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Comment by lordCarbonFiber | Hacker News Reader

[citation needed] On all the bullshit "IQ claims". At my alma mater (and I suspect a similar national trend at schools of equal standing) SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been. The world is just getting more competitive; there's no grand conspiracy, and there definitely never has been a meritocracy, and our elite institutions remain elite (even if people like you would no longer be able to get in).

[0] https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/5873/00STU...

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>SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been.

And the GDP of Venezuela as measured in bolívar is the highest it's ever been!

"More comparisons on new SAT scores versus critical reading and math scores on the old SAT:

A new 1200 corresponds to an old 1130. A new 1300 corresponds to an old 1230. A new 1400 corresponds to an old 1340. A new 1500 corresponds to an old 1460. But a new 1600 is just as perfect as an old 1600."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/1...

This argument exactly is why I posted the older fact book. The recent change doesn't explain the uptick going on for the past 40+ years. Also even if you take off 40-60pts there's still a rising trend.

Underestimate the caliber of the rising population at your own peril. The failing generation can only cry ageism for so long before their jobs are eaten.

You may be aware of this, but just to add to your point, the Flynn effect[0] of IQs consistently rising pretty convincingly rebuts the idea that higher SAT scores are _only_ due to the test getting easier.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

The Flynn effect is mostly hollow gains and seems to have stopped: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028960.... And cognitive genomics is starting to show a decline: http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2017/01/10/1612113114.

I avoided mentioning the Flynn effect because it tends to attract naysayers (see below, with some embarrassingly poorly structured studies pulled straight from google).

The argument against the downfall of society stands pretty well on it's own without it though, mostly because there's no evidence the tests are getting easier (regardless of recent score changes a 1600 is still a 1600) and even less evidence the test takes are becoming less accomplished.

What exactly is embarrassing about this study:

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2017/01/10/1612113114.

Extrapolating data from 90 years of an isolated island nation to evolutionary timescales is the major assumption. The other weak foundation is the assumption that this gene should correspond to educational level. It was weakly correlated in the early 20th century, less correlated now, and we can't put any weight on to what it actually controls (maybe it's related to IQ, maybe it's delaying gratification, who knows, the writers don't claim to).

I think it's a bold conclusion to leap from one genetic marker doesn't seem as strongly correlated to education levels among Icelanders to "cognitive genomics is on the decline".

> see below

Better to use hyperlinks; order of posts on HN is not immutable.

SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been.

My older son needed a certain ACT score to get into the school he wanted. He wasn’t anywhere near the score. After 10 one on one tutorial sessions at $100 a pop with former college professors. He got in. He didn’t all the sudden get smarter. He had access to resources.

Another anecdote, I had the highest SAT score in my school and I believe at least the second highest in my city out of 5000 graduating students (not a large city). How much of that do you think was due to me being one of the smartest or hardest working students in my city (usually ranked near the bottom in income in the US) and how much was it due to my mom not only being a high school math teacher but she also had done SAT workshops for years?

I didn’t have to go to a “SAT Tutorial” class with 30 other students where an overworked teacher volunteered to come in the morning for an hour before school started. I had all the help at home I needed.

This. I once had a friend on an admissions committee at my alma mater look at my old application to see if I could get it. That was seven years after I was admitted and the answer was "No".

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