Monday, February 17, 2020

Standardised Testing - Saved Links

Update:  City Journal just put a related article up today.  The Right Measurement

A brief history of the PSAT/NMSQT.  Very brief, leaving much out. Still, there is likely something new for many of you here. June 2011.

Gender Bias in College Admissions Tests. Some interesting background about balancing the tests.  The assumption in the article is that the college grades received by the student are what is real about knowledge achieved, and the tests are something artificial useful only for predicting grades.  Yet grades are also artificial, useful only for predicting first) grades in higher-level courses and second) eventual job performance. What if the tests predict either of those things more accurately? This is a common blind spot of school people, that they think of school performance as an end product. In no society should any preparation for adult behavior be considered an end in itself. It also seems to be an assumption that if males outscore females then something is wrong, but the reverse does not seem to be true. August 2007

The Most Revealing Screen.  City Journal, October 2019.

Those who find the topic interesting can go to Steve Hsu's site Information Processing or Greg Cochrane's West Hunter. Steve Sailer's isteve site is more speculative and geared to a popular audience but also good on the topic. On all three you will have to search the archives, because they haven't been talking about this lately. From his comments on the other sites, I would guess that James Thompson's site is also good, though I haven't read anything there.

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