio. When standards change, comparisons become less meaningful. Even so, there’s something reassuring about the number 1600; it restores a tradition that somehow perfectly encapsulates the unmitigated terror of doing the actual deed. If memory serves, fear was one of the best incentives to do well on the SAT. It can be a powerful motivator. Just ask Stalin, or Lex Luthor.

 

Other changes seem designed simply to lower the bar, which is never a good idea, especially in a country preoccupied with cheese-stuffed pizza crust and the diplomatic achievements of Dennis Rodman. It’s well documented how far America has fallen educationally when compared to the rest of the world; we’ve gone from being a mecca of academic excellence to a nation that considers a top score on “Wheel of Fortune” to be a high intellectual goal. Our reading levels are far behind other first-world countries, and our math scores are even more abysmal; in a worldwide ranking, I’m pretty sure we rate just below that tiny Pacific island where the locals make toothbrushes out of the blubber of dead sharks.

 

Which is why it seems like a bad time to remove penalties for wrong answers. And make the essay optional. And replace challenging vocabulary words, such as “prevaricator” and “sagacious,” with easier fare like “synthesis” and “empirical.” Those, according to Hefling, are among the changes that are slated to take effect by 2016. 

 

College Board President and bespectacled sea turtle David Coleman said the test should offer “worthy challenges, not artificial obstacles.” He asserted that the changes are more reflective of what students study in high school, and the skills they’ll need in college. No word yet on whether the new test will have questions about keg stands or making bongs out of plastic water bottles. Something tells me there are certain skill sets that have to be acquired in the field.

 

I understand the desire to take academics in one hand, and the SAT in the other, and get them both pointed in the same direction. Makes sense. But if there’s a gap between what children are learning and what they’re tested on, heightening the standards of academics seems to me a nobler goal than lowering the standards of the test. Sure, you’ll see improved scores, but what will that mean, exactly, for the next kid who lands a 1600 and thereby gains admission to Harvard or Yale? It’d be a shame for some poor student to be accepted into a top-tier university, only to flunk out before learning how to paddle a rowboat in a polo shirt, or smoke a corncob pipe pretentiously.

 

If kids today don’t know the meanings of “prevaricator” and “sagacious,” let’s teach them. The brain is a muscle, so even if they don’t use certain words or skills in real-world scenarios, at least they’ve given the ol’ fleshbag a good workout, the mental equivalent of the training montage in all 27 Rocky movies. American high schoolers are going to have to compete globally, so if we want them to perform on the level of, say, the Bavarians or the Brazilians, then we need to expect more of them. That means holding them to a higher standard, but it also means teaching them better.

 

Whew! Quite the view from this high horse, lemme tell you. Blue skies for miles.

 

One more point: The whole culture of fear surrounding the test is unwarranted. Not that it isn’t important to study hard and do well – it is – but the impact of any given student’s score is consistently overblown. Mr. Perfect 1600, the last I heard, was a stand-up comedian.

 

Nothing wrong with that, by any means. Some of me favorite people ever are stand-up comedians. But it goes to show that you never know how people’ll turn out. Take me, for example. My score was far from perfect. But at least when I crack wise, I get to do it sitting down.