The bar keeps getting set lower as the kids who make perfect SAT scores keep getting younger:
A 13-year-old boy has scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT, a standardized test usually given to college-bound high school seniors.
"I was pretty surprised and happy," said Lee Kennedy-Shaffer, an eighth-grader at Mechanicsburg Middle School. "I did not think I would score that high."
He got the perfect score for a test he took in December as part of a program for gifted children. He wasn't the first in his family to get a perfect score, but he was the first to do so at such a young age.
In June 2003 his brother Ross scored 1600 on the SAT as a junior at Mechanicsburg High School. The oldest brother, Alan, had 1520 on the exam.
Oh, I get it. This kid was just NOT going to let his older siblings show him up. Good for him. And why wasn't he chosen to play Harry Potter? (He already owns a magic wand - his pencil.)
On a related note, I wonder if anyone (other than ETS/College Board) has kept track of the number of students who achieve perfect scores each year? And what would it mean if that number has, for example, drastically increased as of late? The result of "dumbing down the test?" The result of those who might do poorly being more likely to bypass the exam for schools that no longer require it? Or the natural by-product of an across-the-board increased focus on standardized testing?
Posted by kswygert at January 8, 2005 10:04 PM