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thaumasiotes

There's one very significant difference between standardized tests and tech interviews.

Standardized tests are designed such that preparing for the test isn't helpful.

Current tech interviews aren't like that at all.

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"Standardized tests are designed such that preparing for the test isn't helpful."

LSAT, MCAT, SAT and GMAT are all standardized tests that reward those who prepare specifically for those tests.

I used a couple of books to prepare for the GMAT. I'm pretty sure that this preparation:

- helped me get a better score than I would have gotten without that specific preparation, and

- did not improve my 'aptitude in x, y and z' (the thing the test is designed to measure)

Agree on both points. I crammed a lot of grammar rules to improve my score, which was apparently was the thing I was missing to be a successful business person and totally not a classist barrier erected to exclude people without a private school education. This is the downside of any test that assumes aptitude means mimicking people who have already been successful in the field.

> Standardized tests are designed such that preparing for the test isn't helpful.

Not quite --- "preparing for the test" is also known as "studying".

You were probably thinking of IQ tests.

I've had one potential employer give me an IQ test (literally this is how they screened people before formally interviewing them - I went in, took an IQ test proctored by an HR person, and then went home and awaited the results). I was then called back in and subjected to multiple rounds of tech interviews involving whiteboard programming and a take-home assignment (with follow-up code review). The engineers I talked to all seemed very pleased with my performance and made it sound like I all but had the job.

However, ultimately, I failed the final test, which was a non-technical sit-down with a company executive. Not a cultural fit.

I like remote work. Nobody cares if you're a "cultural" fit.

GP is mistaken for sure.

But I think there's a difference between preparing for a specific test, and studying in general.

Let's say you have 2 days left to study for the GMAT. You could study the relevant math, reasoning or whatever. That might help.

But you'd do far better by working through problems in a Princeton Review GMAT book, and looking at their tips for the questions you got wrong.

The tips might be generic test-taking tips (e.g. eliminate obviously wrong answers) or they might be more specific (e.g. relating to specific types of problems found on the GMAT).

True. The point of standard tests though is that it scales. The hope is that the test is able to identify at least those who have studied in general (or even better, geniuses are able to pass without studying).

"Get-to-know-each-other" type of interviews are nice, but it's rather inefficient when a job posting receives hundreds of applications.

There's also an industry to prepare kids for IQ tests, since gifted placement depends on it, and college admissions depends on gifted placement, and .... so on.

> You were probably thinking of IQ tests.

Quite the opposite. The common IQ tests are not resistant to preparation. But the big standardized tests are.

One is expected to score higher in an ideal standardized test if they prepare for it. One should not be able to score higher in an ideal IQ test if they prepare for it, since IQ tests by definition evaluate an innate ability.

Of course, in the real world no IQ test is ideal.

Don't confuse the properties you'd like the tests to have with the properties they do have, or with the properties they need in order to serve their purpose effectively. No effort is put into getting IQ tests to resist practice effects or knowledge of the structure of the questions, because taking the tests is not common.

Mountains of effort go into the same project for standardized tests, because taking those tests is common, and the whole point is to evaluate people for what they are rather than what they would like you to think they are.

>Preparing for the test isn't helpful

Then in your opinion are all the SAT prep books useless?

Yes, the SAT prep industry is nearly entirely fraudulent. People will pay you for something they want, regardless of whether you can actually give it to them.

I have noticed that people generally really hate the idea that test prep for the SAT does not really work. (parent was downvoted) I’m not entirely sure why that is.

Perhaps to the degree that it presents expensive in person classes as a much superior alternative to using a test prep book for motivated people.

This is an extensively studied question. The effect of preparation on score is negligible whenever anyone tries to measure it.

> Standardized tests are designed such that preparing for the test isn't helpful.

And how is that supposed to be achieved?

When something is standardized, it follows certain parameters. After a while, these parameters are known to the public, and people can prepare for them.

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