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Comment by knodi123 | Hacker News Reader

Not as well. But then, I doubt I'd do as well on the old SAT either. It's been a while since I've isolated y or found the zeroes of a function.

But seriously, I really wouldn't do as well. I was a scantron-taking machine back in high school, and I aced the SATs because it was exactly what I was used to. This new one, in my opinion, gives much more objective results.

\*edit: nevermind, I got 5/5 in just a few minutes. Guess I'm not as rusty as I thought, and this test only has easy algebra.

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I felt the same way initially, and actually found it pretty easy to tease out the important parts...but then again I do spend a lot of time with math in my free time and I feel like a lot of people here do as well.

I understand where this critique is coming from. My sister teaches 6th grade math to a class where ~80% doesn't speak english at home. She's just now beginning to expose them to simple problems (10 = 2x, solve for x and the like). She's basically dual-hatting as an english teacher and a math teacher, and it's significantly more difficult. That limits time she has to expose her students to more advanced concepts, or some of the funny more beautiful parts of math. Not saying the SAT shouldn't change...understanding real world problems is important. But there will be demos that face disadvantages.

Perhaps change the url? This is the larger discussion. Main article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/sat-test-changes.html

I also do not speak English at home, nor do most of my peers and I found the opposite to be true: it is easier to do math problems and find spelling mistakes for those of us who do not have English as a mother tongue.

I'm pretty sure I read a study about this, but my google-fu is not helping today.

The thing is most people who are reading this are probably well out of practice for the SATs. I remember doing a lot of studying and taking courses outside of school to practice, practice, practice. Getting comfortable with these types of questions is very important.

> Getting comfortable with these types of questions is very important.

It is important, but I think that a question is whether it should be important. That is, what is the value of a test that only, or even just primarily, evaluates how well you've prepared for it? One (or at least I) would like a test that somehow evaluated only actual knowledge / skill, so that one's score couldn't be improved by drilling. (As showerst (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11067591) points out, the reason one wouldn't like drilling to improve the score is because it's the rich kids who are able to afford the time and resources to drill, and so you're testing the wrong thing entirely.)

I'd agree with you if the SAT had harder math on it. If I had to do calculus now, after not using it for 20 years, I'd get a lot of questions wrong.

But the SAT doesn't really go beyond basic algebra, and after getting an engineering degree, that feels burned into my ROM. I retook the GRE over a decade after my last math class, without studying, and still crushed it. Certain skills (reading quickly, parsing questions correctly, working backwards from multiple choice answers) don't leave you.

One of the big critiques of the SAT in the past has been its 'studyability', because it tends to mean rich people can hire SAT tutors for their kids and memorize exactly which equations/wording templates will be on the test and score higher, so this may be an effort to combat that.

The related NYT article today suggests that all the extra english may actually make it worse for ESL students, so it's interesting to see if those goals will work at cross purposes.

Trying to find an algebraic expression for the total number of text messages sent by Armand and Tyrone also seems to give the test the whiff of elitism, doesn't it? Or are all test-takers assumed to be the kinds of people who can afford mobile text messaging? In the 90s it was a big deal to get rid of all the language about how many horses Buffy was keeping down at the polo stables, because it was felt that not all test takers could relate to the story.

There is a world of difference between polo and cellphones. Even homeless people often have cellphones.

PS: You can get a basic phone with unlimited text messaging and talk time for ~10$ a month. EX: Republic Wireless

I'm having a hard time relating this to the difficult of the 1991 SAT math section. I don't think back then we had either slopes of lines (#3) or systems of equations (#4). Then again, back then we had antonyms and analogies on the verbal section.

Interesting, I knew the answer to #3 immediately, but didn't realize it was a slope/intercept equation. Looking back, #2 is basically the same question.

Both 2 and 3 have the general form a = mx + b, which I think is the very first lesson from my geometry class? The "Common Core" standard has slopes of lines in grade 6, but their standard doc entitled "Ratios and Proportional Relationships" doesn't even contain the word "intercept" which I assume is an indicator of the whole country going to Hell in a handbasket.

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