Forums | MacLife

The school system has nothing to do with culture and values

They don't teach arc geometry anymore, which was a very common type of question on the SAT. There are a lot of others - basically, If I'd had an extra half hour I could have figured out every question from first principles. But they don't give you that long.

Arc geometry?  Do you mean trigonometry?

or knowing the geometric properties of arcs, chords, secants, sectors... given circle O with radius x, calculate the area of inscribed equilateral triangle ▵ABC

I derived it on the SAT as well. However, that caused me to run out of time and therefore lose marks I could have gotten. Which pissed me off greatly. I forget what the questions on the SAT II were that I was unable to derive in time, but there were some.

I derived it on the SAT as well. However, that caused me to run out of time and therefore lose marks I could have gotten. Which pissed me off greatly. I forget what the questions on the SAT II were that I was unable to derive in time, but there were some.

Uh...  Nobody ever pointed out that if you come to something you can't answer quick, you should go on and come back?  It's one of the first principles of a timed test.

What's your point? I did go on and come back. It still left the unfinished question, just shifted to the beginning. I did all the questions I could in the allotted time, then went back and tried to derive the ones I'd skipped - but ran out of time.

In any case, if I'd been taught the "official" way to do the problems, then I wouldn't have had to duplicate Newton's (and other famous mathematician-types') work when I could have been answering the questions.

or maybe you just werent smart enough to do it in the time you were given and thus means you're not as qualified as others.

oooooo.  *snap*

Junior college didn't care about any standardized tests. 

I'll let you know this summer what I get on the GRE. 

ok. tell us now

But the SATs are really not a very good judge of intelligence just over all apptitude (how do you spell that)

I agree. I had crappy SAT scores (probably bottom 10-20%) for my University, yet my GPA right now is in the top 10%.

There are many qualities standardized tests do not take into account.

soulcrusher's verbal skills: pathetic, especially in english.
soulcrusher's simple arithmetic and algebra skills: pathetic.
soulcrusher in the lab: brilliant.
soulcrusher's ability to describe physical systems: brilliant.

Disclaimer: soulcrusher is evaluating his skills comparatively to each other. Soulcrusher might be much better than you at anything at which he considers himself pathetic.

Junior college didn't care about any standardized tests. 

I'll let you know this summer what I get on the GRE. 

ok. tell us now

740 on math and 680 on verbal.  Not that anybody cares what I scored on verbal.

I got a 1700 on the SATs.

You can't get a 1700 on the SATs. Only 1600.

Disclaimer: soulcrusher is evaluating his skills comparatively to each other. Soulcrusher might be much better than you at anything at which he considers himself pathetic.

I bet you're a hit at parties.

*chuckle*

Ender Wiggins wrote:

I got a 1700 on the SATs.

You can't get a 1700 on the SATs. Only 1600.

you know they have retooled the SATs, got rid of analogies and added a writting section, oh and changed the scoring scale up to 2000 or more just this last year. so maybe you're just misinformed.

well my sister took a PSAT last fall and it was the changed version so I figured it was in effect across the board