Now, here's a twist. Two students from Monroe, NJ, aced the PSAT - and then told a reporter that intelligence doesn't matter on these exams, only practice:
According to Yushen Qian and Robert Ngenzi, a student's intelligence should not be judged by how well they perform on a standardized test.
And the pair should know — Yushen, 16, and Robert, 15, who each said they spent a great deal of time preparing to take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, were rewarded for their hard work when both received perfect scores on the math and verbal sections of the examination.
The duo said it's not difficult to score high on standardized tests like the PSAT with enough practice and preparation, but that doesn't mean a person has striking intelligence.
"Nothing beats effort and hard work. You can be the smartest person and not put in any effort and bomb it," Yushen said of taking a standardized test.
Yushen thus makes a logical fallacy that is often made by testing opponents, and that is:
If A is intelligent yet can flunk an aptitude test due to lack of practice (i.e., a complete unfamiliarity with the exam), then B can be unintelligent and make a high score solely due to practice.
The first part might not be true; the second part definitely isn't.
There's no reason to assume that a student who is smart, and accomplished, could bomb the SAT merely due to lack of practice. Few students would be completely unfamiliar with the format, and, barring emotional upsets, most students would be able to concentrate for the few hours of the test administration.
A smart student who doesn't get prepare might not get as high a score as they otherwise would have, but that's not the same thing as saying that a smart student will "bomb" the SAT if unprepared.
On the other hand, a student who genuinely does not understand the material will not score highly on the test, preparation or no. If practice were really all that mattered, then it would be a cinch to prepare 8-year-olds to pass the SAT. It doesn't work that way. There has yet to be widely-accepted research supporting the existence of "test prep" methods that substantially increase scores for everyone. The only groups that claim this research exists want hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars for it.
Practice will help a student do as well as they possibly can on exams like the PSAT and SAT, because practice will familiarize a student with the exam format and teach him to pace himself. Both Yushen and Robert are in advanced-placement classes and participate in an extra-curricular competitive math and science group. It's not surprising that they were able to make perfect scores with intensive practice. What IS surprising is that no one else seems to have pointed out to them that this was due mainly to their high intelligence (supported by factors other than the test), and that it's folly to claim that students of lower intelligence and education could have scored perfectly with as much practice.
Robert even claims that "The SAT only tests how well you can take a standardized test." Really? Then I assume that when he and Yushen took their very first PSAT, they both made rock-bottom scores of 20. No? You doubt that's so? Then what was that test measuring if they did better than a 20 before all that practice?
I'd be willing to bet anyone $100 that both Robert and Yushen scored above average before any practice whatsoever. (I find it very interesting that the reporter apparently didn't ask about their score gains, and neither kid mentioned them.) I'd also like to know why both of these smart guys seem so unwilling to admit that their intelligence may have played any part whatsoever in their test scores.
Posted by kswygert at December 31, 2003 10:30 AM